It was five years ago when North Carolina coach Roy Williams traded the crimson and blue of Kansas for the light blue and white of the Tar Heels.
Since leaving Lawrence, Kan., for his alma mater in Chapel Hill, N.C., Williams won a national title in 2005 and has taken this year?s squad to within two victories of another championship.
But for Williams to lead the Tar Heels (36-2) to Monday night?s championship game, he?ll have to defeat a familiar foe tonight in the Alamodome in San Antonio: the Jayhawks (35-3).
“Fans will make a big deal of it,” Kansas coach Bill Self, who is 140-32 in five seasons after taking over for Williams, said.
They are.
“It?s not so much that he left,” said Chris Debacker, a second-year law student at Kansas. “It?s the way he did it. It felt like he betrayed us. That?s why so many people are still upset with him.”
Under Williams, Kansas went 418-101 and was the winningest program of the 1990s. But many Kansas fans still resent Williams for not winning a national title. Williams came close, leading the Jayhawks to four Final Fours and a pair of championship game appearances ? most recently in 2003 ? before leaving for North Carolina after the season.
But what haunts Williams is how he turned down the North Carolina job when it became open in 2000, telling fans “I?m staying.” After the loss to Syracuse in the championship game in 2003, he chastised a reporter who questioned a move southeast.
“I felt like that was a lose-lose,” Williams told the New York Times, “because I was going to disappoint some people that I cared about regardless of what I did. It was a horrible decision in 2000 when I decided to stay. And it was a horrible decision in 2003 when I decided to leave.
“Roy Williams has felt pretty dog-gone good about Roy Williams most of my life, but when I stood up in front of those kids at Kansas and told them that I was leaving, and the feeling that I had when I walked out of that room, that?s a feeling I hope I never have again.”
Self also has battled plenty of emotions as he?s tried to guide the Jayhawks to their first title since 1988.
Prior to beating 10th-seeded Davidson, 59-57 to advance to college basketball?s biggest stage, Self lost in the region finals with Tulsa in 2000, Illinois in 2001 and Kansas in 2004 and 2007. He had the dreaded label of “best coach to never reach a Final Four.”
The knife twisted even deeper in 2005, when Williams led North Carolina to a victory over Illinois to win his first national championship. Self likely would have been coaching the Illini had he not left two years earlier to fill Williams? vacancy at Kansas.
“It was tough watching them play because I know I could have been a part of that,” Self said. “I just kept telling myself: ?Hey, we did it for the long run, and this is the long run.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
