Why not here?

That’s the question many basketball fans in Lawrence asked Monday night as former Kansas University coach Roy Williams ended the quest for his elusive first national championship — not at KU, where he spent 15 years, but at his alma mater of North Carolina.

“I wish it was with us. That’s the best sentiment I can express,” said KU graduate student Steven Sodergren, 27, of Glen Ellyn, Ill., who watched the game at the Red Lyon Tavern, 944 Mass. “If he was going to do it, I wish he would have stayed here, followed through with it and then gone on to his dream job.”

Some fans were able to muster good will for Williams even while wishing it had been KU in the championship.

“I guess I’m happy for him, but I really don’t care at the same time,” said Chris Neverve, 24, a Red Lyon bartender.

Across town at Set ‘Em Up Jacks, 1800 E. 23rd St., North Carolina fan Aaron Hogner offered a twist on the often-heard opinion that Williams couldn’t win the championship for KU.

“He had to go back home and win a championship because KU couldn’t get it for him,” said Hogner, 21, who’s from Cherokee, N.C., 40 miles from Williams’ hometown of Asheville.

Hogner, wearing a North Carolina-blue jersey, watched the game with fellow members of the Haskell Indian Nations University basketball team.

Former KU assistant basketball coach Jerry Waugh, a friend of Williams’, said he was pleased for Williams because “he’s come so close and had great teams. You need to win the one.”

Kansas University graduate student Steven Sodergren of Glen Ellyn, Ill., watches the national title game Monday night at the Red Lyon Tavern, 944 Mass., as TVs show former KU coach Roy Williams talking with his players during a timeout.

Waugh called it ridiculous that so many fans took Williams’ track record personally.

“Roy gave us 15 years, won 80 percent of his games, had his teams in the Final Four four times,” he said. “What do you want from basketball?”

Attorney and Lawrence resident Tom Bartee, who watched the game at home, said he was happy for Williams and felt no bitterness. He pointed out that if KU players hadn’t missed so many free throws two years ago against Syracuse — the team made just 12 of 30 free throws and lost by three — Williams could have won his first championship here.

“People just need to grow up and get over it,” he said.

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