Ken Davis

It was one of the most emotional breakups in college basketball history. Five years later, it’s still a touchy subject around Lawrence, Kan.

And now, with the stakes enormously high and the Final Four as a backdrop, coach Roy Williams once again becomes symbolic of the ties that bind Kansas basketball to North Carolina basketball.

From that moment in April 2003, when Williams followed his heart, said goodbye to Kansas after 15 seasons and headed back to Chapel Hill to coach his alma mater, it was obvious this day would come. And since the 1957 national championship game, when North Carolina beat Wilt Chamberlain’s Jayhawks in triple overtime, it’s been impossible to keep these storied programs apart.

Saturday in San Antonio, in the second national semifinal game of the 2008 NCAA Tournament, North Carolina will meet Kansas. And Williams, the only man to serve both schools as head coach, will be the center of attention. It’s going to be a very interesting week in the life of a Hall of Fame coach preparing for his sixth Final Four.

“I have no idea what my emotions are going to be,” Williams said Saturday after an 83-73 victory over Louisville in the East Regional final. “I have the greatest love for a place I gave my heart, body and soul for 15 years.

“They gave me a chance when I wasn’t exactly a household name. I was barely a name in my own house.”

Williams grew up on Carolina basketball and was tutored under legendary Hall of Fame coach Dean Smith, whose name is on the arena where the Tar Heels play their home games. Smith himself is a native of Kansas, a player on the 1952 national championship team at Kansas, and the man most responsible for pulling Williams along on a yo-yo string between the schools.

It all started in 1988 when the Jayhawks needed to replace Larry Brown, another North Carolina product who headed to the NBA to coach after leading the Jayhawks to their second NCAA championship. Kansas athletic director Bob Frederick, on the advice of Smith and former KU coach Dick Harp, picked the unknown Carolina assistant coach named Williams.

If Williams is wondering how this week will unfold, he needs only to think back to the Final Four weekends in 1991 and 1993. That’s when he faced the uncomfortable task of coaching against Smith. Williams won in 1991. Smith returned the favor in 1993.

Slide show   Top images from NCAA title game Take a visual tour of Kansas’ overtime victory over Memphis. more photos

The entire North Carolina coaching staff was with Williams in Lawrence, including Jerod Haase and C.B. McGrath, who wore the Kansas uniform as players.

“It would be tough for him, no doubt about it,” Haase told The Kansas City Star on Saturday, before the Jayhawks wrapped up the last spot in the Final Four with a 59-57 victory over Davidson. “There wouldn’t be an allegiance thing, just like when he coached Kansas against North Carolina.”

Williams has always been torn between both schools. As his reputation as a top-notch coach became established at Kansas, there was constant speculation he would take over at North Carolina when Smith retired. Instead, he was forced to make two dramatic decisions, the first to stay in Lawrence when Bill Guthridge stepped down in 2000 and the second to leave Kansas after Matt Doherty was fired in 2003.

The problem — and Williams has admitted this often — was that he gave the impression in 2000 that he would end his career at Kansas. When he waffled after losing the 2003 national championship game to Syracuse and just days later returned to Chapel Hill, Kansas fans felt betrayed. Many have never gotten over it, especially since he went on to win his first national championship with the Tar Heels in 2005. They would like nothing better than to beat Williams — and beat him soundly.

“Those were the two most difficult times in my life,” Williams said last year, when he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame. “I hope to never have anything like that again. Other than sickness, injury, or death with your family, I can’t imagine anything that would bother me more than that.”

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