St. Louis ? Marty Hanks and Mark Bunge are paying the price for the NCAA’s corporate deals.

Just watching them unscrew the tops of 96 Dasani water bottles — the tiny 12-ounce varieties, mind you — to fill a single 10-gallon water jug is enough to make anyone cringe.

“I’ve got carpal tunnel,” Bunge said Thursday afternoon, tediously refilling a jug just off the court at the Edwards Jones Dome in St. Louis, site of today’s regional semifinals in the NCAA Tournament. “At least last year they gave us the quart bottles.”

Hanks and Bunge are in their 13th year as volunteers for the Missouri Valley Conference, which puts on the regional at the dome. As volunteers, they’re responsible for handling dozens of mundane but essential tasks.

Among their responsibilities: filling the 14 water jugs at the dome, from the locker room to team benches to the postgame interview room and everywhere in between.

But they can’t even think about filling up at the faucet. Coca-Cola is an NCAA corporate sponsor, and as such has exclusive rights to serve water at the tournament, from Dasani jugs and in Dasani cups.

And with each jug soaking up about four cases of bottled water, Bunge and Hanks are guaranteed plenty of twists and turns beginning at 8 a.m.

“It’s not really worth it, but I’m not paying the millions of dollars to get my name on the cups, either,” Hanks said. “Things are definitely more corporate now.”

The friends are thankful for one change, though: They no longer have to stack 400 cups behind each bench — “the NCAA guys would come by and check,” Bunge said — and instead simply can pile up plenty of the Dasani cups nearby.

And all the hard work still has its rewards.

“We get pretty good seats,” Bunge said.

“Yeah,” Hanks said. “We’ve seen a lot of good stuff for emptying these 12-ounce bottles.”

• KU coach Bill Self likes his players to fight through screens and scramble for loose balls.

Now his team’s getting ready for today’s game in a football locker room.

The Jayhawks will suit up in half of the dome’s locker room for visiting football teams. And considering that the dome is home to the NFL’s St. Louis Rams, it’s plenty big.

Before Thursday’s practice, KU players were so spread out that they essentially had to yell to get the attention of teammates. They couldn’t believe the expansive elbow room, extra-tall lockers and other upscale appointments.

“I’m loving it,” said Jeff Graves, a senior forward. “I feel like a VIP.”

Omar Wilkes said he was starting to feel spoiled.

“This is nice,” said Wilkes, a freshman guard. “This is a locker room for, like, Congress. We need to keep winning like this.”

Just for the record: Georgia Tech snagged the other half of the NFL locker room. Alabama-Birmingham and Nevada, meanwhile, scored much smaller accommodations — the dressing areas for cheerleader squads for the Rams and their opponents.

“Nobody has access to the Rams’ locker room,” said Jennifer Hammer, event manager for the dome. “The Rams are very protective of their locker room.”