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Roy Williams took over a talented team two years ago, and he prodded it continuously, squeezing out improvement bit by bit. Good thing. The Tar Heels needed every ounce of his push to overcome resilient Illinois.

ST. LOUIS -- He didn't have to talk to Bonnie Bernstein this time. Her annual assignment near the close of CBS's broadcast of the NCAA championship game is to cover the losing coach's locker room. She was off in a hallway beneath the Edward Jones Dome preparing to speak with Bruce Weber of Illinois. Out on the court, confetti at his feet, his players surrounding him, North Carolina's Roy Williams was conversing jovially with Jim and Billy.

It was nothing like that moment a couple of years back. The delicate folks at the FCC still have not recovered from Bernstein's interview with Williams after Kansas' title game loss to Syracuse. North Carolina was in the market for a coach at the time, and Bernstein was compelled to ask Williams if he were considering leaving KU for North Carolina. Williams--disappointed and frustrated--was inspired to let loose a profanity he speaks about as often as he dines on barbecued yak. "I could give a hoot about North Carolina right now," he said, hoot being a nice Southern euphemism for the word he actually employed, which begins with an "S."

Two years later, he was giving Tar Heels fans the finger. Only not that finger. He waved his pinkie around for most of the past month, declaring in nearly every press conference and nearly every interview that he had more desire to win a national championship in his little finger than any Carolina fans living or dead had in their entire body--but that he still was not obsessed with it.

That is not a problem any longer. He has his championship. He earned it like few others have earned theirs. He did not have to recruit the players who won it for the Tar Heels, not most of them, but he had to win them over and convince them he was in charge and conjure up the schemes that led to a 75-70 win over Illinois, one of the most cohesive and dynamic teams in recent NCAA Tournament history.

Williams worked this game hard. He had to protect star point guard Raymond Felton from foul trouble and lined up the Heels in a flexible 1-3-1 zone that the Illini never entirely solved--helping entice them to fire a championship game record 40 3-point attempts. He called for inbounds plays that produced seven first half points. He noted Illinois' inclination to employ a power forward in attempting double-teams on wide-bodied Heels center Sean May, so he directed Jawad Williams and Marvin Williams to get as far from May as possible when he accepted an entry pass in the post.

Roy Williams would be the first to declare, though, that the real genius was on the court. It was May powering for 26 points and 10 rebounds, overwhelming an Illinois defense that could not figure how to play him. It was Felton striking with four 3-pointers, something he'd done only three times this season, and wrecking the Illini comeback by intercepting Luther Head's pass with 31 seconds left and the Heels protecting a two-point lead.

"I really don't feel like there's a load off my shoulders except I don't have to answer that question," Williams says. "Does it feel as good or better than I thought? I never let myself think that far ahead to have any idea ofwhat it was supposed to feel like."

The time showing on the game clock in the NCAA semifinals, North Carolina vs. Michigan State, was 1:46 left in the first half. That had to be recorded. That was a defining moment. That should be something for Tar Heels fans to remember when looking back upon Carolina's march to the national championship. It marked a public declaration from Roy Williams that this team belongs to him and no one else. The 1982 team belonged to Dean Smith, as did the 1993 team, but this was every bit a Roy Williams production. Which meant that although it still could pass a language test for a G rating, it might get bumped up to PG-13 because some scenes may be too intense for small children.

A little while earlier, the ball had fallen loose on the court and rolled in the general vicinity of wing Rashad McCants. He watched it. He watched as Michigan State center Paul Davis dived to the floor and grabbed it. Then, with the action halted after Davis was fouled by Carolina's David Noel, Williams glared at McCants across the floor and delivered this message: "Stop being selfish!"

The North Carolina program has belonged to Roy Williams since the day he was hired: April 14, 2003. His return thrilled Tar Heels fans who long dreamed of his replacing Smith and extending their dominance into the 21st century.

Gaining complete control of the team in place was a greater challenge that continued even into the Final Four. Williams did not surrender, though. He never had to work this hard to get Jacque Vaughn to care at Kansas, but then, Vaughn never came this close to a national title. And not all the Heels have been tough to convert. Everybody had to grow up a bit that first year, to understand who was in charge. "It was a difficult year," Williams allows. But mostly they were brilliant in 2004-05.

"One thing that I don't think people have really gotten a grasp on is I think the kids bought into what we were saying much quicker than everyone said they did," Williams says. "It's just that you have to build habits. We were trying to build habits. You don't do that overnight." In basketball, diving on the floor is a habit. Sacrifice is a habit.

Williams still was pushing for that against Michigan State, with more than three halves of Final Four basketball remaining. When they were finished, though, he claimed his first national championship as a head coach. He worked 17 seasons to gain that distinction, which does not seem like a lifetime. But he is 54 years old, a head full of whitish-gray hair offset against his perpetual tan. He visited the Final Four on four previous occasions without winning the title. Four more of his teams earned No. 1 seeds without reaching the Final Four. It was a long campaign.

