Day 4: Butler | Traveling Violations

INDIANAPOLIS – Twenty minutes after the second Butler practice of the day, as five Bulldogs still were getting up some extra jump shots, Todd Lickliter sat courtside in historic Hinkle Fieldhouse, the gym he grew up in the shadow of. He smiled the smile of one content basketball coach.

Lickliter may not have a million-dollar contract here on this bucolic campus north of downtown. National television may not come to every game. The Bulldogs never will be a favorite to reach the Final Four.

But it can't get too much better for a coach. Not when he runs a program where he doesn't have to beg kids to work in practice or in the classroom, where he doesn't fret that the next phone call will be from the cops, where each spring he gets invited to multiple graduation parties.

Oh yeah, the program has produced at least 22 wins in each of the last seven seasons. And last year the Bulldogs went 27-6 and romped to the Sweet Sixteen.

"This is a beautiful

Day 4: Butler | Traveling Violations

INDIANAPOLIS – After deciding to transfer from Notre Dame, Mike Monserez went looking for a new basketball home. On his visit here to Butler, he was led into Hinkle Fieldhouse and home found him.

"It was about 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning. You could see the sun coming through the windows," Monserez recalls. "I got some jump shots in and thought, 'This is pretty neat.'"

The 75-year-old basketball barn wasn't the only reason Monserez came to Butler, but it was in the top three. This is a true classic of the game, an 11,400-seat old-school gym.

And famous too. This is where both the real-life and movie versions of Hoosiers took place. For years the Indiana high school tournament staged its finals at Hinkle, and even today sectionals and regionals some years call it home.

"I always dreamed of playing in here one day," says Butler sophomore Avery Sheets, who hails from Lafayette, Ind. "Other than the university and the program, it is what sells you to

Day 3: Illinois | Traveling Violations

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – At age 15 his mother was in prison, his dad wasn't around and he and his two brothers were out of their home. Warren Carter was sleeping on the floors of friends' houses around Dallas wondering, and trying to avoid sliding through society's cracks.

He soon got a job catering while his brother Kevin, 16 at the time, worked at Kroger. Both continued to attend high school and, with the help of friends, pulled together enough money to get an apartment and support their youngest brother Joshua.

So every time Carter struggles through a drill during his first week of college basketball practice here at the University of Illinois, every time his head spins as coach Bruce Weber tries to explain something new, and every time he fights off exhaustion so he can finish his homework in Speech Communications, you know from where he draws his resiliency.

There is plenty wrong with college athletics. But stories of kids like Carter, a reserve

Day 3: Illinois | Traveling Violations

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The last few years Illinois ran a very deliberate offense. Everyone knew where to go on nearly every possession. That's how then-coach Bill Self taught the game.

But Self is in Kansas now, and new coach Bruce Weber believes in the motion offense, in which quick decisions are critical.

So the first week of practice here is about players getting comfortable with not just the new coach, but the new system. As talented as the Illini are, this isn't a team that is anywhere near a finished product.

"It's frustrating at times because they are trying to put in a new offense, a new defense," said sophomore guard Deron Williams. "Basically we need to be more aggressive on offense under Coach Weber."

When they get it down – and judging by Weber's phenomenal record at Southern Illinois, they will – then look out. This is a deep and talented team. The backcourt of Williams and ultra-quick point Dee Brown is tremendous.

But right now, he just

Day 2: Missouri | Traveling Violations

COLUMBIA, Mo. – This should have been the first practice of the best season of the rest of Quin Snyder's life.

Missouri returns a top-five team, full of athletes and leaders and game-breaking talents. Five years into Snyder's reign here, this was to be the season of his dreams. Everything and anything would be possible.

Big 12 title. Final Four. National championship.

"We have the pieces," said Snyder on Saturday, sitting in a coaches' locker room at the Hearnes Center after a vibrant two-hour practice. "I see pieces that are good pieces. We have depth. And the unique thing is we have leadership, four seniors. I think we have been rated highly in the past but I don't think we always understood what it takes to win.

"We have that now."

But you can't mention Mizzou's immense potential without also mentioning the immense cloud hovering over the program. The NCAA has delivered an official letter of inquiry and is investigating myriad charges, from

Day 2: Missouri | Traveling Violations

COLUMBIA, Mo. – We are not sure what it is about college basketball and hair. From the Lou (Henson) Do to the Gene Keady comb-over to Dick Vitale's bald dome, there is always something.

The list included, until recently, Quin Snyder.

The fashionable Missouri coach got a haircut a couple weeks ago; he now looks clean cut. Considering that his well-cared-for coif is half of what made him famous, that's news.

"Maybe [now] I'll be famous for having a good team and running a good program," Snyder said.

Snyder says he started growing his hair out when he was a Duke assistant. He was in his late 20s, but his youthful face made people think he was one of the players. The hair made him look older, different.

It wound up making him stand out on the sidelines during recruiting trips and presented an image of hip, urban cool. It worked.

"It's been something people have had fun with," Snyder said Saturday after running his top-five Tigers through practice.

Day 1: Kansas | Traveling Violations

LAWRENCE, Kan. – Preseason pickup games here at Kansas had a bit of added flavor this year: the presence of new Jayhawk staff member and 15-year NBA veteran Danny Manning.

While Manning's best playing days are most certainly behind him – he retired from the Detroit Pistons this past spring – don't think for a minute that the current Kansas kids were having their way with the guy many respectfully call "Mr. Manning."

On the contrary, the best player in Allen Fieldhouse this fall remains the best player in KU history not named Wilt Chamberlain.

"People don't know how good he is," said freshman J.R. Giddens, an All-American recruit. "He has the quickest hands I have ever seen. Especially [on] defense.

"I made a move and got by him and I thought, 'I'm going to dunk on Mr. Manning, I'm going to dunk on Mr. Manning.' And I don't even get the ball up. He just swats it before I can jump."

Manning's knowledge of the game, his ability to teach the intricacies

Day 1: Kansas | Traveling Violations

LAWRENCE, Kan. – As he arrived for work Friday morning at Phog Allen Fieldhouse, Bill Self found some people waiting for him. Hundreds of them in fact, all camped out in front of the historic Kansas gym awaiting a chance to attend the Jayhawks' first practice of the season.

Which was still about 16 hours from starting.

"I said, 'What are you doing here?'" said Self, the first-year KU coach. "It doesn't make any sense to me."

Sleeping out so you get good seats for practice doesn't make sense in most places. But it is a perfectly reasonably thing to do here.

By 12:01 a.m. Saturday – the first minute allowed by the NCAA – the early crowd would be joined by over 16,000 other Rock, Chalk Jayhawk faithful to watch the first practice of the Bill Self Era.

This is what big-time college basketball at its biggest looks like – obscene fan loyalty, immense expectations and scores of championship banners to commemorate why.

It's why Self is here too. For as good