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Self is good enough to make KU fans forget Williams
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.
But I’ve always thought that a lot of this “Kansas fans still loathe Roy” stuff has been overplayed, that for most people the bashing of Roy has been at least partly in fun. I mean the guy did leave Kansas, after all. I think that makes him fair game for some light-hearted abuse, no? A Lawrence barber shop calls the bathroom the “Roy Room”? Fans boo when North Carolina scores are announced? A few people on Internet boards tell Williams jokes? That seems pretty harmless fan stuff.
Sports are, in many ways, all about heroes and villains. Roy was a hero for a long time, and then he left, and that made him an entertaining villain. I know it bothers him. But I also hope (and believe) that with the passing of years, Williams will be invited back to Lawrence, his era celebrated, his jersey retired. I do think that will happen. But there has to be that passing of time. Right now, he’s the coach at North Carolina.
Again, though, by focusing on Roy we can miss the obvious: Bill Self is doing every bit as good a job at Kansas as Roy Williams ever did. He’s getting some of the best players in America. He’s winning Big 12 championships and Big 12 tournaments. He’s made Kansas virtually unbeatable in Allen Fieldhouse again — the Jayhawks were 20-0 in the fieldhouse this year. Yes, his Jayhawks had a couple of tournament slip-ups while he was transforming them, but two Elite Eights and one Final Four in five years seem like a pretty good run.
(And, of course, this year isn’t over yet. I think Kansas matches up really well with North Carolina tonight. I think the Jayhawks are one of maybe three teams in the country that can run with the Tar Heels, but I also think they’re better defensively. If Kansas makes its threes tonight, I think they win.)
So, yes, while it’s a little bit of fun to boo Roy Williams, while it might be cathartic for people to still feel bitterness over an old slight, the truth is that everyone at Kansas should see what’s right in front of them. Bill Self is the ideal coach. It’s time for Kansas to really embrace him. It’s time for athletic director Lew Perkins and Kansas management to give him a long-term deal and pay him like one of the best coaches in America.
It’s also time for fans to appreciate that coaches like Self, coaches who can win consistently and define their programs, are almost impossible to find even for the most storied programs in the country. Kentucky has been looking for its new Adolph Rupp for decades. Indiana has been trying to replace Bob Knight for so long that some people think their next coach should be … Bob Knight. UCLA only now — 30 years after John Wooden retired — seems to have found the right coach. North Carolina had huge troubles after Dean Smith retired.
Eventually, as we know, North Carolina came after Roy Williams. Twice. He has resuscitated that program, as every Kansas fan knew he would. In the meantime, though, Kansas found Bill Self, who is good enough to make people forget Roy Williams. Now Kansas people just have to let themselves forget.