Neither of These Coaches Is Ready for Seconds

They have combined for 1,070 wins, 71 NCAA tournament game victories, six Final Four appearances and as many national titles as your Aunt Fanny.

Tonight, barring a power outage, the river rising or Bud Selig decreeing the game a tie, Roy Williams of Kansas or Jim Boeheim of Syracuse will score a break-out victory.

Williams and Boeheim insist one game of round ball will not define their careers or even get them better seats in restaurants.

Of course, that’s a load of lard.

The only man who wants tonight’s national title game more than Williams is Boeheim and the only guy who wants it worse than Boeheim is Williams.

Unfortunately, one man’s validation has to come at the expense of the other.

Tonight’s winner gets to slip into the legend’s robe while the loser laments about the game being about relationships.

We don’t make up the rules.

If there is no disproportional value on ultimate success, and second-best is A-OK in our books, what’s the difference between Marv Levy and Vince Lombardi?

If you really want to earn a potato chip commercial and your professional props, getting over the hump counts -- if only to change the subject at press conferences. Ask Steve Young about it.

For what it’s worth, Williams’ winning percentage of .807 ranks him first among active Division I-A coaches. Boeheim ranks second at .743.

On the all-time win percentage list, Williams ranks third behind Clair Bee, Adolph Rupp and is one spot ahead of John Wooden.

You would think a man hanging laundry in this neighborhood ought to have by now won something more important than the Big 12.

Williams and Boeheim have had remarkable rides, churning out winners in places you would not call resort destinations.

Since 1988, Williams has lured kids out of la-la Los Angeles to play in the plains of cold-cold Kansas.

Since the 1970s, Boeheim has hoodwinked recruits to Western New York with fanciful tales of summer canoe rides and picnics on the lake.

Boeheim’s calendar is conspicuously missing December, January, February and March.

“For eight months of the year, it’s the best place to be in the country,” Boeheim says of Syracuse. “The other four is basketball season.”

Williams and Boeheim have done everything except win the big one.

“I think Jimmy has even taken those bad sayings or criticism longer than I have,” Williams said. “I don’t think either one of us is going to jump off the tallest building Monday night if we don’t win.”

Maybe not, but this isn’t summer league, either.

Punching a first title out probably cuts more to Williams’ core, as he spent 10 seasons as a North Carolina assistant while Dean Smith labored to claim his first national title.

Smith finally won in 1982.

“You know, I saw the criticism he took,” Williams said. “It hurt me as an assistant more than I thought it did him.”

If winning a title isn’t the end-all for Williams and Boeheim, the losing shouldn’t hurt so much. But it does.

This is Williams’ fourth trip to the Final Four. When he lost the national title game to Duke in 1991 in only his third season at Kansas, Williams figured there would many more opportunities.

Twelve years later....

Five times Kansas began the tournament seeded No. 1 and five times failed to take home the title.

Williams’ best team, the 1996-1997 incarnation, lost to fourth-seeded Arizona. Kansas finished 34-2 that season, and Williams remembers the two. Missouri beat Kansas in the regular season on a last-second shot and had that shocking loss to Arizona.

“That one hurt for a long time,” Williams said. “It still hurts.”

Boeheim has taken two Syracuse teams to the brink of victory, losing by a point to Indiana in 1987 on a Keith Smart shot and to Kentucky in 1996.

To this day, Boeheim turns his head when ESPN shows a clip of Smart’s game-winning dagger.

“I don’t watch that baby,” he said. “It may come on, but I don’t watch it.”

This is not to suggest Boeheim is fixated on that defeat and could not move on with his life.

“Yeah, I mean, it took about 10 years probably,” Boeheim said.

To understand how close Boeheim has been to fame’s flame is to know he is 3-0 in NCAA national semi-final games.

It is understandable Williams and Boeheim would use perspective and context as defense mechanisms.

Williams rattled off the list of great coaches who never closed the deal.

“Gene Keady,” Williams said of Purdue’s coach. “He can coach his rear end off. Norm Stewart won 700 games, never made it to a Final Four. Louie Carnesecca never won a championship. I can go on and on and on.”

So can we: Roy Williams, Jim Boeheim....

At some point, maybe you become resigned to your fate.

Boeheim, once obstinate and arrogant, has mellowed. He is 58 now, with a second wife and young children.

“As much as I would like to win, I absolutely don’t feel it would make any difference whatsoever in my feeling about what I do,” he insisted. “To some people that think you have to win it, those are the people I really don’t care what they think.”

The bottom line is we’re not buying it.

The nice thing about tonight’s title game is one deserving coach absolutely has to win.

The shame is one has to lose.