Roy Williams’ painful point of reference — the 1997 Jayhawks

Roy Williams went there because he was asked. If somebody on Sunday hadn’t brought up the 1997 Kansas team that didn’t reach the Final Four, the day before Williams’ North Carolina Tar Heels meet Villanova for the NCAA title on Monday, he likely would have left it in Philadelphia last weekend.

After beating Notre Dame and winning the East Region title, Williams responded to a question about getting North Carolina back to the Final Four for the first time in six years.

Williams said he felt good for the players, especially senior guard Marcus Paige. Then he mentioned that his induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007 left him with an empty feeling because of what happened a decade earlier.

“I felt like I hadn’t done anything because I couldn’t get those guys to the Final Four,” Williams said.

The last few seasons have been difficult for Williams, who coaches a program caught up in an academic scandal and is awaiting the NCAA’s notice of allegation.

On the court, no Final Fours since the 2009 title is a flop by the program’s standards. Recently, there have been the deaths of his mentor Dean Smith, longtime Tar Heels assistant coach Bill Guthridge and other close friends. Williams opened his post-Syracuse news conference Saturday paying tribute to them.

At that point, 1997 wasn’t on his mind. It was Sunday, when Williams was asked to elaborate on his feelings expressed last week. He had to get this North Carolina team to a Final Four because he knows the hurt of falling short with a wildly talented squad.

“These guys took care of that, so I don’t have to have those thoughts about myself about this team,” Williams said.

That 1997 Kansas team ... three seniors, a junior and a sophomore started. Two of the seniors, Scot Pollard and Jacque Vaughn were first-round draft picks who spent a combined 23 seasons in the NBA. The junior was Raef LaFrentz, a consensus All-America that year and next, and Paul Pierce, the best of the bunch, who is the 16th leading scorer in NBA history.

“We were the best team in the country that year,” said North Carolina assistant C.B. McGrath, a junior on that team.

Undoubtedly. The Jayhawks won their first 22 games, lost at Missouri in double overtime in one of the wildest and most entertaining games you’ll ever see, and blitzed through the rest of the season. Their record improved to 34-1 after beating Purdue in an NCAA Tournament second-round game, and Arizona loomed in the Sweet 16.

The unthinkable, at least to Kansas, happened. An Arizona team that was seeded fourth, entered the tournament with nine losses and looked unimpressive in the tournament, took control of the game and survived a late KU surge, winning 85–82.

Nobody knew at the time that Kansas was a little banged up or that Arizona would go on to become the first and only team in tournament history to defeat three No. 1 seeds on its way to the championship. This was a terrific Wildcats team, led by Miles Simon, Michael Dickerson, Jason Terry and freshman guard Mike Bibby.

The Kansas locker room was devastated. Players spoke through tears. Williams’ eyes were red during his press obligation that evening.

“That was a wonderful, wonderful team,” Williams said Sunday. “I felt like I let them down.”

Two decades later, Williams said he’d have felt the same way about this North Carolina team had it lost to the Irish last week. But he’ll never let go of what happened two decades earlier.

The Final Four, and one step away from the national title for these Tar Heels, “hasn’t erased the way I feel about the 1997 team,” Williams said.

This story was originally published April 3, 2016 at 6:18 PM with the headline "Roy Williams’ painful point of reference — the 1997 Jayhawks."