photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas guard Devonte' Graham (4) and Kansas guard Malik Newman (14) celebrate a three in overtime by Newman, Sunday, March 25, 2018 at CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Neb.

San Antonio – Now that the Jayhawks have arrived in San Antonio and the biggest game of their season is just three days away, it’s time for the players and coaching staff to begin final preparations for Saturday’s Final Four showdown with Villanova.

While a lot of that prep will have to do with practice, game-planning, studying the Wildcats and making sure every detail of the scouting report is both known and clearly understood, it also will include an emphasis on mindset.

During a recent radio interview on Game Time with Nick Bahe (a former KU walk-on), Kansas coach Bill Self was asked about the now-famous quote from his father, Bill Self Sr., that is engraved on a statue outside of the front entrance Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., its origins and exactly what it means in a moment like this.

The quote: “Don’t worry about the mules, just load the wagon,” was something his father used to tell him all the time when Self was younger — and probably still does from time to time — and is a simple way of reminding one’s self to not worry about things you can’t control.

“Just do your job, and if you do your job well, things will work out,” said Self explaining the mantra during his Hall of Fame induction speech.

While that, at least partially, will be the focus for the Jayhawks this week, they’ve reached the point in the season where it may not be entirely true.

Sure, the idea is to do your job well and not worry about things you can’t control. At this point in the season, those things include: Villanova’s adjustments to KU’s game plan or its own; the officiating; bad or unlucky bounces or breaks during Saturday’s game.

All of those things, and probably more, are out of KU’s control at this point in the season and may or may not play some kind of role in Saturday’s semifinal against the top-seeded Wildcats.

Because of that, Self said a huge part of his focus for the days leading up to big games like these was to make sure he had his team locked in on everything it could control.

“Just putting your team in the best position to have success,” Self explained. “And that could be different things. You may guard an action differently. You may switch this and you don’t normally switch. Or you may change how you guard a ball screen or this is how we’re going to attack because this is how they guard and then hopefully your players can go out and execute without thinking.”

The thought process behind all of that, and the relentless drilling of such thoughts and plans into the minds of the KU players — during practice, at walk-throughs, in film sessions, at team meals — is done with one goal. Self wants his players to hit the floor on Saturday night with free minds and easy-going attitudes.

They did that against Duke last weekend and played a masterful game as a result.

“With today’s player, at least in college, there’s not as much thinking, there’s more just balling,” Self said. “There’s more guys making plays off the bounce and throwing it up, so your philosophies change from how do I get shots off the catch to how do I force a bad close-out so I can drive it?

“To give us the best chance, hopefully they’re prepared and they can play without thinking.”

The thinking will come throughout the next couple of days. And there will be a ton of it. In a coin-flip game such as this one, extreme preparation can be the difference.

But when the lights come on and the ball goes up on Saturday night, the idea will be to create an atmosphere that resembles all of those summer pick-up games back on campus and AAU contests these guys have played throughout their lives to this point.

At least, getting as close to that as you can with 70,000 people in the building and millions of television viewers tuning in around the world.