Jayhawks’ Exit Wounds Haven’t Healed

Roy Williams, Kansas’ perpetually sunny basketball coach, tightened his jaw, narrowed his eyes, clenched his teeth. The question has become tiresome, the implications ominous.

Is this game against Illinois tonight at the Kohl Center, a semifinal game in the NCAA Midwest Regional, a Sweet 16 game that could be the best of the bunch in this round ... is it a revenge game, Roy? Is there evil intent on your mind? The way Illinois beat your Jayhawks in the Sweet 16 a year ago, beat them physically and mentally and thoroughly ... hasn’t that been gnawing at you, Roy? Doesn’t it make you want to spit out the nasty taste? Haven’t you been growling at your players ever since the draw came out, “We must beat the heck out of Illinois?”

This is, Williams says, glaring, a rather silly question, isn’t it? “If I talk about last year’s game,” Williams says, “I’ve got three of my top seven players looking at me and having no idea what I’m talking about because we have three freshmen in our top seven and they have no clue.”

If Kansas loses to Illinois tonight, it will be a devastating blow, and about that all the Jayhawks have a clue. It will be a kick in the gut. It will bring tears and searching for reasons. Kansas is the polar opposite of UCLA. Kansas is master of the regular season, flop of the postseason. This is the fifth time a Williams-coached Kansas team has been seeded No. 1. Three more times it has been seeded No. 2. But while there have been two Final Fours (no titles), there have also been five second-round losses by Williams’ Jayhawks.

“We know about last year,” rookie guard Aaron Miles says grimly. “We’ve seen the film,” freshman guard Keith Langford says. “It’s not a secret, what happened against Illinois,” first-year forward Wayne Simien says.

On Midwest Regional media day here, there is so much unspoken when Kansas comes to the microphones. It is almost as difficult as pulling the wings off flies, pushing Williams to talk about the NCAA tournament. Williams has taken the Jayhawks to 12 NCAAs. There are so many sorry exits.

For example, Kansas, seeded No. 2, lost to No. 7 UCLA in the second round in 1990; Kansas, seeded No. 1, lost to No. 9 Texas El Paso in 1992; Kansas, seeded No. 1, lost to No. 8 Rhode Island in 1998.

That last one hurt. A Kansas radio announcer did his postgame show from press row after that loss and he almost had tears in his eyes. Who was Rhode Island? Why was that mean man, Jim Harrick, beating the Jayhawks? Why was Lamar Odom even in school? Rhode Island was never on television. What conference did Rhode Island come from? How, how did it happen? This was the year Williams was going to win it all, for sure, absolutely, if there was any justice. The players were inconsolable. Williams was ashen.

And the story was such a rerun. Kansas always brings big, tall, deep teams to the NCAA tournament. The Jayhawks are always highly ranked and well-coached. The players are polite and graduate from college. At home, at Allen Fieldhouse, where the noise is deafening and the officials kind, the Jayhawks are oh, so tough. They run up and down the floor and as the season moves along they run faster and gain momentum and score 100 points a couple of times, the word builds, the reputation grows, the hype expands.

This, this will be the year Roy Williams gets his national title.

But then the Jayhawks leave Allen Fieldhouse and they find out that running doesn’t work if the other team is faster. That depth doesn’t matter if the other team is stronger. Or that height is nice for cutting down nets at the Big 12 tournament, but if those big guys have slow feet and slow legs, height just slows you down.

So here the Jayhawks are again. As they swept through the Big 12--the conference with four teams still alive as the Sweet 16 began Thursday--without losing a regular-season game, the momentum gathered steam, the hype expanded, the hopes swelled.

Being undefeated in the Big 12 erased from memory the way UCLA, with its depth, its speed, its size, ran over Kansas.

It’s harder, though, to ignore how big, strong, quick Oklahoma ran over Kansas in the final of the Big 12 tournament. Or how undersized underdog Holy Cross caused the Jayhawks to seize up in the first round, sticking close until the end, leading for significant parts of the second half.

So Jayhawk Nation is uneasy about this game against Illinois.

Disappointing as they may have been during the regular season, the Illini are not significantly different from the team that beat Kansas so badly a year ago. Some muscle and steadiness left with Sergio McClain, but mostly Illinois is still strong and athletic.

Still, it is Kansas with the glamour player, multi-talented forward Drew Gooden. Kansas has three smart guards in the starting lineup to set the tempo, control the ups and downs and swings in momentum. Kansas seems to have received a favorable draw, getting unathletic Stanford in the second round and either history-hindered Oregon or Big 12 patsy Texas in the regional final.

Except first there is this bully, this Big Ten toughie with hard-nosed players and a certain swagger that comes with the memories of that 80-64 win a year ago. As the Kansas players were pounded with Illinois questions Thursday afternoon, their shoulders seemed to sag a bit, their smiles went away, their hands rolled into fists.

“We really have nothing to lose,” Illinois guard Frank Williams said.

Nobody from Kansas said anything like that at all.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.