Jay Williams, Jay Bilas hit Koch Arena ahead of ‘GameDay’

If you need a primer on ESPN’s “College GameDay” coming to Koch Arena Saturday morning, ESPN analyst and former Duke star Jay Williams has you covered.

“It’s four very different personalities, you’ve got the snarky lawyer, Jay Bilas, who’s very witty,” Williams said on Friday afternoon at Koch Arena. “Then you’ve got the emotional coach, in Seth Greenberg … you’ve got the ex-player in me, who is very competitive, and you’ve got the host, Rece Davis, who is like the point guard who keeps everybody in line.”

Less than 24 hours before “GameDay” hit Koch Arena for the first time for Saturday afternoon’s game between No. 10 Northern Iowa and No. 11 Wichita State, the cast — Williams, Bilas, Greenberg, Davis and guest analyst Stephen A. Smith — were (mostly) in Koch Arena filming a pre-recorded segment to air Saturday and having production meetings.

The ESPN crew filled the tunnels surrounding Koch Arena with equipment for the show, and outside the arena’s back entrance, dozens and dozens of wound cables next to production trucks sat under snow drifts.

Williams experienced travel delays Friday and didn’t make it into Wichita until the late afternoon, but the former All-American and 2002 NBA Draft No. 2 overall pick by the Chicago Bulls took time to reflect on his first year as a “GameDay” analyst and about the Shockers.

“GameDay” goes live from Koch Arena Saturday morning from 10 to 11 a.m. The Shockers play at 1 p.m.

“It makes me feel like I’m a player again, which is weird,” Williams said. “Being on the court, having a mic attached to you that the entire fan base can hear what you’re saying, and that they will boo you or cheer you depending on that, kind of brings me back to when I played. It brings me back to that mentality.

“At the end of the day, we’re up there talking basketball, which is meant to be fun and entertaining. That’s what the ‘E’ in ESPN stands for, is entertainment, and that’s what we do. When you start seeing tweets about potentially over 10,000 people being her for ‘GameDay,’ think about how rowdy the actual game is going to be if that’s how many people come out for the show.”

Bilas did bring his snark — when he walked in to the media room at Koch Arena he said “Look at this, media interviewing media” — but also brought more than his fair share of WSU knowledge. Bilas, another former Duke star, tweeted out a picture on Wednesday of a recruiting letter he received from WSU in the summer of 1981, when he was a Top 50 recruit at Rolling Hills High in Rolling Hills, Calif.

He also tweeted out a recruiting letter from Kansas.

“I’m of the generation where we have all of our snapshots and pictures in shoe boxes,” Bilas said. “I had a friend tell me that I could get all that stuff digitized, so I had a few old recruiting letters I saved that I sent it into this service, scancafe.com, so I could throw them all away. My wife and I bring the old pictures and stuff up on our TV and have a laugh at them.

“I knew we were coming to Kansas so I thought it would neat to put (the letters) up. Aubrey Sherrod, Antoine Carr, Cliff Levingston, Greg Dreiling … (WSU) was really good back then.”

They also took time to praise the Shockers and Northern Iowa, who will be playing for the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season championship and the top seed at next week’s MVC Tournament.

“I would put the (WSU) backcourt of Ron Baker and Fred VanVleet up against any other backcourt in the country,” Williams said. “Any conversation about WSU starts with them and how tough they are.”

Bilas ranked the top mid-major players in the country this week, including Baker and Northern Iowa forward Seth Tuttle.

“How is WSU going to deal with Seth Tuttle, is the biggest thing,” Bilas said. “(Northern Iowa coach) Ben Jacobson runs every action through him, every time down the floor he’s trying to get him a touch, and if you cheat it, they have a counter, and that’s what will get you.”

This story was originally published February 27, 2015 at 8:21 PM with the headline "Jay Williams, Jay Bilas hit Koch Arena ahead of ‘GameDay’."