COLLEGE BASKETBALL FINAL FOUR NOTES : NORTH CAROLINA : Smith Will Leave Spitting to Kansas

This year’s Final Four is being played in New Orleans, a city that thrives on quirky behavior. So perhaps a questioner could be excused for asking North Carolina Coach Dean Smith if he or a staff member plans to spit in the Mississippi River, as his former assistant, Kansas Coach Roy Williams, is expected to do as part of a playoff ritual.

Said Smith: “I think Roy was into having fun with superstitions. He’s an old baseball player. He knows it’s ridiculous. I know it’s ridiculous. I guess I have to go over to cancel it out, is that what they’re saying?”

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Add superstition: Smith recalled a visiting coach who kept changing hotels when coming to North Carolina as the losses mounted.

“He ran out,” Smith said. “He had to start staying in (nearby) Durham.”

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Eric Montross, North Carolina’s 7-foot center, likes Kentucky in the Wildcats’ semifinal against Michigan.

“They’re more structured than Michigan is,” he said. “That ought to do it.”