Membership in this club doesn’t have its privileges

Four things to watch in Saturday’s national semifinals:

1 Something’s Bruin. UCLA is back in the Final Four for the third year in a row and everyone wants to talk about the pressure on Ben Howland?

Kansas Coach Bill Self faced considerably more to reach his first Final Four after first-round losses to Bucknell in 2005 and Bradley in 2006 -- and that near-disaster against Davidson in the Midwest Regional final.

Still, if UCLA doesn’t win the NCAA title, some people will anoint Howland the latest Coach Who Can’t Win the Big One.

He shouldn’t worry. The famous alumni of the Can’t Win the Big One Club include North Carolina’s Roy Williams, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, Arizona’s Lute Olson -- and before them all, North Carolina’s Dean Smith.

As Smith famously said when he finally won his first title in 1982, “I’m not any better a coach than I was 2 1/2 hours ago.”

Boeheim echoed those words the night he won the title in 2003.

“I don’t feel any smarter,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

2 Ol’ Roy’s bracket nightmare

Kansas fans still feel jilted about Roy Williams’ leaving for North Carolina five years ago -- and now the Jayhawks and Tar Heels meet in a national semifinal Saturday.

But it’s hardly the most wrenching matchup Williams ever experienced. In 1991 and ’93 at Kansas, he coached against his mentor, Smith, and his alma mater North Carolina in the Final Four.

“I’m hopeful it will die down,” Williams said of the Kansas hubbub. “I gave my heart and soul for 15 years. I loved that place, will always love that place. People pass me in the airport and say ‘Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk,’ and I say ‘Go KU.’

“It should be about the players and this year’s players, and I think that as we go along, we’ll hopefully be able to make that happen.”

He’s right, it should be about the players, and it’s hard to beat these starting fives.

For Kansas: Darrell Arthur, Darnell Jackson, Brandon Rush, Mario Chalmers and Russell Robinson.

And for North Carolina: Marcus Ginyard, Deon Thompson, Tyler Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson.

3 R-E-S-P-E-C-T

This year, in the Aretha Franklin role once adopted by Nolan Richardson’s Arkansas Razorbacks, John Calipari and the Memphis Tigers are saying nobody respects them.

It’s one of the oldest tricks around, but the way Memphis is playing lately, it looks as if Joey Dorsey and Chris Douglas-Roberts are buying what Calipari is selling.

As for freshman point guard Derrick Rose, he’s so good he doesn’t seem to be worried about anybody missing that point.

But how can there be an underdog in this field of four No. 1-seeded teams anyway?

North Carolina has a record of 36-2.

UCLA and Kansas are both 35-3.

And Memphis is 37-1.

“They made us play Texas in Texas,” Calipari said. “That game we were supposed to lose -- in front of 30,000 Longhorns fans -- we won.

“The only thing I told our team is, ‘This is our time. It doesn’t matter what they throw at us. This is our time.’ ”

4 Maybe next year, Cinderella?

This Final Four will probably be it for UCLA center Kevin Love and Memphis’ Rose. But in an era of one-and-done players, Davidson’s high-scoring sophomore, Stephen Curry, said he’ll return for his junior season to try to make another run at the Final Four after his team fell a basket short.

“I’m definitely coming back,” the reed-thin 6-foot-3, 185-pound guard said. “I don’t think I’m ready.”

He doesn’t have an NBA body, but he has an NBA game.

Curry averaged 34.5 points during the NCAA tournament -- and impressed NBA star LeBron James, who was sitting courtside.

Curry also impressed his father, Dell Curry, who played 15 professional seasons.

“What he’s done has topped anything I did in the NBA,” Dell Curry told reporters. “It’s been amazing.”

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robyn.norwood@latimes.com