New Orleans ? Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius doesn’t intend on letting Kansas University lose coach Roy Williams — and she’s willing to take prisoners.

“I’m willing to dedicate a prison cell, to lock him down and not let him out until basketball season if that’s what it takes,” Sebelius said, walking into Kansas University’s pep rally at the Sheraton New Orleans, where more than 2,500 KU fans packed an upstairs ballroom. “We need him here. He’s fabulous. Anything it takes, we’ll do.”

Also in the house: Lawrence’s own Sandy Praeger, state insurance commissioner.

Insurance companies might want to listen up: She’s willing to fast-track approval for any firm willing to write policies on Roy Williams. She’d be backing the consumers: all those KU fans hoping and praying that Williams would spurn any possible overture from the University of North Carolina about becoming the next coach in Chapel Hill, N.C.

“Roy insurance only pays off if he stays,” Praeger said before Saturday’s game. “You don’t make any money if he leaves. “

Banker rates interest

Jack Dicus, chairman of Topeka-based Capitol Federal Savings, figures Williams isn’t going anywhere.

You might even say Dicus is banking on it, rating the chances of Williams returning to KU next year at 100 percent.

“Roy’s going to stay,” said Dicus. “He’s got to. He’ll do it. I think he is Kansas, and he’ll stay.”

Rallying cry

Al Bohl walked onto the stage of KU’s pregame pep rally, just as he had before each of the Jayhawks’ previous postseason tournament games this year.

But this time the Kansas athletic director was welcomed by as many boos and hisses as polite applause.

“That’s no bueno,” said Billy LaFavor, one of at least 2,500 fans on hand, and one of the few sporting a KU cape.

Bohl, whose chilly relationship with Williams has led to speculation of the AD’s ouster soon after season’s end, managed to strike an upbeat tone behind the microphone.

“We had a great time in Anaheim,” he called out, recalling the site of KU’s regional championship last week. “We’ll have a super time in New Orleans.”

Applause.

“The Jayhawks have the best coach,” he said.

More applause.

“The Jayhawks have the best players.”

More applause.

“And the Jayhawks have you, the best fans.”

More applause.

Will Bohl weather the storm? LaFavor’s friend, Paul Neuburger, doesn’t think so.

“I say let Roy have what he wants,” said Neuburger, a Lawrence native.

All play, no work

Chris Piper, the Lawrence High School graduate whose fundamental play helped lift KU to its last national title in 1988, is pulling a Williams.

He’s not even thinking about the possibility of coach leaving for a job in North Carolina.

“I’ll worry about it after the next couple of days,” Piper said. “I’m here to have fun.”

Piper, owner of Grandstand Sportswear in Lawrence, spent much of this season offering TV commentary for KU and Big 12 Conference games.

“I won’t have to work,” he said, before hitting the French Quarter with former KU basketball players Jeff Dishman and Tad Boyle and former KU football player Jamey Steinhauser. “I’m here just to have a good time.”

Beak ‘Em bankroll

Betsy McKnight is bankrolling her Bourbon Street revelry with a little help from dad.

McKnight, a KU senior from Overland Park, is hawking paper Beak ‘Em Hawks hats in New Orleans this week, courtesy of her father, Rob McKnight.

The disposable chapeaus are leftovers from the 1991 Final Four in Indianapolis, when Rob McKnight joined with friends Steve Vormehr and Dave Cohen to print up the hats and hand them out for free at the Hoosier Dome.

This time, Betsy McKnight and her own group of fellow KU seniors — Ashley Voss, Prairie Village; Emilie Wagner, Overland Park; and Beth Bowen, Denver — are raking in $1 per hat. Rob McKnight sent 500 of them to New Orleans.

Whereabouts known?

Charlie Santaularia, Anthony Santaularia and Shannon Guelbert are stand-up guys. All three KU fans made it to the Final Four without lying about their whereabouts.

Too much.

“I said I was on a job interview,” said Guelbert, a KU junior from Overland Park, who works in the Italy study abroad office at KU’s business school. He figures he might be able to talk to someone about a job in New Orleans.

“I’m honest,” he said.

Anthony Santaularia, a senior from Lawrence, jaunted over to New Orleans after interviewing for a real estate job earlier in the week in Orlando, Fla., … really.

“It’s my dad’s company,” he said.

Anthony’s brother, Charlie Santaularia, is a sophomore on the KU golf team. And like a tap-in putt for par, he isn’t all that worried about anyone sniffing out his travel plans.

“Everybody knows I’m here,” he said.

But it seems their female travel companions are operating on the sly.

“I told my teachers my grandmother died,” one said, unwilling to divulge her identity.

“Me, too,” another said.