Roy Williams tried to pull a fast one by Mark Few

Two days before Roy Williams first faced off against Mark Few in the NCAA tournament, the North Carolina coach called his counterpart from Gonzaga.

“Gamblers Anonymous,” Few answered.

The coaches had already planned an outing for a friendly game of craps before their teams met in a regional semifinal in 2009 at FedExForum in Memphis, Tenn. They will meet again Monday night for the national championship at University of Phoenix Stadium.

Their trip eight years ago to a casino in Tunica, Miss., was anything but uneventful. The coaches and their assistants played until around 3 a.m. before cramming back into cars furnished by the NCAA for the 30-minute drive back to their respective hotels. Williams was pulled over for speeding, though he said Sunday he was going only a couple of miles over the speed limit.

“I was really surprised,” Williams said. “And [then] I realized I had the NCAA logo thing on the side of the car.”

Police told Williams they were concerned he was driving a stolen vehicle. After some small talk, a thought struck Williams.

“I said, ‘If I could bribe you, I’ll give you $100 if you’ll stop Mark Few. He’s about 15 minutes behind me,’ ” Williams recalled telling the officers.

Few’s recollection of the exchange between Williams and the officers was even more colorful.

“He said, ‘There’s another, like, little Ford Fiesta coming. Make sure you pull them over because they’re illegal, they don’t have seatbelts [on],’ ” Few said.

The next day, Williams sidled up to Gonzaga’s equipment manager and asked if he had been stopped by police. Williams was informed that didn’t happen.

“Just ruined my day,” Williams said.

Things would get better when North Carolina defeated Gonzaga, 98-77, on the way to the national championship.

Academic unrest

North Carolina is still waiting to learn the results of an NCAA investigation into allegations of widespread academic fraud, but the fallout has already been felt.

Williams said the Tar Heels brought in 26 McDonald’s All-Americans in his first 10 seasons after replacing Matt Doherty in 2003, “and the last three [seasons] I think we got one.”

The dropoff came largely as a function of negative recruiting, Williams said.

“I don’t think I got dumb that quickly,” Williams said. “So it was the doubt that people could put in — some of them directly, some of them indirectly. But still putting up that doubt was something that was hard to deal with.

“I had one dad say, ‘We’re just going to wait until the spring and it will be over with by then, and then we’ll know exactly what it was.’ That was two years ago. We still don’t know what it is.”

Williams continued to deny any wrongdoing on behalf of his program.

“My firm belief [is] that we did nothing wrong,” he said. “And that’s just the best way to put it. Were there some mistakes made? You’re darned right there were. Were there some things I wish hadn’t happened? You’re darned right. But there were no allegations against men’s basketball.

“So I’ve sort of hung my hat on that part, and I know we did nothing wrong.”

Etc.

Few was selected the Naismith college coach of the year, beating out Northwestern’s Chris Collins, Kansas’ Bill Self and Villanova’s Jay Wright. … The semifinal games Saturday averaged 16.8 million television viewers, an increase of 44% over last year. Overall, CBS Sports and Turner Sports’ coverage of the NCAA tournament is the second-most watched in 23 years, with an average of 10.4 million viewers per game.

ben.bolch@latimes.com

Twitter: @latbbolch