Williams-Kansas melodrama reaches its climax tonight

SAN ANTONIO

Roy Williams probably should have played his first game as North Carolina's basketball coach not against Old Dominion but Kansas, where he coached 15 seasons, reached four Final Fours and offended much of Jayhawk Country by daring to go home.

Get all the angst out of the way, face the fire straight up, then move along with life; show's over you people! Instead, the inevitable has hung over Williams and Kansas and North Carolina like a proverbial bad moon.

It was coming. One day...

"I don't think he's ever really dreaded it," said C.B. McGrath, who played for Williams at Kansas and is Williams' director of basketball operations. "But obviously playing Kansas, if there was another team there, he would probably prefer to play them."

And so one day has arrived, in Williams' 175th game as the head Heel: Tonight, North Carolina-Kansas, for a berth in Monday's championship game.

A drama never to be played out again with the requisite torture, intensity and forced introspection of a first time.

Can Ol' Roy get a heartfelt "amen" to this welcome end?

"No question that I'm tired of it," Williams said Friday in his final media session before tipoff. "There was a camera in front of me on Wednesday night as soon as we got off the bus... 'Coach what about this Kansas thing?' I've only answered that about 700 times."

So what about it? Williams, Dean Smith's acolyte and former assistant, took Kansas basketball from NCAA probation - 'preciate that, Larry Brown - to two title games. He spurned a return to North Carolina in 2000 after a wrenching process.

Then he did the Hamlet thing again in '03, an even more unnerving experience for Williams, before he exercised his inalienable right to pursue whatever happiness he darn well pleased.

They say some Kansans will never forgive. Some Kansans need a new hobby.

"I really think from a logical standpoint - and sometimes that word doesn't always ring true with fans that have a vested interest in what's going on - but five years is enough time for things to be let go," said Bill Self, who replaced Williams.

"I have a better job at Kansas because Roy Williams was a coach at Kansas."

That's a truth that makes Midwestern Roy Hating the strangest of pastimes. Self has won 81 percent of his games at Kansas. Williams left Kansas basketball an overflowing bucket. Kansas basketball is still royalty. Kansas basketball hasn't suffered one second because Williams returned to his roots.

Yet there was Williams on Friday discussing his picture found on bathroom walls. Of advising his dearest Kansas friends to avoid the game because of the raw emotion bubbling. Of musing on rotten fruit, and various other ill will he's discovered hurled his way.

"The fact that some people will say some things or do some things, that hurts," Williams said. "You can't control what other people want to talk about or other people want to insinuate. I'm probably the worst at worrying about those kind of things because my skin is still so thin about little things like that."

Williams smiled.

"Somebody said the other day that, you know, if Kansas wins, they're gonna forgive you," he said, laughing. "I'd rather them not forgive me."

Actually, maybe it's best after all for this one to happen on a Final Four stage. For his followers, no better site to confirm Williams' influence. For his unbending foes, no more glaring place to expose their foolishness.

"Two great programs," McGrath said. "You just hope both sets of fans will be hoping the best for their team, as opposed to cheering against anybody."

Good luck with that. But hey, at the Final Four, a guy can dream.

Tom Robinson, (757) 446-2518, tom.robinson@pilotonline.com