New Orleans ? Roy Williams doesn’t have time to think about the coaching job at North Carolina right now.

But Williams, Kansas University’s basketball coach, made it clear he wouldn’t even ponder the vacancy at his alma mater until after the Final Four.

Williams has been facing questions about UNC since coach Matt Doherty, a former KU assistant, was forced out Tuesday.

During a news conference Friday at the Superdome, where his team will face Marquette at 5:07 tonight in the first national semifinal, Williams was asked why he hadn’t made it clear what he intends to do.

“Well, it’s easy,” he said. “Before you make every decision in your life, you ought to think about it. And, by God, I’m not going to think one second that’s going to take me away from Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich. Whether it’s media, whether it’s college presidents, whether it’s anybody in the world, if they have a tough time with that, that’s their problem.”

Williams’ problem is preparing his Jayhawks (29-7) for a Marquette squad (27-5) that upended second-seeded Pittsburgh and top-seeded Kentucky last week in the Midwest Regional at Minneapolis.

Williams said he wouldn’t be distracted by rumors and speculation.

“You know, the one thing that I’ve noticed is that it’s made me concentrate even more,” said Williams, who is seeking his first national title. “I’ve never been one to sleep a lot, but a lot of times in life when you wake up you say, ‘I’ll lay here a little longer; maybe I’ll go back to sleep.’ This week I haven’t done that. This week, when I wake up, I get up. There’s something I can be reading about Marquette, some other tape I can be looking at. What it’s done for me is made me focus even harder. When I go in that meeting room, those kids know I’m with them. When I go in there and stand in front of them, they know my mind is not elsewhere, my mind has never been elsewhere, that my mind is with them.

“If your son was playing for Kansas, you wouldn’t have a lot of respect for a coach that wouldn’t give them 100 percent. And I’ll be darned if there’s ever going to be a parent that thinks I haven’t given my team everything I can possibly give them. I really don’t understand why people can’t stop with the first answer they get, I guess.”

But the questions keep coming for Williams and his players.

“When you have such an opportunity, you can’t let things you don’t have control of weigh on your mind,” Hinrich said. “We’re so excited to be here. We’re into this. That’s the bottom line. We’re not thinking about any outside factors.”

“We’re concentrating on playing Marquette,” Collison said. “It may be harder for him with everyone asking questions, but as players we’re excited to play on Saturday night.”

Williams has been through this before. Carolina courted him in the summer of 2000 after coach Bill Guthridge resigned.

Williams was expected to return to UNC, where he played on the freshman team in 1968-69, earned two education degrees in the early 1970s and worked as an assistant coach to Dean Smith from 1978 to 1988.

But Williams, a Carolina native, stunned the Tar Heels when he stayed in Lawrence.

When Doherty was hired to replace Guthridge, Williams thought he’d never have to deal with UNC rumors again, but his 41-year-old protege was forced out this week after the Heels failed to reach the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row.

Williams likely will continue to face questions until the matter is resolved, but reporters in New Orleans likely will keep hearing the same answers.

“My team, my staff, our school, everybody … we have the right to enjoy this week,” Williams said, reiterating comments he made earlier in the week. “I think we should have the right to smile and feel good and not have to answer some crazy things.

“I told my staff, ‘Today is the greatest day there is to be a basketball coach because you’re going to go out on that floor and practice in front of the public. There’s going to be a lot of coaches there, and they wish they were where you are. I think it’s a shame that the timing of someone else’s scenario bothers that or raises these questions. But I understand you guys have to do your job, too.”