Two Mondays ago, Kansas University played Syracuse for the NCAA men’s basketball championship. No big deal.

Last Monday, Roy Williams announced he would be leaving Kansas after 15 seasons as head coach to go to North Carolina. Honey, pass the fingernail file.

And today, Kansas will name Bill Self, a former Oklahoma State guard, as only the eighth men’s basketball coach in school history. Yawn.

Surely, KU officials will add to the boredom next Monday — the last one in April — when they reveal the name of the new athletic director.

Relax. I’m kidding. I mean, has there ever been a more momentous April in Kansas University sports history?

Self never had made a secret of his interest in the Kansas University job if ever it should open. In fact, three years ago when Williams was wavering between Kansas and North Carolina, Self told friends he would walk out on the contract he had signed with Illinois if Williams had opted for Tobacco Road.

Now Williams indeed has chosen to go back to his alma mater, and Self is reneging on a five-year contract extension he signed with Illinois in December. Ah, but there is a buyout clause in the pact that forces Self to pay a $500,000 penalty if he walks.

Will Self pony up that half-million dollars himself, or will Kansas pay the freight?

If it is Kansas that must send a $500,000 check to Illinois, where will the money come from? KU’s athletic department is operating hand-to-mouth because of its low football attendance, and, a year and a half ago, KU borrowed heavily from the school’s endowment association in order to try to inject life into its sagging football program.

Then there’s the matter of the $300,000 or so in salary the athletic department still owes to deposed athletic director Al Bohl, who was pink-slipped two days after the Jayhawks played Syracuse in New Orleans in still another momentous April moment.

If Kansas is tapped out with the school’s alumni association, then the only alternative will be to beseech well-heeled boosters to dig deeper into their pockets. How deep can they go, especially if they have to make a final payment to Williams?

Most everyone knows Williams had the smallest salary of any men’s basketball coach in the Big 12 Conference at $129,380 a year. His salary was merely the tip of the iceberg, however. What Williams earned from his summer camps, radio-TV packages, shoe contracts and everything else put him well over the $1-million plateau.

Included in the everything-else category was a six-figure payment from a group of boosters. If Williams had stayed until April 15, he would have reaped a $275,000 windfall from that private fund. Williams pulled the plug on April 14. Nevertheless, even though Williams fell one day shy, Chancellor Robert Hemenway reportedly wants to pay Williams the money anyway. Others aren’t sure that’s such a good idea. They believe it’s strictly business, and KU needs the money more than Williams does.

However the dilemma shakes out, it’s clear Hemenway is committed to deficit spending in order to rejuvenate football and to maintain men’s basketball at its customary level of excellence. Hemenway knows KU’s window to the world isn’t its anthropology department.

Hemenway is banking on Mark Mangino to resurrect football, Self to perpetuate the prominence of men’s basketball, and soon we’ll know the name of the person Hemenway believes will bring badly needed class, vision and personality to the athletic director’s position.

With the NFL draft coming up this weekend, you’ll hear Mel Kiper Jr. and all those other draft freaks talk about teams drafting the best athlete available regardless of position. Essentially, that’s what Kansas did in hiring Self. KU tapped the best coach available regardless of affiliation.

Did Kansas make the right decision? If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here. I would have won the PowerBall.