MADISON, WIS. ? It was the Kohl Center, not the downtown Comedy Club, but the only thing missing from Roy Williams’ news conference on Saturday was a series of rim shots.

Williams was on the dais with his five starters for 30 minutes to discuss Kansas University’s Elite Eight game today against Oregon. When the players  including Drew Gooden  got up to leave, the coach stuck around for another 25 minutes.

“Take your name tags with you in case someone thinks you’re Dwight Gooden,” Williams said to his junior forward.

Ba-dump-bump.

Gooden has grown increasingly frustrated by broadcasters who confuse his name with that of the former major league pitcher. The mix-ups continue, despite the fact Gooden was Big 12 player of the year, All-American and co-national player of the year.

“If they don’t know now that my name is Drew Gooden, I don’t know when they’re going to know,” he said.

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Picking sides: Today’s matchup with Oregon will be bittersweet for at least one former Jayhawk. Jerry Green was an original member of Williams’ staff at KU from 1988 to 1992. He left Lawrence to be the head coach at Oregon, where he inherited a team that had lost 21 games the previous season. After two losing seasons, Green led the Ducks to three winning seasons, an NCAA berth and an NIT berth before taking the job at Tennessee.

“My guess is that he will be pulling for Kansas a little bit more than Oregon because he’s my golf partner in the summer and spring,” Williams said. “If he doesn’t, his butt’s going to be in trouble.”

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Enough already: One victory from a Final Four berth, Williams is repeatedly being asked when he will shed the label of “best coach never to win a national championship.”

Williams insists that winning a title won’t change how he feels about his job or how hard he works.

“The relationships that I have with my players is the most important thing in the world to me,” he said. “The second most important reason to win one is so that I want have to keep answering that question.”

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And another thing: Williams is also weary of reporters questioning the toughness of his team, especially after a 16-0 run through the Big 12, which included road victories at Texas, Missouri and Iowa State.

KU’s coach said his team will never be considered tough by the media because the Jayhawks prefer an up-tempo, finesse game to a physical, halfcourt game.

“When people talk in terms of toughness, they think it’s a manhood thing. I’ve never seen a player yet in a basketball game that I wouldn’t fight during a game  even Chris Christoffersen,” he said, referring to Oregon’s 7-foot-2 center. “You know why? They’re going to break it up in two seconds. You don’t have to be tough to fight in a basketball game. I wouldn’t want to fight any of you guys out in the an alley necessarily. I’ll fight anyone in here during a game. It’ll get broken up, and you stand there and make faces.

“Toughness to me is as much mental  if not more so  than physical in basketball. You have to be able to answer the challenge. Don’t tell Christoffersen that I want to fight him, though.”

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Hair ball: Williams acknowledged that Oregon’s curly-haired, sharp-shooting sophomore guards, Luke Jackson and Luke Ridnour, reminded him a bit of former Kansas guard Luke Axtell.

“There’s two or three of them that look like Luke Axtell out there,” he said, “and they shoot it about as well as Luke could, too.”

One Web site named Jackson and KU guard Kirk Hinrich to an all-hair team.

“I don’t know what hair has to do with it,” Jackson said. “I’m going to be ready to play tomorrow, no matter what my hair looks like.”