Little known fact: Kansas University’s Roy Williams coached ninth-grade football from 1973 to 1977 at Owen High School in Swannanoa, N.C.

“The pageantry of high school football is something I loved, but I hated practice,” Williams said on Wednesday after learning he’d been named Big 12 Basketball Coach of the Year by both the Associated Press and his coaching peers. “In basketball, I love the practices. The games … I say, ‘I guess we’ve got to go play now.”’

Realizing a team practices a lot more than it plays, Williams early on decided to be the next Dean Smith, not the next Knute Rockne.

Good choice, according to the AP voters who tapped Williams conference coach of the year for the sixth time in his 14 seasons at Kansas.

“This team has been marvelous, a joy,” said Williams, whose Jayhawks finished 16-0 in league play and are 27-2 overall entering Friday’s noon Big 12 tournament game against either Nebraska or Colorado at Kemper Arena. “Even when I get mad at them at practice, it hasn’t lasted very long.”

That’s partly because practices haven’t lasted long during the 2001-02 campaign.

Williams, who received 14 votes to Texas Tech runner-up Bob Knight’s 10 in the AP polling, decided to shorten practices after speaking to junior Nick Collison during the preseason.

“I have trusted this team all the way back to the preseason when Nick asked about shortening up practice a bit,” Williams said. “We did that and the kids, for the most part, played their tails off.

“Nick talked to me about shortening practice, being fresher at the end. I have a great deal of trust and complete confidence in him and said, ‘Let’s try it.”’

It worked.

“It was not that big a talk, not as big as he makes it sound,” Collison said with a sheepish grin. “He asked me one time what I thought about maybe going shorter. I said, ‘Sure, it’s fine with me.’ Basically that’s all it was. He makes it sound like I came in with boards or outlined plans and lines, like a big deal. He kind of ran it by me and I said sure. That’s how it went down.”

The Jayhawks, who sometimes went past two hours per practice in the past, have cut the time slot considerably.

“Some days we go longer than others,” Collison said. “Some days we go 40 minutes, others an hour and 10 minutes or an hour, 20 minutes. Hardly any practice has gone over two hours. My freshman year every day was at least two hours. I do think we do get more out of practice when it’s shorter. When you are in there a long time for weeks and weeks guys worry more about getting through practice and don’t give as much effort.”

Collison said Williams deserves the league’s top coaching honor.

“To win every game, especially when other teams are shooting for you every night … you can’t give it to anybody else,” Collison said.

Not that KU’s coach didn’t have competition.

“I’m extremely flattered,” Williams said. “In this league there are so many great coaches and so many that did outstanding jobs. What coach Knight did at Texas Tech was a great accomplishment, what Kelvin Sampson did at Oklahoma, Rick Barnes at Texas … You can go down the line. I will be sure to thank my team.”

A breakdown of the coaches’ voting was not released, but Williams’ peers conceded the honor.

“Roy Williams is a great coach,” Sampson said. “For his players to be up night after night and withstand every challenge in the league they have this year is really unbelievable. It also says a lot about the kind of kids he’s brought into his program.”

The Big 12 honors might not be the last for Williams this season.

“That team has a special togetherness that I haven’t seen since I’ve been here. And it starts with Roy,” Iowa State’s Larry Eustachy said. “They work hard. Roy Williams is the MVP of that team. I think Roy is definitely a candidate for national coach of the year.

“You know he likes his team when his coat stays on and his tie isn’t loosened. The last couple of years, his coat used to come off. His tie would get loose. He’s brought this group together as any team is together that I’ve ever played against.”

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Coaches all-league: Drew Gooden was named Big 12 Player of the Year by the conference coaches on Wednesday, a day after being named the league’s top player by AP. Gooden and Kirk Hinrich made first team all-league and Collison second team. Jeff Boschee earned honorable mention.

Collison also was second team AP all league.

“I think I had just as good a years as some of those guys but they had good years, too,” Collison said of the first team members, who included Andre Emmett, Kareem Rush, Aaron McGhee and Hollis Price as the coaches picked six players. “If you could put more on there I’m sure I’d be there. It’s just a piece of paper. You’d like to be first team, but I’d rather win a national championship.”

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USBWA honorees: Gooden on Wednesday was named a first-team All America player by the United States Basketball Writers Assn. He was joined by Dan Dickau (Gonzaga), Juan Dixon (Maryland), Steve Logan (Cincinnati) and Jason Williams (Duke). Gooden was named District Six player of the year. Boschee, Hinrich and Collison made the 10-man All-District team. Williams was named District Six coach of the year.