Roy Williams is still men’s basketball coach at Kansas University, not UCLA, and Friday he drove that fact home.
“I have not had discussions with UCLA. I do not plan on having discussions with UCLA,” Williams said at his weekly news conference, set up to discuss KU’s home game Sunday against Iowa State. “As I said, I am not planning on talking to them. I haven’t talked to them. There’s no other way I can say it.”
It has been rumored Williams, in his 15th year at KU, will be pursued by UCLA if beleaguered Bruins’ coach Steve Lavin is fired after the season.
The UCLA rumors heated up this week when reports surfaced that Williams and Jayhawk football coach Mark Mangino did not have good working relationships with embattled KU athletic director Al Bohl.
“I didn’t go to North Carolina,” Williams said of his alma mater, which pursued him in the summer of 2000. “I didn’t do what Michael Jordan wanted me to do. I mean, what else can I do?
“My gosh. I guess that’s part of the frustration level of this.”
Williams has been harried since returning Thursday from a two-day recruiting trip to Bremerton, Wash., when he learned of the Internet rumors, talk-show speculation and newspaper articles on Bohl’s possible departure from KU — an exit partly caused by what is rumored to be a rocky relationship between Bohl and Williams.
“Since 4:15 yesterday I’ve gotten less work done than I’ve ever gotten done in any 18-hour period in my career,” Williams said, noting he’d answered several phone calls from friends while declining 10 or more interview requests.
Everybody, it seems, has wanted to discuss Bohl and UCLA.
“My relationship with my athletic director is a very professional relationship,” Williams said Friday, never calling Bohl by name.
“He’s the athletic director, and I know that. If I need something, I go talk to him about it. I’m not the kind of coach that runs down there every day and says, ‘I need this and that.’ I never tell him I need something if it’s just something I want.”
Williams brought up former AD Bob Frederick, who hired Williams to replace Larry Brown 15 years ago.
“My relationship with the athletic director is different from the relationship with Bob,” he said. “Bob hired me and gave me a chance. I’m not really ‘anybody’ now, but I was a ‘nobody’ then, and Bob gave me a chance. It’s not the same kind of relationship.”
Facing a much larger media throng than normal Friday, Williams expressed frustration that the rumors had taken his attention away from his team, which takes an 18-5 record into Sunday’s noon battle against 12-8 Iowa State.
“I’m frustrated by it, disappointed by it,” Williams said.
The Jayhawks beat Baylor, 79-58, Tuesday. Wednesday, Williams jetted to Bremerton to see prospect Marvin Williams play.
His return to Lawrence was delayed, and he made it back at 4:15 p.m. Thursday, 15 minutes before practice, and, “all of a sudden the phone is ringing off the hook.
“I think I’m a basketball coach and should be talking about my basketball team, should be talking about Iowa State and should be talking about Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison, two of the kids that make college basketball what it is,” Williams said.
“We have what could be a fantastic weekend with 190 former lettermen coming back (for reunion). We’ve got one of the top high school players (junior guard Daniel Gibson of Houston) in the country coming in for a visit, and for the frickin’ last 10, 12 hours, all I’ve been able to do is talk about something that as far as I’m concerned is not doing anything to help me prepare the team for Iowa State, and not doing anything to help my team prepare for the rest of the year.
“I’m not trying to steamroll anything; just telling you I’m very frustrated with all this.”
Williams, who said even his afternoon jog was interrupted when his running partners discussed the recent gossip, only took a few questions about the rumors Friday.
He said he was concerned UCLA rumors would hurt recruiting and said he wouldn’t talk to his team about distractions.
“Our kids are isolated from it more than I am. Hopefully you aren’t calling them asking them about my relationship with anybody,” Williams said. “I’m gonna tell them they better not have any distractions.”
