KU’s chancellor, athletic director honor Jayhawks' men’s basketball team at its banquet
LAWRENCE — There were a lot of highlights from Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self’s speech Thursday at the team’s banquet.
Self, reflecting on the 2022-23 season, made his share of jokes. He honored the players who led the Jayhawks to another Big 12 Conference regular season championship. He praised Jalen Wilson as this year’s Danny Manning Mr. Jayhawk Award winner.
But Self wasn’t the only one to address those in attendance. Before Self, both the university’s chancellor and athletic director spoke. And here’s a look at what Douglas Girod and Travis Goff, respectively, had to say.
Douglas Girod, chancellor
The number of close games Kansas played this season took its tole on Girod, but he still had fun being a part of the ride. He told the players they had a lot to be proud of, even if they didn’t advance as far in the NCAA tournament as they’d like. He thanked everyone, from the players to the coaching staff to the support staff, for what they bring to the greater community they are a part of.
As Girod has in the past, he tied the Jayhawks’ brand in athletics to enrollment at the university. While enrollment is dropping across the country, he said, Kansas continues to do well. For a university that has the out-of-state population KU has, he doesn’t think that would be possible otherwise.
“We welcomed our second largest freshman class in the history of the university, topped only by 2008 — which we almost caught,” said Girod, referencing the freshman classes that came to Kansas after the national championships in 2022 and 2008. “We were 32 students shy of that record, and we’re going to beat it this year. We are on track to be on top of that, and that is our athletic brand, Travis’ team, what Lance (Leipold) has brought in football, building on top of what you all have done in basketball.”
Girod closed out by saying he is happy to see Self healthy. Girod expressed how grateful he was for assistant coach Norm Roberts, who stepped in for Self when Self had to miss games due to health reasons. And Girod told the players the Jayhawks faithful will love following their careers wherever they go.
Travis Goff, athletic director
Following Girod, Goff commented that what they are all a part of is a family. Self and his staff have built that, Goff said. And Goff added it’s incredible to the point that it’s almost hard to put it into words.
From Goff’s perspective, the national championship last year and run the team went on this year are each improbable in their own ways. Last year, Kansas had to mount a significant comeback against North Carolina in the national title game to win. This year, Kansas had to overcome losing a significant amount of production, a challenging Big 12 schedule and more to enjoy the success it did.
“Two words that resonate with all of us to a certain extent, right? Character and culture,” Goff said. “Two buzz words, two words that are really, I think, difficult to put your finger on. We could probably take a poll and we’d get a lot of different answers of what character and culture mean. I think one thing we’d all agree on, around those two words, is that they are most profoundly demonstrated when faced with adversity.”
Goff continued: “This team faced it at a very real manner this year.”
Among the memories Goff highlighted were the non-conference wins against Duke, Missouri and Indiana. Goff also pointed to the win against Iowa State at home during a reunion weekend, and celebrating Wilson and Kevin McCullar Jr. during a senior night victory against Texas Tech. Goff thanked everyone who played a part in it all.
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: KU’s chancellor, AD honor Jayhawks' men’s basketball team at banquet
