Those who recognize C.B. McGrath at Kansas University men’s basketball games — and many still do — often will see him lugging film equipment to the tip-top of Allen Fieldhouse before tipoff.

As an administrative assistant, McGrath’s game-day duty is to tape the action so coach Roy Williams and his staff can analyze afterwards.

It seems simple, but life away from the fieldhouse may be even more hostile for McGrath than it is for the players. Hostile arenas can also be inhospitable for him.

“Usually they always have a spot for camera people,” said McGrath, who was a backup point guard for the Jayhawks from 1994-98. “But TV usually takes up most of the space. They don’t like it when I come up there.”

Obviously, the more hyped the match, the more annoyed the television crews are. During the first four rounds of the NCAA Tournament in Oklahoma City and Anaheim, Calif., McGrath has been forced to hold negotiation sessions and even shoo away photographers taking spots reserved for camera men.

“I can usually get the television people to just move over a little bit,” he says.

Not this weekend.

As the Jayhawks prepare to take on Marquette today in the Final Four, McGrath will have one less thing to worry about.

“The only people that can have video cameras in the place is CBS,” McGrath said. “We can’t even film our own game.”

So instead of McGrath climbing to the upper tiers of the huge Louisiana Superdome, he’ll be sitting in the stands rooting for the Jayhawks.

McGrath claims he’d rather be filming, and the players might agree. When putting film together for the players to study, McGrath enjoys maintaining a loose atmosphere.

“He’s kind of a jokester,” freshman Stephen Vinson said. “He always finds little funny things in film to cut out and show everybody.”

Such as …

“Well, one game, I tripped while I was trying to run backwards,” junior Bryant Nash said. “Stuff like that.”

McGrath, a member of the Kansas squads of 1997 and 1998 that went a combined 69-6 but faltered in the NCAA Tournament, never played in a Final Four. It would be understandable for him to feel a bit jealous of the players he routinely teases, but he says that’s hardly the case.

“I like these guys so much,” McGrath said. “Maybe if they didn’t do things the right way or were jerks or something. But knowing how hard they work I have nothing but excitement for them.”

McGrath has worked in the basketball office for four years. He wants to be a head coach some day. At 27, though, he understands the way things work.

“I’m still young. I have to pay my dues,” he said. “I definitely like what I do. I like to be around Kansas, and working for coach (Williams) is great.”