Kansas University basketball assistant Joe Holladay placed his right hand in his pants pocket, pulling out a picture of his son, Matt.

“It’s an old picture, but a good picture. I’ve been carrying it with me,” Holladay said of his son, a U.S. Army paratrooper serving his country in Iraq.

“He knows my thoughts are with him.”

Today, Matt Holladay will find out for himself that his papa’s thoughts are with him.

CNN plans to carry a live two-way interview with both Matt Holladay and Joe Holladay at 8:40 this morning (on Sunflower Broadband channel 21).

Joe will be speaking from Allen Fieldhouse, Matt from somewhere in Iraq.

Will the two-way conversation get emotional?

“I will not let it get emotional,” Joe Holladay said, “but it will be good to speak with him. I’m proud of him. He’s had four years of experience training for this. He’s doing a great job.”

Holladay said the NCAA Tournament and KU’s run to the Final Four has been “great for our family. It gives us something to focus on as a family besides war.”

KU coach Roy Williams said his prayers were with the Holladays daily.

“I am fairly emotional, some say extremely emotional,” Williams said. “After the Arizona game, I said the prayer. I said something for coach Holladay and his family and Matt over there. The guys (Jayhawks) all turned around and said something to coach Holladay. It was one of those good moments.

KU senior Nick Collison is the center of attention during a gathering with the media. The Jayhawks were discussing their Final Four game with Marquette Tuesday afternoon in Allen Fieldhouse.

“You get emotional, but one of those good moments,” the coach repeated. “We’ve talked about it (the war in Iraq) as long as the end of January. Everybody around here was so stressed out. We lost at Colorado and at home to Arizona, and people thought the world was coming to an end.

“I told ’em it was nothing compared to what some other guys were doing. I heard on the radio a story about people in San Diego on Super Bowl weekend having their big party except at one little table in the corner. There were five people sitting there, and four were getting ready to get shipped out.

“One had a wife, and I told the guys how difficult their problems were rather than somebody getting ready for the Super Bowl. I’ve talked to the team a lot. The Texas game was a huge game because it was that day’s game, but before that game I told the guys it was nothing compared to what was going on in other parts of the world.”

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Ties that bind: There are some interesting ties between KU and Northeastern State University, winners of the NCAA Division II national title last weekend in Lakeland, Fla.

NE State coach Larry Gipson, who also won a national junior college title at Northeastern A&M Junior College — the schools are similar in name, but not the same — was fired as head coach at the University of Toledo in 1996.

The Toledo AD to fire Gipson, winner of two national titles now, was KU athletic director Al Bohl.

Gipson, by the way, sent his prize juco player, Terry Brown, to Kansas. And Gipson’s current assistant coach is Joel Zuniga, a former student manager at KU under Williams.

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Jayhawks have class: The Jayhawks practiced Tuesday after meeting with the media and will practice again today. More than practice has been on the Jayhawks’ minds, though.

“I’m pushing them to make sure they go to every class,” Williams said. “We leave (today), and they’ll miss Thursday and Friday. We missed Wednesday through Friday last week and the week before. It’s been my biggest push to make sure they get to class and to tell them I am checking.

“And if I find out they didn’t do it, we’ll be having another meeting, you can be assured.”

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Players leave tonight: The Jayhawks will depart for New Orleans at 7:30 tonight from Forbes Field in Topeka. KU will hold an open practice at 2:10 p.m. Friday at the Superdome. KU will practice at an undisclosed location Thursday. The practice will be closed to the public, and all the Jayhawks will be off-limits to the media until Friday.

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Crean a good guy: Williams had kind words for his coaching counterpart this weekend, Marquette coach and close friend Tom Crean.

“We started out this season 3-3, and it was not the happiest time around here, not the most successful time around here,” Williams said. “I get in the car, and there was a message from Tommy. It was a thing he wanted to know he was thinking about me and our club, and he said he was looking forward to watching us bouncing back.

“When you have messages like that in tough times, they mean a lot. Anybody can call when the team is winning. I did the same thing to him last year, but it was not about a tough time. I called to congratulate him after watching one of his games on TV. He is a genuinely good guy.”