Roy Williams smirked a Jim Boeheim smirk. The one where the left side of Boeheim’s lip perks up and you know one of two things is coming — deadpanning or dismissal — but you never really know which.
 
But this was Williams, fittingly after being asked about Boeheim’s “curmudgeonly” reputation at a press conference on Friday.
 
His half-smile turned full.
 
“Part of it’s being old,” the North Carolina head coach quipped. “Tell him I said that one.
 
“I think there’s a much different Jimmy Boeheim now even publicly and openly than there was. Sportswriters, and even some of his friends who like to kid him, used to call him a whiner and all that kind of stuff, when he made those faces and everything. He’s always been really good with me personally.”
 
From the heat of a National Championship game to the passive pastures of a golf course, Williams has spent his fair share of time with the longtime Syracuse head coach. While the two have only squared off four times before Saturday when the No. 2 Orange (15-0, 2-0 Atlantic Coast) hosts the unranked Tar Heels (10-5, 0-2) at noon, Williams called Boeheim a friend in the coaching community and said the two agree on most major issues.
 
And recently, he said that he’s seen Boeheim mature from that cranky reputation that followed him earlier in his career.
 
“I think he has developed a little bit more of a warm touch,” Williams said. “You do this thing for such a long time I think either it wears on you and you start fighting battles with everybody or you just try to roll with the punches.”
 
Boeheim is 3-1 all-time against Williams-coached teams and 1-0 since Williams moved from Kansas to North Carolina in 2003.
 
Their first matchup came in the Elite Eight of the 1996 NCAA Tournament. John Wallace and Otis Hill scored 15 points apiece for the No. 4-seed Orangemen as they edged a Paul Pierce and Jacque Vaughn-led No. 2-seed Jayhawks 60-57.
 
Five years later, Williams and Kansas avenged the defeat with an 87-58 win in the second round of the 2001 NCAA Tournament. The No. 2-seed Jayhawks doubled-up the No. 5-seed Orangemen in the second half behind a 17-point, 15-rebound effort from Drew Gooden.
 
Then SU and a rejection from Hakim Warrick got the better of Williams in his last game at KU — the 2003 National Championship game and the only title in SU history.
 
An 87-71 win in the 2K Sports Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 20, 2009 rounds out Boeheim’s history with Williams.
 
Williams said he’s played several rounds of golf with Boeheim. The two are often joined by Dean Smith, Williams’ predecessor at UNC, and well-traveled coach P.J. Carlesimo. Williams also said Boeheim was always a stiff challenge with his handicap once as low 2, and that the two also played poker while together on the Nike coaches’ trip.
 
This weekend will offer another chance for the two coaching greats to catch up, though golf is probably unlikely.
 
In closing his comments on Boeheim before switching gears, Williams smiled again thinking about one of Boeheim’s comments regarding the ACC – and what Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski had jested to him.
 
Boeheim has matured, but he’s still Jim Boeheim.
 
”That’s not really him,” Krzyzewski had told Williams. “He just didn’t have his morning coffee at that point.”