Now that Kansas’ Roy Williams is undisputedly the best college basketball coach never to win a national title, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim offered perspective.
“There is no doubt in my mind that he will win a national championship,” Boeheim said after his Orangemen won the school’s first national title with an 81-78 victory over Williams’ Jayhawks Monday night in the Superdome. “He has a lot of coaching left in him.”
There’s only one question: Where will he do it?
The 52-year-old Williams may heed the call of North Carolina, his beloved alma mater. Or he may stay at Kansas, where he has created an enviable legacy that lacks only one piece. The college basketball season is over. Now the second season begins.
With one of the sport’s glamor jobs open at North Carolina and the possibility of another becoming available at Kentucky, the stage is set for an off-season that could be as unpredictable and entertaining as the just-completed tournament. The game could be in for a repeat of the summer of 2000, when Bill Guthridge’s unexpected midsummer resignation at North Carolina triggered a flurry of moves and non-moves that culminated with Matt Doherty ditching Notre Dame and Notre Dame hiring Mike Brey.
Three years later, Brey led his team to the Sweet Sixteen one week before Doherty was forced to resign.
It’s not unusual for coaches to parlay a tourney run into a better job. Last spring, Stan Heath bolted for Arkansas after guiding upstart Kent State to the Elite Eight. But the stakes are higher this year.
Consider the interest Marquette’s Tom Crean has received since leading the Golden Eagles to their first Final Four in 26 years. Penn State and Georgia both made overtures, which Crean rejected. He also reportedly had lukewarm interest in replacing Pitt coach Ben Howland, who went to UCLA. The Panthers appear ready to name Wake Forest coach Skip Prosser, a Pittsburgh native, to succeed Howland.
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Should Williams leave Kansas, it could trigger a national chain reaction. The school likely would consider such candidates as Crean, Illinois’ Bill Self and Creighton’s Dana Altman.
Self also figures to be on Kentucky’s list if Tubby Smith resigns to take a job in the NBA, as has been rumored for months. If Self were to leave Illinois, Crean is known to have interest in succeeding him in Champaign.
There are plenty of “ifs” and few hard facts. But that will change in the next week or so, when offers are made and options weighed.
Williams, who returned to Lawrence with his team Tuesday, has given few hints about his intentions. But the Kansas City Star reported he probably would stay if the university fired athletic director Al Bohl, with whom Williams has had conflicts.
In the emotional aftermath of Monday night’s loss, Williams snapped at a North Carolina-related question from CBS Sports courtside reporter Bonnie Bernstein, using a profanity in a live interview.
Afterward, Williams explained why he had snapped.
“I said, `I don’t give a blankety-blank about North Carolina. I care about those 13 kids in the [Kansas] locker room,'” Williams said. “Coach [Dean] Smith will be disappointed in my blankety-blank, but he understands.”
Smith also may be disappointed if Williams doesn’t accept the Tar Heels post for the second time in three years. According to various reports, the North Carolina job is Williams’ if he wants it. The school reportedly would like an answer in the next week; officials are wary of a repeat of the summer of 2000, when Williams visited campus and seemed ready to take the job, then decided to stay at Kansas after returning to Lawrence.
But it might not be a foregone conclusion. Even with the departure of star seniors Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich, Williams will have four players with starting experience on his roster, and he has signed another highly touted recruiting class.
“I think any high school kid in the country needs to take a serious look at Kansas if they’re recruiting them, because you’re not going to play for a better man [and] you’re not going to play for a better staff,” Collison said. “You know, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
If Williams doesn’t take the job, former Tar Heel Larry Brown is said to be the next option. Brown privately has expressed interest in returning to the college game if the right job opened up–and North Carolina would appear to be the right job. Late Monday night, as Williams picked over the details of the heartbreaking loss to Syracuse, he was asked what being the head coach of Kansas has meant to him. Williams answered in the past tense.
“Those kids in the locker room, the relationships that you can have with young people is what college athletics is all about,” he said. “Not being able to coach Nick and Kirk again, that’s hard. At the same time, even right up here, we lost, God, I’ve been so fortunate to have coached them.”