No worries about Kansas. It's said that
Christopher Nolan got his idea the black hole portion of
Interstellar by watching
Malik Newman in high school. It was after one of Newman's games as his teammates were walking off the court that Nolan noticed that humans could, in fact, survive close proximity to a black hole without imploding.
He combined that element with Self's tradition of holding OAD talent back. Watching Self underutilize players like Alexander, Diallo, Wiggins, Bragg, etc., Nolan was convinced that the plot could be centered around a small farm community like Lawrence where the father represented a OAD talent of sorts. "Murph," said Nolan in a recent interview, "is really Coach Self in a way. Her father's character is the OAD player who discovers it was 'really him the whole time', and not the Kansas program that made him great. The line,
'Don't let me leave, Murph,' is really a metaphor for how Kansas doesn't prepare players for the NBA. The OAD player has left prematurely, and wants to return to Kansas."