North Carolina coach Roy Williams and Louisville's low-post star David Padgett emphasized that point time and again during Friday's interview sessions with reporters at the East Regional championship game.

Padgett, the Cardinals' 6-foot-11, 250-pound center, signed out of high school in Reno, Nev., with Williams, when he was still coaching at Kansas during the 2002-03 season.

When Williams left to take the North Carolina job before the 2003-04 season, Padgett played one season for the Jayhawks but soon transferred to Louisville, where he has emerged as one of the best players in the country.

"Everything works out for the best," Padgett said Friday. "I still have a close relationship with Coach Williams and I will always admire him. But if he hadn't gone to Carolina, then maybe I wouldn't have gone to Louisville and had a chance to play on this team. I wish him nothing but the best, and I think he feels the same way about me."

Williams: ditto.

"David's story has been one of the two most inspiring this season you can imagine. I will always remember the way he's fought [through a knee injury] to have the kind of season he's had. And I'll always remember the way [Quentin Thomas] on our team responded to the opportunity he had when [Ty Lawson] was injured."

FREQUENT DRIVERS: Louisville coach Rick Pitino took a poke at Carolina's recent game sites -- Raleigh for the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, Charlotte for the ACC Tournament and now the East Regional seminfinals and championship game.

"It's a road game for us ... [and if] Roy doesn't think that's the case, then let him get on an airplane for once and we'll play this game in Freedom Hall ... or Rupp Arena [in Lexington, Ky.].

BAD MEMORIES? In the 1989-90 season, when Williams was the coach at Kansas and Pitino was just getting his Kentucky program on its feet, the Jayhawks won by a staggering 150-95 during a regular-season game at Lawrence.

Pitino was asked Friday several times about the final score that day, but reacted diplomatically.

Pitino all but laughed. "They were very good, and we just weren't."