Posted on Sat, Apr. 05, 2008

The day has arrived, as we knew it would when Roy Williams left Kansas to coach basketball at North Carolina five years ago.

It was as inevitable as a trip to the dentist's office. You can put it off and put it off, but eventually you just have to do it and get it over with.

Kansas has to play North Carolina. Kansas has to confront its demons. And Kansas, to get past Williams and learn to accept and appreciate the 15 seasons he coached in Lawrence, has to beat his brains in.

You can sugarcoat it. You can pretend that's not the case. But to make this thing right, to make it tolerable, Kansas has to win tonight in the national semifinals.

It's the only way many Jayhawk fans will get past the betrayal and dislike they feel five years later. I don't think too many KU fans hate Williams -- hate is such a strong and unproductive emotion. But they resent the way he left.

None of this matters to the players on either team. They don't have a stake in this thing. It matters to Kansas coach Bill Self only because he is in exactly the same spot Williams was in five years ago: Coaching Kansas in a Final Four while rumors swirl that he could leave for another job at his alma mater.

If KU wins tonight and Self, as he insists he will, remains at Kansas, he'll surpass the popularity Williams amassed in Lawrence. So Self does have stakes in this fight.

But it's mostly between a large portion of Kansas basketball fans and Williams. It's their battle and it's one the fans need to win more than Williams.

"Somebody said the other day that, you know, if Kansas wins, (their fans) are gonna forgive you," Williams said during Friday's news conference at the Alamodome. "Guys, I'd rather have them not forgive me. That's just the bottom line."

Williams is as charming as ever and he has been able to deflect a lot of the KU talk this week, though he admitted he has answered the same question at least a thousand times.

"I'm glad that we can get to coaching and getting ready to play the game," he said. "If I go out there and 37 people throw tomatoes at me, that will bother me a little bit. But I've been hit by rotten grapefruit at Duke. I knew they weren't throwing at me, they were throwing at Coach (Dean) Smith. They were just bad throwers. That was 1979, I believe."

There were a few KU fans in the stands by the time North Carolina had its one-hour practice session Friday afternoon. But if they jeered Williams, their noise was overwhelmed by the cheers from the UNC faithful.

So far, at least, Williams hasn't been accosted or verbally abused by a Kansas fan. Let's hope it stays that way.

It will be a huge letdown for those fans, however, if the Jayhawks don't win tonight. And winning will not be easy against a really fast, big and talented group of Tar Heels. As you would expect in a Final Four full of 1 seeds, both semifinal games -- UCLA-Memphis is the other -- should be classics.

The KU-North Carolina game just has a few extra layers of intrigue.

Self is still being asked about his interest in the coaching vacancy at Oklahoma State, where oil tycoon Boone Pickens is flashing billions of dollars he is prepared to throw at the next coach. At least, that's what we're led to believe.

Self's lawyer, Stewart Campbell, was quoted in the Tulsa World on Friday as saying, "I never say never," about the potential of Self bolting KU for Oklahoma State.

Which caught Self by surprise. His response to Campbell's assertion was succinct.

"Stewart Campbell is an attorney that looks over my contracts," Self said. "So he does not speak for me. I have not spoken with Stewart Campbell about this. I haven't spoken to Stewart Campbell in a month. I haven't spoken to him about this at all. So anybody speaking on behalf of me doesn't know what they're talking about because I will speak for me."

Something tells me when Self and Campbell do talk, it will be a one-sided conversation.

Distractions are piling up for Self, but you'd never know it. From all appearances, he's as cool and calm about playing North Carolina in the Final Four as he is about an exhibition game against Fort Hays State.

A reporter told Self he was probably hoping KU fans would be as nasty to Williams as they could be. Before that reporter could finish his sentence, Self interrupted.

"No, I'm not -- no, I don't," Self said. "I think if our fans, and we have as good of fans as anybody, spend their time rooting against an individual, then their energies aren't channeled in the right direction."

KU fans, like fans of any university, believe their school is paradise and cannot fathom anyone wanting to leave, especially after they feel like they were promised three years earlier from Williams himself that he would never go.

It's human nature to hold some resentment. If KU wins tonight, Jayhawk fans will be able to forgive Williams and move on. They might even admit to themselves that one of the reasons their school is such a basketball powerhouse is because of that guy whose brains they just beat out.

Eagle sports columnist Bob Lutz co-hosts "Sports Daily" from 9-11 a.m. weekdays on KFH, 1240-AM and 98.7-FM. Reach him at 316-268-6597 or blutz@wichitaeagle.com.