Cal Basketball: Shantay Legans Set to Introduce Himself to KU's Bill Self

Shantay Legans was feeling very good about himself. He was 35 years old and just a few days earlier had been named head coach at Eastern Washington. Now he was at the 2017 Final Four in Phoenix, wandering through the hotel lobby.

All of a sudden, the former Cal point guard sees Kansas coach legend Bill Self walking his direction.

“I’m all excited,” Legans recalls. “I don’t know if I should say hi or whatever. So I say, `Hey coach Self, how’s it going?’ I thought he would say, `Glad to meet you, I hear you’re a new head coach.’ “

The exchange didn’t go quite like that.

“Hey, Chief,” Self said.

And he kept on walking.

“It was funny,” Legans says now. “He didn’t know me, so that kind of broke me down and really humbled me because I was on Cloud 9 that day.”

Legans and Self will meet again Saturday morning when the 14th-seeded Eagles (16-7) of the Big Sky Conference take on the No. 3 seed Jayhawks (20-8) in a first-round game of the NCAA tournament at Indianapolis.

So Shantay, do you expect Self to know who you are this time?

“Nope. I do not,” Legans says. “That’s OK. I’ve got to win some games.”

Self has won some games — 728 of them as a Division I head coach. He won his first at Oral Roberts when Legans was in the seventh grade. This is his 22nd trip to the NCAA tournament, an event he and the Jayhawks won back in 2008.

Legans, 39, is completing his fourth season at EWU with a record of 75-48 and is taking a team to the NCAAs for the first time. The Eagles lost in the Big Sky tournament championship game each of his first two seasons and never got the chance to win it as the regular-season champ last year because the postseason was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eastern made it to the 2015 NCAA tournament when Legans was an assistant, losing to Georgetown in the first round. In their third visit to the Big Dance, the Eagles are seeking their first NCAA win, but KU is a double-digit favorite, according to the Las Vegas oddsmakers.

Legans knows what’s up, but he also has tried to prepare his team for moments like this. The Eagles played 10 games against Pac-12 schools the past four years, and last year took on Gonzaga.

“I like those games,” he says, noting that star junior Kim Aiken’s first game as a freshman was against 16th-ranked Syracuse in front of nearly 20,000 fans at the Carrier Dome. Aiken had five points and three of Eastern’s 19 turnovers in a 66-34 defeat, but this season the 6-foot-7 guard is averaging 11.7 points and a team-best 8.5 rebounds.

“These guys have played in these games and they’re excited for them. The difference is that in this one if you lose you go home.”

On Sunday, as the Eagles heard their name called on the CBS selection show, Legans thought back to his days at Cal. A three-year starter for the Bears, he played on NCAA tournament teams as a freshman and sophomore.

“To see them jumping up and down . . . I don’t think they calculated that they have to play Kansas,” he says. “I just think they’re happy they got their name called.”

The team got a police escort from the airport to the hotel in Indianapolis on Sunday and Legans wants his players to embrace the full experience.

“I want them to have fun with it. Take pictures. Make a lot of memories,” Legans says. “Some coaches and players will never be in the (NCAA) tournament their entire lives.”

The matchup is challenging, despite the fact that Kansas had to withdraw from the Big 12 tournament because of COVID issues. Big Sky teams are 3-35 in the NCAA tournament since 1985, with just one victory this century — 12th-seeded Montana over Nevada in 2006.

Legans already was watching game tape with his assistants on Sunday, looking for any cracks in the Jayhawks his team might be able to exploit. It’s up to him to develop a game plan and convince his players that winning is possible.

“If I believe we can win, I’m pretty sure they will,” he says.

Legans is cherishing his own personal duel in this one. “I get to go and coach against Bill Self, a Hall of Fame coach,” he says. “It’s a dream-come-true for me, too.”

Even if the other guy may still not know who he is.

Cover photo of Shantay Legans courtesy of Eastern Washington Athletics

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo