Anaheim, Calif. ? Roy Williams has spent more than a month trying to convince people he isn’t interested in the coaching job at UCLA.

Now Kansas University’s veteran basketball coach is being peppered with questions about the job at North Carolina, though the Tar Heels still have a coach.

“North Carolina has a coach, a coach that I care about greatly, and that’s the way I’m going to leave it,” Williams said Friday at Arrowhead Pond.

Williams tried to leave it at that, but media gathered for tonight’s West Regional final between second-seeded Kansas and top-seeded Arizona kept the questions coming.

There has been speculation that former Kansas assistant Matt Doherty will be fired as Carolina’s head coach, which would give Williams a second opportunity to return to his alma mater. Williams, a North Carolina native who was an assistant to Dean Smith from 1978 to 1988, was offered UNC’s head-coaching job in the summer of 2000 after Bill Guthridge retired.

Williams mulled the offer for a week before deciding he couldn’t leave his KU players, including freshmen Nick Collison, Kirk Hinrich and Drew Gooden.

“It was an extremely difficult decision for me,” Williams said. “It was probably the worst seven days of my life. I felt like I couldn’t make a perfect decision because I was going to disappoint people regardless of what I did.

“I had Kirk and Nick as freshmen. I wanted to coach them. I felt like it was the right thing to do, and that’s the reason I made that decision. It was something that was really hard. I’ve enjoyed the heck out of coaching these guys. It’s been a lot of fun.”

Much like that year, he will have sophomores Aaron Miles, Keith Langford, Wayne Simien and Michael Lee

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to build around next season as well as a highly touted recruiting class.

If Williams does depart, those players could scatter.

“If coach Williams wasn’t here I wouldn’t be here,” said Langford, who has started every game this season. “If he leaves I can’t say I’ll stay here.”

Seniors Collison and Hinrich will play in their second Elite Eight game in two years tonight with a return trip to the Final Four on the line.

“It was a really rough time,” Hinrich said of the summer after his freshman year, “but it worked out good and I’m really happy he stayed.”

Carolina fans weren’t as happy. Williams had been viewed as the heir to Smith’s legacy for years and had admitted coaching in Chapel Hill was his dream job.

UNC instead turned to Doherty, a former Tar Heel who had worked for Williams from 1993 to 1999 and led Notre Dame to a 22-15 record in his only season as a head coach there in 2000.

Carolina was 26-7 in Doherty’s first season and earned a share of the 2001 ACC title. The honeymoon was clearly over, however, when the Heels slumped to 8-20 last year and didn’t play in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1974.

Things were better this year when Doherty brought in six freshmen. Carolina started 5-0, including victories against Kansas and Stanford en route to the Preseason NIT title. But the Heels lost five in a row in January, settled for a postseason NIT bid and finished 19-16.

Their season ended Wednesday with a 79-74 loss to Georgetown in the NIT quarterfinals.

UNC’s players met Thursday with athletics director Dick Baddour to discuss Doherty and the program’s problems. The Tar Heels declined comment after the meeting, and Baddour was mum about Doherty’s future.

“We don’t have a democracy at Kansas, especially on the court,” Williams said of the meeting. “And there wasn’t a democracy at North Carolina when I was an assistant coach there.”

Williams said he would be disappointed if Carolina fired his former aide.

“I would be,” he said. “I don’t have any hesitancy saying that. He’s a guy that I recruited, or helped recruit, and helped coach. A guy that I hired and worked for me for seven years. That’s the biggest trust you can give somebody, to hire them as an assistant because you’re putting your livelihood, your life and your career in their hands. It’s a guy I not only respect a great deal but someone I care about a great deal.”

Williams said he talked to Doherty Monday, but the coaches did not discuss the state of the Tar Heel program. Instead, Williams gave Doherty information about NIT opponent Wyoming, which KU defeated, 98-70, Jan. 15 in Lawrence. Doherty returned the favor with information about KU’s Sweet 16 opponent, Duke, which won two of three games against Carolina this season.

“I’ve heard a couple of things the last 24 hours, but I’m not focused on that to say the least,” said Williams, who is trying to earn his fourth Final Four berth. “I’m the Kansas coach, and that’s where I want to be. I try not to respond to rumors.

“I think they’re going to have the same coach next year and the next year. I’m one of those guys that doesn’t think it’s going to happen.”

Even if Doherty is fired, Williams said he’s already answered the Carolina question.

“In my mind I’ve already had that crossroad,” he said of choosing between Kansas and UNC. “When I made that decision, that’s what I thought it was going to be. I haven’t thought about it since. … I thought, ‘Now everybody will leave me alone.'”

Fat chance. Successful coaches are in high demand, and Williams is 416-100 in 15 years at KU. The Jayhawks have won nine conference titles and made 14 straight NCAA Tournament appearances in that time.

UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero attended Thursday’s game at the Pond, and a New York Daily News article Friday speculated Doherty would be fired and UNC would make another run at Williams.

“He’s probably the best coach in the country,” Kansas junior forward Jeff Graves said. “He puts a lot of confidence in you, and you want to play hard for him.”

Williams indicated his loyalty should speak for itself.

“When I made the decision I thought that was it,” he said. “I thought Matt Doherty, or whoever, was going to go there for 25 years and be very successful. I don’t think anybody ever says something and thinks they’re going to have to turn around and do the same thing a week later. You know, I’ve had the same wife for 29 years.”

And the same job for 15.