‘This should be yours’: Bill Self gifts Devon Dotson a 2022 KU national title hat
Bill Self needed a championship hat.
In the chaotic moments after becoming the first Kansas men’s basketball coach to deliver the blueblood program a second NCAA national championship, Self had the clarity of mind to find a hat commemorating KU’s 72-69 victory over North Carolina, captured late Monday at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
With the hat gripped in his left hand, Self made the short walk off the elevated playing surface to the cheering section lined by former KU stars right behind the Jayhawks’ bench. After high-fiving Aaron Miles and hugging Brandon Rush, Self found who he was looking for.
“This should be your hat. Take it,” Self told Devon Dotson before pulling him in for a hug two years in the making.
It was an emotional moment for Dotson, the star point guard on the 2019-20 KU team that believed it was destined for a championship of its own before the coronavirus pandemic wiped out the 2020 NCAA Tournament. The Jayhawks were on a 16-game winning streak at the time and finished the final AP Top-25 poll with 63 of 65 possible first-place votes.
Dotson, who declared for the NBA Draft the next month, said he’s never stopped wondering what could have been that March Madness.
“It was like a nightmare when it happened,” Dotson told The Star. “I was in a really bad place there for awhile.”
Two years later, that emptiness was replaced by fulfillment watching his former coaches and teammates, including two who were in the same recruiting class, Ochai Agbaji and David McCormack, win a long-awaited national championship.
“I came in with them, I was at practice with them every single day, I know everything that went into this,” Dotson said. “I know all of the hard work we put in and it was all for this moment right here.”
From the podium, Self also gave credit to the 2020 team and key players like Dotson, Udoka Azubuike, Marcus Garrett.
“To me, this was partially won for them,” Self said. “I don’t know how (current players) feel. It’s partially won for them because I always thought the 2020 team was better, more equipped to do well in the NCAA Tournament.”
Even though it wasn’t him climbing up on the ladder to cut down the net, Dotson felt connected to this win. He couldn’t stop smiling after putting on the championship hat from Self.
“This definitely fills that hole because this is a Jayhawk family,” Dotson said. “If they win, everybody wins. We’re all part of the family and all part of a brotherhood.”
That’s certainly how many of the former KU basketball standouts must have felt. And they celebrated together, with Dotson, after the game.
“I feel like I won tonight and we did,” said former Jayhawk Paul Pierce, the former NBA star who received a rock star’s welcome from KU fans at the game. “We got the whole KU family here. They did it for the guys that didn’t have the chance to have this opportunity. I’m proud of them, man.”
One of those guys Pierce was talking about was Drew Gooden, who has a lifetime of basketball memories from a playing career that saw him become an All-American at KU from 2000-02 and play 14 seasons in the NBA.
But there he was on Monday night, bouncing up and down celebrating like the rest of the KU fans who came to the Big Easy.
“As a guy who made it to a high school championship and lost, as a guy who made it to a Final Four and lost, as a guy who made it to an NBA championship and lost, tonight I felt like I finally won,” Gooden said.
That might be true for the players separated from this championship team by decades, but for Dotson, it was beyond personal.
When KU punched its ticket to the national finals against UNC, Dotson knew he had to go. He’s currently excelling for the Chicago Bulls’ G-League affiliate, the Windy City Bulls, averaging 21.0 points, 4.7 rebounds and 6.9 assists. After scoring 23 points in a win on Saturday, Dotson booked his plane ticket to New Orleans for Monday.
After two years of searching, he finally found what he was looking for on Monday.
“There’s a lot of emotions that go into this,” Dotson said. “A lot of emotions. To see it all pay off like this, it’s just unbelievable to see.”
This story was originally published April 5, 2022 at 12:10 AM with the headline "‘This should be yours’: Bill Self gifts Devon Dotson a 2022 KU national title hat."
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