Self is good enough to make KU fans forget Williams

SAN ANTONIO | At first, it seemed a fairly obvious answer. Another reporter had asked Bill Self another question about Roy Williams. Why? Because this is the Final Four, and that means all of us reporters are doing the same exact four stories.

These are:

1. North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough has the strength of 20 men and the will of a team of horses.

2. All four teams are No. 1 seeds, which seems to indicate they’re all good.

3. Memphis, unlike North Carolina, UCLA and Kansas, does not have a great tradition. The Tigers are “outsiders,” if you will. Or “Party crashers.”

4. Roy Williams is coaching against Kansas five years after leaving behind a jilted and disappointed Jayhawk State.

The last story is the dominant one coming into today’s games. Self, as usual, had answered these questions all week with his usual combination of Midwestern charm and candor. He was asked about Roy again on Friday and, as he’s done before, he praised the work Roy had done at KU and said: “I also am glad he’s at North Carolina because if he wasn’t, then I wouldn’t be at Kansas.”

Obvious. Yes. And yet, sometimes, it’s easy to miss the obvious. Bill Self is a terrific basketball coach. He’s one of the best in the country. He’s taken three teams to the Elite Eight. His teams have won 23 or more games each of the last 10 years.

In fact, take a look at this comparison:

Roy Williams’ first 10 years at Kansas: 282-62, two Final Fours, one Elite Eight, seven conference titles.

Bill Self’s last 10 years at Tulsa, Illinois and Kansas: 273-71, one Final Four, four Elite Eights, eight conference titles.

That’s not bad. And remember — Self put up his numbers at three schools, meaning he had to start over twice. Yes, Self is a terrific basketball coach. He’s a program builder. He’s one of the nation’s best recruiters. He seems at home — even as the rumors swirled of Oklahoma State oil men throwing gold doubloons at coaches, Self seems interested only in being coach at Kansas. He’s just 45 years old. He’s funny and tough and from the Heartland; I would suggest that there is not a single coach in America who would be better for Kansas than Bill Self.

And he’s here because Roy Williams left.

It’s that last obvious part that has so often been missed this week as so many people rehash and relive the emotions and absurdity of the Williams circus five years ago. It’s hard for people outside to understand; Kansans had complicated feelings about Roy Williams. He was a really good coach, and his teams played fast, and he brought a little bit of big-time to the Midwest after Larry Brown bolted, in those years when the Chiefs couldn’t reach the big one, and the Royals could not afford their stars, and major events stopped coming around.

There was always this sense with Roy that he would bolt for the big-time himself when the right opportunity popped — this is the great fear of the Heartland — but then Roy said no to North Carolina, and he had a big pep rally, and he assured everyone that his heart was in the Heartland. People in Kansas cheered: “He likes us, he really likes us.”

Three years later, he said yes to North Carolina, and people broke out their “Benedict Roy” T-shirts.

Some of the animosity toward Williams has been real, no doubt about it, and some of it has been over the edge, probably. It is a shame that a number of people forgot all the good things Williams accomplished in 15 years at Kansas.

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To reach Joe Posnanski, call 816-234-4361 or send e-mail to jposnanski@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com.