Next season can't begin soon enough for Jayhawks

Kansas basketball players should not waste one second feeling sorry for themselves about Roy Williams' departure for North Carolina.

He dissed them by leaving in the manner in which he did. He talked non-stop about loyalty for 15 years, then left Lawrence with his tail between his legs to catch a plane to Chapel Hill.

Williams' last act at Kansas, which was to bolt without an explanation to the fans who made his life in Lawrence heavenly, will make people question his sincerity. But it couldn't be better for the team.

KU's players have a cause to rally around. They have extra motivation for next season and seasons to come.

They should want to show Coach Roy that he made the biggest mistake of his life by choosing his roots over his branches.

It would be wrong for any of the Jayhawks' players, even with all of the uncertainty that faces them, to pick up and leave KU the way their coach did. That's the cowardly way out.

Kansas' players should be hopping mad, and it sounds as if at least some of them are.

A giving team

Wayne Simien, who missed most of his sophomore season with a lingering shoulder injury, indicated his anger by saying he gave his right arm for Williams -- literally, since he played less than half of KU's games with a shoulder injury.

Point guard Aaron Miles told a Kansas City radio station that he is more determined than ever to win a national championship.

Simien, Miles and Keith Langford, who will be the leaders of KU's 2003-04 squad as juniors, should get on the phone as soon as possible and tell Williams' four recruits for next season, two of whom are McDonald's All-Americans, to honor their commitments.

They shouldn't plead. They shouldn't beg. They should tell, then threaten to kick the behinds of those who waver.

The next coach, whomever it might be, shouldn't have to spend one minute motivating his team next season. Motivation should be a built-in luxury.

It's probably too late, but Kansas should invite Williams to bring his North Carolina team to Lawrence for a game next season. Or volunteer to go to Carolina and play the Tar Heels. In the season opener. On national television. With Dean Smith sitting next to Williams on the Carolina bench.

Time to look ahead

The going is tough right now at KU, where amateurish athletic director Al Bohl was fired last week by an in-over-his-head chancellor, Robert Hemenway, who mistakenly hired Bohl two years ago.

But it's like they say, when the going gets tough ...

If Kansas is smart, it will send Hemenway to a fictitious chemistry symposium in Walla Walla while those in charge search for an athletic director and a basketball coach.

But who, exactly, will be in charge of these searches?

Will it be, heaven forbid, Hemenway? Time after time, he has shown that he has no feel for what should be going on inside an athletic department.

Will it be interim athletic director Drue Jennings? He's a former CEO of Kansas City Power and Light and a KU grad, but he has never hired an athletic director or a basketball coach.

Difficult times, indeed.

But KU's players need not worry about all of that. They should trust that someone will calm the storm and that order will soon be restored.

The players should focus on how many times Williams talked about his loyalty and admiration for departed seniors Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison but didn't mention them.

By the time practice rolls around in October, the Jayhawks should have chips on their shoulders the size of cedar chests.

Kansas lost a great basketball coach Monday. Williams teaches the transition game and defense as well as any coach ever has. He went from one great place to another, and he'll have Carolina back into the Final Four soon, perhaps even next year.

It's crazy to think his departure to Chapel Hill is not a setback for Kansas.

However, it's only a setback, it's not a ruination. If the players stay, and if they band together with a common goal, the Jayhawks will have more good days.

Williams is gone. Kansas basketball doesn't need to be.

Bob Lutz is a sports columnist for The Wichita Eagle.