Williams' arrival as UNC coach should have been an immediate smash. Six capable young players, all with extensive college experience. One Hall of Fame-level coach. The Heels went from an NIT team the previous season to an NCAA Tournament No. 6 seed in Williams' first year on the job, but their improvement was neither dramatic nor effortless.

There was acceptance, but it was not complete. Although they were part of teams that constructed a Carolina-worst 8-20 season and a 19-16 record the year after, Williams had to work to gain his players' attention. They had gotten what they wished--"Guys wanted something different, something new," senior Jackie Manuel says--but they did not immediately respond.

Williams wanted the Heels to play faster, but they were slow to reach that speed. He wanted greater commitment at the defensive end and more selflessness on offense. He wanted more passion and cooperation from McCants. There were signs of progress, though, starting with Jawad Williams' embracing the power forward position and his rapid ascent toward physical and mental toughness. He had suggested during his recruitment that he would spend his career as a shooting guard.

During preseason conditioning in the fall of 2004, even injured players--May, McCants, Marvin Williams--were coming to workouts and trying to find ways to participate and improve. "I don't think guys were really going into the season last year like 'me, me, me,' but we had a new coach, and we really didn't know exactly what he wanted from us," McCants says. "It was kind of hard to really get the trust. It was the responsibility of the players to go out there and do the things he wanted."

It was definitely a situation where Coach Williams came in, he put his foot down," Noel says. "He was expecting a full change from us. It didn't really work out that way, which was good. Because he changed and we also changed. It helped us mesh together a little bit, better than what we expected. It didn't happen on the first year. When you're building a relationship, it takes time."

Of the several hundred questions posed to Carolina players during their Final Four weekend, no theme was more prevalent than whether they owned a strong desire to give Williams his first title. So many times, the response was similar to that presented by senior Melvin Scott: "We'd like to win it for ourselves more than anything."

This is not to say the Tar Heels do not care for their coach. That would be wrong. But they were not around for Williams' near misses and early-round disasters at Kansas. They know what they went through at Carolina on the way to this championship. The seniors once were part of that team that was the worst in the program's history. By comparison, Roy Williams never has missed the NCAA Tournament with a team that was eligible to be invited. He has known nothing but success.

"Every year, you'd think things were going to get better. It had to get better," Scott says. "We were at the lowest point. Now, my senior year, it's a relief that we're finally here."

Few teams have traveled as short a distance to play in an NCAA championship game as Illinois, which valiantly scrambled from a 13-point halftime deficit to a 70-all tie with 2:40 remaining. Is it possible, though, that any team ever has journeyed as far as North Carolina?

Think of where the Tar Heels stood in the spring of 2002: a sunken, joyless program, fans grasping for reasons to explain how a team ranked No. 1 in the polls only 13 months earlier could plunge so suddenly. Think of where they stood a year later, loaded with young talent but trapped in a churn of ugliness and controversy, trying to rationalize the firing of Matt Doherty, an alumnus, who only two years earlier had been named national coach of the year.

Think of where Williams was then, in the spring of 2003, debating whether to leave a Kansas program he had led to those four Final Fours, whether to leave the gifted players he had recruited for the Jayhawks and a place where they were debating which campus building should bear his name.

From there to here is a long way to travel in two years. The voyage ended with Williams' being embraced from behind by assistant C.B. McGrath as he attempted a simple postgame handshake with Weber and with seniors Manuel, Scott and Jawad Williams in a pile of emotion at center court.

The Heels held Illinois without a point for the final 2:40. When Head launched an attempt at a tying 3-pointer with 16 seconds left, and the ball bounced off the far side of the rim and climbed to the top of the board, Felton squeezed the ball away from Illini guard Dee Brown and raced toward safety. That was it.

"I think we came out and proved that we are a team--we are together," Felton says. "You know, who is going to win a national championship if they're not together? We are also talented. I believe in that part. But we also are together as one."

Williams certainly knew what was possible upon becoming North Carolina's head coach. He knew well the gifts of Felton and May. He knew the challenges inherent in coaching McCants but also the potential rewards that could be reaped from his talent. He knew his connection to young Marvin Williams from up near Seattle was strong enough that offering him the chance to play at North Carolina would be no less appealing than a chance to play at Kansas.

"The ending is I didn't have to curse during an interview like I did a couple years ago," Williams says. "I didn't have to say anything like that. Yeah, I mean, it's been a difficult two years. But gosh, how lucky can you be? I'm doing exactly what I wanted to do with my life." He means coaching college basketball, not celebrating a championship. But now he can enjoy both.

Senior writer Mike DeCourcy covers college basketball for the Sporting News. E-mail him at decourcy@sportingnews.com.