All this basketball stuff is making me nervous

Forget about spring and the blooming tulips. Never mind presidential politics. It’s all about the basketball right now, and I’m nervous.

Today, mighty Kansas and little Davidson will battle for a spot in the Final Four and a chance to take on the Tar Heels, who beat Louisville last night. Let me just say that I am 100 percent behind Davidson.

I’m behind Davidson for several reasons. Davidson is the underdog. Davidson is a North Carolina school. Davidson’s coach is a class act.

But mostly I’m for Davidson because they’re not a relation. You see, Kansas and North Carolina are family, of sorts. Family in the way that old European empires were related – they traded princes and princesses back and forth, mostly for more gold and improved political standing. Sometimes out of loyalty.

But there was always a danger that you could end up fighting your family.

The Kansas-North Carolina connection goes way back to the birth of Dean Smith in Emporia, Kansas. He went on to enroll and Kansas University, where he played basketball and learned to love the game.

Smith went on to coaching greatness at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. There, he had an assistant from Asheville named Roy Williams. Williams went on to coaching greatness at – Kansas. Williams took his Kansas team all the way to the national championship game in 2003, but lost to Syracuse.

That same year, Williams heeded the call of his mentor and left Kansas to become head coach at Carolina. Back in 2000, Smith had asked Williams to come be Carolina’s head coach, but Williams turned him down.

Two years after taking the Carolina coaching job, Williams won his first national championship (2005, beating Illinois.)

In 1957, the North Carolina Tar Heels, under coach Frank McGuire, won their first ever national championship in a legendary triple-overtime thriller against – Kansas.

When Williams turned down Smith, he broke Carolina hearts. When he left Kansas three years later, he broke Jayhawk hearts.

And they haven’t forgotten. That’s what makes me nervous. All this history. This talk of basketball royalty. The connections, the hurt feelings. The emotion of it all may be too much to bear.

This story in the Kansas City Star captures it:

Ever since the breakup, it has been second nature for Aaron Schwindt to root against Roy Williams.

So when the Louisville Cardinals tied the score in the second half against Williams’ North Carolina Tar Heels on Saturday night, Schwindt and the other Kansas fans at Hockeytown Café in downtown Detroit started clapping and cheering.

Really, though, Schwindt was happy with the end result, a North Carolina victory. Now, it’s all up to the Jayhawks, who will ultimately decide today against Davidson whether there will be a five-year reunion next weekend in San Antonio.

Boy, wouldn’t that be something? And, dad gummit, think of the sob stories. Schwindt, like many other KU fans, wouldn’t want to hear it. When Williams broke his heart, it took him six months to get over it. It’s been five years, and he’s finally in a good place in regard to the ex.

“I’m really indifferent to Roy,” says Schwindt, a 28-year-old from Shawnee. “I don’t care what he does.”

But what is it about Roy Williams that Kansas fans can’t seem to forgive? Larry Brown left the school on probation, and he’s a legend in Lawrence. Sure, Brown also won a national title, but Williams made KU his home for 15 years, took the Jayhawks to four Final Fours and left a firm foundation that has helped Bill Self win 139 games in five years.

Well, it’s pretty simple actually. Nobody likes feeling as if they’ve been lied to by their lover. Carry that resentment around, and you can’t help but want revenge.

For some, that’s what makes KU-Carolina a dream scenario. Beat Williams, North Carolina and those diamond-patterned shorts on the way to a national championship, and it’s even sweeter.

“It would be poetic to beat Roy and then win it all,” says Schwindt’s friend, Brian Stratman, a KU grad from Bloomington, Ill. “Icing on the cake.”

For others, it’s a nightmare. Lose to Williams in the Final Four, and it’s an uppercut to the face on top of the punch in the gut you already get by losing one game from college basketball’s most coveted stage.

Good grief.

Go Davidson!!!