LOUISVILLE, Ky.
The sleek, black charter bus pulled into the heart of the most basketball-mad city in the middle of the most basketball-mad month on the calendar late on Friday afternoon.
The Kansas Jayhawks filed off the bus at their hotel after the two-block ride from the KFC Yum Center, where the top-seeded team in the NCAA Tournament will take on Villanova on Saturday night.
Around them, a party began to get its footing in downtown Louisville’s entertainment district. Fans gawked and snapped pictures on their cell phones. A local radio station set up shop and began blasting music out of huge loudspeakers and a stage went up for a concert by rapper Flo Rida later that evening.