So Roy Williams is leaving the University of Kansas, choosing not to stick around Lawrence for the rest of his professional life and instead preferring to high-tail it to North Carolina for his dream job.

But this much we can say without the slightest fear of being contradicted: The man wants the love, the man gets the love.

For those keeping score, that would be your final.

Whether at the finish it came down to Roy's overpowering feelings for his Jayhawks players versus the inarguable depths of his Tar Heel roots, the one thing that is beyond question is that Williams has received the embrace he clearly craves.

The fact of his being held in reverence by a large segment of the Jayhawk population has been reaffirmed in rally after rally, including one just after Kansas' aching championship loss to Syracuse that attracted more than 8,000 fans.

You say Roy's got a problem with the athletic director? Athletic director gone. Problem solved. Next!

Roy has been granted court, meanwhile, in the presence of mentor and guru Dean Smith, while the country lay awash in printed rehash of the episode three years ago in which Williams reportedly disappointed Smith by turning down the North Carolina job when it was then available to him. The Tar Heels went instead with Matt Doherty. Last time they accept a guy they didn't want first, don't you think?

This time around, it's all Williams, all the time. Carolina has its man. Larry Brown was such a distant second, he was third.

Kansas, clearly in a dither, sacked AD Al Bohl last week, and without vouching for Bohl as an administrator, let's at least acknowledge that the man had the truth right in his mouth when he said he had just been sent off by the basketball coach.

"(Williams) had the power to crush me or let me fly, and he chose to crush me," Bohl said. "This is a sad day in college athletics when a college basketball coach can hire and fire an athletic director."

Actually, it's a pretty typical day in college athletics, at least at the high-stakes level; but let's not lose the trail here. The trail is love. Roy Williams needs it. Both Kansas and North Carolina made damned sure he felt it.

It was no secret that Williams didn't care for Bohl. He resented Bohl being brought in to replace Roy's friend, Bob Frederick, and he didn't appreciate Bohl firing another of Roy's friends, football coach Terry Allen, while the Jayhawks were still in their season.

Naturally, the accepted storyline quickly became that for Williams to stay, Bohl would have to go. After whacking Bohl, Kansas chancellor Robert Hemenway, while denying the move was a direct concession to Williams, added, "We have to trust him to make the right decision now."

Credit the Jayhawks with knowing what Williams appeared to need the most.

Roy has been searching for love, and what that makes him is so utterly human. He isn't the first man to wonder if he might feel it more strongly someplace else, and, now that he is going to Carolina, he won't be the last person in the sports universe to go chasing after such a possibility no matter how problematic it seems to quantify the thing.

Kansas loves Williams. It's a fact. But perhaps Roy can make the Carolinians love him, too, or harder, or something. Perhaps it will be a different kind of slap on the back. Maybe it will feel like something more, coming from the place that had Smith on the sidelines for so very long, Dean himself bringing his pupil back into the fold. Maybe it will feel like nothing else could feel.

That's the kind of wonder-filled question, coming from Roy Williams, that the fine folks at Kansas just can't answer no matter how many Al Bohls they fire. They're crazy about him right now, the Jayhawks are. What an odd thing, that in the end that kind of affection just wasn't enough.

Mark Kreidler is a columnist with the Sacramento Bee and a regular contributor to ESPN.com.