Column: Norm and Justin Roberts chasing tourney titles this weekend

Kansas assistant coach Norm Roberts smiles during his son Niko Roberts' senior speech on Wednesday, March 5, 2014 at Allen Fieldhouse.

Kansas City, Mo. ? The best evidence of how deeply the father-son love shared by Norm and Justin Roberts burns lies in how badly they don’t want to see each other over the next couple of days.

Norm, one of Bill Self’s three assistant basketball coaches, and Justin, junior co-star of the Lawrence High basketball team, both have two teams to root for this weekend. If they see each other before Sunday, that means one of the teams didn’t make it to the title game. So far, neither one has had to stare into a face of disappointment.

KU advanced to Friday’s 6 p.m. Big 12 Tournament semifinal vs. Baylor at Sprint Center, with a 64-59 survival Thursday vs. TCU. LHS, led by Justin Roberts’ 24 points, advanced Wednesday to Friday’s 8:15 p.m. state 6A semifinal vs. Shawnee Mission North in Wichita, with an 18-point victory.

Lawrence High School guard Justin Roberts (5) drives to the basket for 2 of his team-high 24 points in the Lions win against Wichita South Wednesday, March 11, 2015 at Koch Arena in Wichita.

KANSAS 64, TCU 59

• Box score

The father will watch the son’s games via replays and will get updates from wife, Pascale, who naturally and appropriately is in Wichita, a three-hour drive away, cheering for her son and his teammates, who form an extremely close pride of Lions.

“I got to see him play Wednesday night, which was great and they won, so momma was happy,” Norm said. “That’s the biggest thing.” 

Afterward, father and son talked, hoping it would be a while until they did so again in person.

“I said to him, ‘Listen, I don’t want you to come see us play at all and I don’t want to see you play at all this weekend, because that means that you’re playing in the championship and we’re playing in the championship and we’ll both be happy.’ He knows that we’re really proud of him,” said the father. “He’s played well. That whole team’s played well and (coach) Mike Lewis has done an unbelievable job. They understand, like we understand, survive and advance, move on, but you’ve got to play every game and every possession like it’s your last one, which it is this time of year.”

Norm and Justin Roberts remain three hours apart thanks primarily to freshman Kelly Oubre Jr., recruited to Kansas by Norm, taking over the game in latter stages of the second half in much the same way Justin Roberts so often does for LHS in the fourth quarter.

“The best coach he could ever play for is Bill Self because Bill’s on him and Kelly needs that or he’ll float,” Norm said of Oubre. “Coach won’t let him float. Sometimes, as a kid, he doesn’t understand that, so now as assistants we’ve got to be able to say, ‘No, this is what coach wants.’ He’s the type of kid who at the moment, he’ll look at you, and then once you explain it to him, he’ll say, ‘OK.’ Then that’s that.”

Self might be the perfect coach for Oubre, but not for Justin Roberts, simply because of where Self coaches. Roberts is a Div. I prospect, but he loves to play the game too much to spend his career cheering for others.

“I think I’m pretty level-headed in terms of what level he can play at. I understand his size is probably a deterrence for some people,” Norm said of his 5-foot-8 son.

And that level is?

“He’s probably a mid-major player, Missouri Valley, WAC, Patriot League, where he can go play, be happy, have a nice career, rather than go somewhere that maybe is a little too high for him, he can’t play, he’s not happy,” Roberts said. “He’s been playing AAU basketball since he was 6 years old, so he wants to play.”

Justin’s mother and father can be spotted together around Lawrence, but not at their son’s basketball games.

“I never sit with parents and I never sit with my wife, because when I watch the game I watch it as a coach and a dad,” said Self’s super-intense assistant who has worked for him at Oral Roberts, Tulsa, Illinois and twice at Kansas, stints separated by Roberts’ eight seasons coaching St. John’s of the Big East. “As a dad, I’ll die on free throws. I’ll die on missed shots, and I’ll make faces. If I’m watching the game with people around me, I’ll speak like a coach and make comments like, ‘That’s a dumb play. That’s a bad shot.’ My wife will say, ‘Yeah, but his mom’s right there.’ And I’ll say, ‘So what? It was a dumb play. It was a dumb shot.’ I sit away from everybody so I don’t hurt anybody’s feelings.”

Norm said that when his son looks up to him in the stands, he always sends the same two-word message back to the floor: “Be aggressive.” 

That advice has worked well for Justin and the Lions, and on Thursday it worked for Oubre and the Jayhawks.

More news and notes from Kansas vs. TCU at the Big 12 Tournament