Roy Williams made a point to tweak conspiracy theorists Thursday.
Williams, who Thursday night held a press conference attended by a throng of media and a crowd estimated at 16,300 fans at Memorial Stadium, said, contrary to reports, he never orally agreed to a deal with North Carolina, and he was undecided Wednesday when he left the Carolinas and Wednesday night when he returned to Lawrence.
He was still torn Thursday, but by noon, he was all but settled.
“There are people saying it was all choreographed, that I was just doing this to make the Kansas people feel good,” Williams said. “You guys can accuse me of a lot of things, but you can’t accuse me of being a phony.”
Williams obviously was miffed at more than a few Carolina media sources who reported several times that he was UNC-bound. It started last Friday, when the Associated Press said Williams was in as Bill Guthridge’s successor.
On Thursday, the Durham (N.C.) Herald-Sun bannered a headline that claimed Williams had accepted a seven-year pact with the Tar Heels.
“In Durham the last couple of days,” Williams said, “they have printed whatever they wanted to print, but Duke’s in Durham, so you’d expect it to be anything against North Carolina.”
Williams thanked KU athletics director Bob Frederick and Chancellor Robert Hemenway for giving him space to make his decision.
“Chancellor Hemenway and I made the decision at the beginning that we were going to give Roy space and time, and we did that,” Frederick said. “Saturday I was a little worried when I heard reports about where coach Williams was. I talked to him and said, ‘Do I need to recruit you again?’ He said no.”
Frederick didn’t know Williams’ leaning until just before the end of a Thursday morning meeting with Frederick and Hemenway, when Williams asked, should he decide to stay, if KU could send the university jet to South Carolina to pick up his wife, Wanda, and daughter, Kim, to be on hand for the announcement.
“We said, ‘We can get the plane there pretty fast,'” Frederick said with a laugh.
