Atlanta ? Roy Williams’ final locker-room speech to his 2001-02 Kansas basketball players is one the Jayhawks will never forget.

“Looking at him crying up there talking to us  it got everybody’s emotions. It was just a sentimental moment for us,” KU junior Drew Gooden said, reflecting on the moments immediately after KU’s 97-88 loss to Maryland in the Final Four semifinals.

“He told us he just wished he could have won a national championship for us and we wish we could have won it for him. One of my goals was for him to have a smile on his face after our last game. I wanted to do that for my coach. It didn’t happen.”

Williams said a lot of things to the Jayhawks following a wacky semifinal in which KU cut a 20-point deficit to four late.

“It’s the most inadequate feeling you can ever have as a coach, figuring out what to say,” Williams said. “When you realize it’s the end of the season  the suddenness that it hits you that it’s over  it’s just hard.

“I said a lot of things to the kids. I said they took me for a great ride. It’s as fun a team as I’ve ever had in my entire life.”

Williams says he trusted this team more than any in recent memory and he had a blast every day coaching this group.

“I think kids have a great ability to bounce back. It comes with youth. They are so much better at that than coaches,” Williams said. “It won’t be long that they’ll feel good about what they accomplished. They will always have the sorrow of not winning the last game, but they’ll feel good about the season.”

It was a season in which KU went undefeated in the Big 12 and reached the Final Four for the first time since 1993.

“Coach said he’s proud of us, that he had a lot of fun and not to remember this season based on one game,” junior forward Nick Collison said after scoring 21 points, 15 the second half. “After a while we are going to look back and realize we had a good season. It’s not what everybody wanted. We felt this was our year. It’s good we went down swinging, but at the same time, we are not into moral victories.”

KU relished each of its 33 victories.

“We had a lot of fun with this team. You can’t replace that,” Gooden said. “I look at all the good this team accomplished. Nobody can take away what we accomplished this year, to get this far. A lot of people didn’t think we could do it. We did it. We just didn’t bring our A-game and Maryland did.”

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Miles dandy: Aaron Miles, who helped fuel KU’s late comeback, finished the final game of his freshman year with 10 assists, three turnovers and two steals.

“I never thought we were out of the game. As a ballplayer you’ve gotta believe,” Miles said. “You gotta believe.”

“Aaron is the one who brought us back,” Collison said. “He was telling everybody to keep playing. Aaron was stealing the ball. He made us believe with his play.”

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Finale revisited: Gooden reflected on the finale in which he had four points at halftime and finished with 15 on 5-of-12 shooting.

“I had one of the worst games of my life and it was on the wrong day,” he said. “I feel I couldn’t get in rhythm, couldn’t get in a groove.”

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Kirk’s take: Kirk Hinrich on the Jayhawks’ season-ending loss: “It seems the closer you get to your goal the more it hurts. There’s a lot of emotion. It’s our last time playing with coach Dougherty (Neil, who is off to TCU to be head coach). It’s the last time playing with ‘Bosch’ (Jeff Boschee). I played a lot of minutes with Jeff Boschee. I don’t know what it’ll be like without Jeff out there.”

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Great career: Boschee finishes as the all-time leading three-point bomber in Big 12 history with 338 threes in 843 attempts. He also had more threes than anybody who played in the Big Eight.

“I don’t regret any choice I made coming out of high school,” said the Valley City, N.D. native. “I wanted to play for this program since I was a young kid and accomplish some of the goals we set at the beginning of the year. To win the conference championship, make it to the Final Four, win the regional finals, you can’t ask for much more. It was a dream season. We didn’t reach our final goal.”

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Mum on flight time: KU’s players and team managers were to fly commercially to KC International today at an undisclosed time.

“Everything is returning to normal,” KU associate athletics director Doug Vance said, noting the students were returning so they could go to class. The KU coaches will return Tuesday in time for a 4 p.m. celebration at Memorial Stadium.

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Wet floor again: KU’s first and last games of the season were played on slippery floors. At the Maui Invitational, the Jayhawks slipped and suffered cramps in a steamy Lahaina Civic Center gym. On Saturday, a rainstorm resulted in a leaky Georgia Dome roof.

KU’s Keith Langford slipped and fell on his left wrist and was in pain after the game. He’s lucky, however, as KU’s team doctor said he has a sprain, not a break.

Anything that can be done to prevent the wet floor for tonight’s final?

“Bring extra towels,” NCAA media coordinator Jim Marchiony told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It was a very, very humid, warm day and evening. That contributed to the stoppages (to wipe floor).”

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Players get shaft?: Critics note the NCAA makes millions of dollars off men’s basketball and yet the organization won’t fly relatives of players to games.

KU’s Brett Ballard was asked about the situation.

“I’ve got a lot of other relatives who would have liked to come, but it’s very expensive  airfare, hotel,” Ballard said. “It’s tough and I wish there was something the NCAA could do. Our family is not filled with doctors and lawyers. It’s filled with teachers and farmers.”

His parents, sister and uncle traveled to the tourney.

The NCAA has said if it paid for expenses for men’s basketball players’ family members, they’d have to do so at all NCAA championships, including nonrevenue sports.