Time to move on for Kansas fans?

[Randall]

I understand not winning it all, but the year they point to was the year Arizona beat several top seeds.

 

Five years isn’t enough time to quiet Roy bashers

By BLAIR KERKHOFF

The Kansas City Star

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. | Here’s the part Greg Gurley doesn’t get. Larry Brown left Kansas in trouble with the NCAA. Roy Williams inherited the probation.

 

Brown stayed five years, dramatically turned down the UCLA job and a few weeks later left for the NBA. Williams remained for 15 years and left for his — and Brown’s — alma mater.

 

But at the program’s 110th anniversary celebration in February, Brown received the loudest ovation.

 

“And Roy Williams is being treated like he broke the law, like he’s the enemy of the state,” said Gurley, who played for Williams’ Jayhawks during 1991-95. “It’s not right.”

 

A national championship, won by Brown but not Williams at Kansas, must mean that much, enough to treat one coach as if he did no wrong and another as if he did nothing right.

 

In the words of current Kansas coach Bill Self, “Five years is enough time to let a few things go.”

 

More than enough. Still, open season on Williams in Kansas peaks this week with the Jayhawks and Tar Heels meeting Saturday in the national semifinals for the first time since Williams left Kansas after the 2003 loss in the national championship game.

 

The move that made perfect sense under Carolina blue skies stunned the Kansas faithful, livid that Williams didn’t keep his word from three years earlier that he was a Jayhawk-for-life after turning down North Carolina.

 

Folks are still angry. Not all, probably not a majority. But enough to make themselves known halfway across the country.

 

“We hear it,” said North Carolina assistant Joe Holladay, who spent 11 years on Williams’ Kansas staff. “We hear it in airports, in restaurants. I’m sick of it. There are so many good people in Kansas, and we hear from the few loud ones.

 

“It’s going to be tough on (Williams), but he’ll handle it. He’s not going to let our team suffer or anybody around him suffer because of it.”

 

The Roy bashing takes several forms. North Carolina winning scores are booed at Allen Fieldhouse. Last year, a neighbor and KU fan wore a new Virginia Tech cap. A Hokies’ fan? No, Tech had just defeated the Tar Heels, and he vowed to support any such team.

 

Monday morning, as Gurley was talking about Williams, defending him on WHB 810 AM, text messages were buzzing on his phone telling him to “stop the Roy love-fest and start being a KU fan.”

 

This reaction has put Williams’ players from Adonis Jordan to Nick Collison in a difficult position. It’s as if they’re forced to choose their loyalty: School or former coach.

 

Gurley won’t play that game.

 

“I love Kansas basketball, and I always will,” Gurley said. “I’m 100 percent rooting for Kansas on Saturday like all former Kansas players will.

 

“But three years ago in St. Louis I was rooting for North Carolina to win the national championship. I want to see coach Williams do well when he’s not playing Kansas.”

 

Just as Williams wants Kansas to win when it’s not playing the Tar Heels.

 

Williams said Monday that at his annual basketball camp, kids can wear the gear of two schools — North Carolina and Kansas.

 

“They’re my second favorite college team,” Williams said of the Jayhawks. “When I was at Kansas, North Carolina was my second favorite team.”

 

But the bashers probably remain unmoved. Tell them that Kansas won more games in the 1990s than any other program, went to more Final Fours under Williams than any other Kansas coach, that he essentially repaired a broken program — remember only Jordan remained from that first recruiting class and the Jayhawks still won 19 games — and they’ll show you their Virginia Tech hat.

 

It’s even ridiculous to Self, who faced much of the same anger from Illinois fans when he left for Kansas.

 

“When people are upset that you leave, it’s a backhanded compliment because they didn’t want you to,” Self said. “At the core of all Kansas fans, and I’m not in touch with everybody, but at the core I would think that everybody’s proud of the time he spent here because he gave this place 15 years of excellence.”

 

You would think. But we’ll have a better idea Friday. That’s when the teams participate in an open practice at the Alamodome, and it will be Williams’ first appearance in front of a large gathering of Kansas fans since that final team banquet when a fan shouted out “traitor” and had to be shouted down by Collison’s father.

 

“We’ll see,” Gurley said. “Real basketball fans understand he was great for Kansas, and he’s been great for North Carolina and leave it that.”

 

Others can’t leave it alone.12

[detlef]

F'ing losers. Same as the type that hold it against a kid who leaves early to make mad jack in the pros. Hate somebody because they actually did something to screw you. Simply leaving, especially leaving a program in obviously good enough shape that they barely skipped a beat, doesn't count.

 

What a bunch of freaking ingrates.

[Chief Dick]

What a bunch of freaking ingrates.

 

Takes one to know one.

[Randall]

Well I like both teams and both programs and am surprised how Larry Brown and Williams are treated so differently.

 

When Holmgren left Green Bay he took everything but the kitchen sinks, but after several years we've moved on.

[detlef]

Takes one to know one.

Of course, you must be speaking about all those times I've crapped all over somebody for chasing their dream after doing right by me for 15 years. Oh wait...

[muck]

Rock chalk, baby!