Anaheim, Calif. ? Another NCAA Tournament unfolds enticingly as March bends toward April and the true madness of the event, particularly for coaches, is that the winners and the best teams aren’t always wearing the same uniforms.
Put a bunch of teenagers on the floor, let them play for 40 minutes, and enjoy the passion of the event. But don’t think that anything is really decided other than which team pushes on and which team goes back to class.
This is the time of year when Roy Williams brings Kansas University to the tournament and people gather around to ask whether his career will be unfulfilled without a national championship. It happened again Friday as Williams prepared the Jayhawks for tonight’s West Regional final against top-seeded Arizona.
Williams has been at this for 15 years, and he has the best winning percentage of any active coach. Among all-time Division One coaches, only Clair Bee and Adolph Rupp had better records. So the guy probably doesn’t stink.
“I really believe he’s the best coach in our sport, period,” said Sixers coach Larry Brown, who, like Williams, came from the North Carolina basketball program, and who himself coached Danny Manning and Kansas to the national title in 1988.
“I remember people said that coach (Dean) Smith couldn’t win the big one for a long time, and I always laughed. It’s ridiculous,” Brown said. “Same thing with Roy. To win a national championship now, you’ve got to win six sudden-death games, and each one is the biggest of the year. You can’t say a guy isn’t a great coach just because he hasn’t won it all.”
Williams had his chances. Kansas lost in the championship game to Duke in 1991 and made the Final Four two other times.
Another dream he altered along the way was that of coaching North Carolina, which might be even more deeply rooted for Williams than it is for Brown. Coincidentally, the drums are beating in Chapel Hill again. Matt Doherty has alienated his players, some of whom had a meeting with the athletic director Thursday. If Doherty doesn’t survive the crisis, 52-year-old Williams figures to get a call again, with the next call potentially going to Brown.
“They have a coach there right now I care about deeply, and I’m going to leave it at that,” said Williams, for whom Doherty was a Kansas assistant. “People might think I call back there every day and find out what everybody had for breakfast, but I don’t do that. I haven’t talked to anybody there.”
And, anyway, he’s been busy. If the Jayhawks defeat Arizona tonight, he’ll be busier still, chasing an old dream, one that seems always just out of reach — and often a little unfair.
“I saw that the NBA recently went to a best 4-of-7 in the first round of the playoffs, because they wanted to guarantee that the best teams win,” Williams said. “That’s the difference between the NBA game and our game.”
Williams is part of the show for the 14th straight season, which says something in itself. He already has settled one score here by knocking off Duke, getting his first win over longtime tormenter Mike Krzyzewski.
Just for once, the Kansas coach would like to be the last one standing. If it doesn’t happen this time, however — if it doesn’t happen ever, for that matter — that won’t really change anything. To think the measure of a career sways on such a thin rope is true madness.
