WASHINGTON -- J.R. Giddens sounded last week like a kid struggling between animalistic anger and human frustration -- and, to some extent, a subtle understanding.

Roy Williams was no longer his coach.

	J.R. Giddens (right) will still suit up for KU, but not Roy Williams.

"He didn't even give me a call," Giddens said in a hallway outside the locker rooms at the MCI Center. "I haven't even heard from him."

The 6-foot-6, 190-pound Kansas signee played well in Thursday's Jordan Brand Capital Classic. But what everybody wanted to talk about -- including even Giddens, it seemed -- was ol' Roy's decision to forsake Lawrence for Chapel Hill.

How that made the kid feel?

And the sleek Oklahoma City product clearly had been doing some thinking since Williams' April 14 press conference announcing his arrival at UNC.

"He mentioned David Padgett," Giddens said in a reference to another pending Jayhawk, a post man from Reno, Nev.

"If he didn't want to mention my name, he ain't gotta mention my name. I ain't trippin'."

Disappointed, though? No question.

"That's a messed-up thing," said Gary Ervin, the always outspoken Mississippi State-bound Brooklyn point.

"Everyone goes to a college because of the coach. You want a great relationship with your coach. And it's not the same if he leaves."

This is a question that comes up every year around this time.

	“	I still have the utmost respect for him. And I'm always going to be a Jayhawk. I just wish I had the chance to play for him. ”
		— KU recruit J.R. Giddens on coach Roy Williams

Should prep prospects in this situation be released from their national letters of intent? Or should they at least be given some sort of special consideration?

No, the purists say, claiming that kids sign with schools rather than coaches -- a naïve notion, to say the least, because it's typically just not the case.

Chicagoland shooting guard Shannon Brown -- co-MVP at the Classic along with LeBron James -- is going to Michigan State because of Tom Izzo.

Courtney Sims and Dion Harris -- a big guy from Dedham, Mass., and a guard from Detroit, respectively -- are headed to Michigan because of Tommy Amaker.

Andrew Lavender and Brandon Foust -- friends from Columbus, Ohio, and teammates at Brookhaven High School -- are Oklahoma-bound because of Kelvin Sampson.

"Coach Sampson is a real nice guy," Foust said. "He's the reason we're going there."

And Chris Paul?

He's off to Wake Forest in part because of its proximity to his Clemmons, N.C., home, but his relationship with Skip Prosser is so close it's almost father-son in nature.

So the point guard is understandably happy that the Demon Deacons coach ultimately said no to recent overtures from Pittsburgh.

"I would've been crushed," said Paul, the bright-eyed, well-spoken McDonald's All-American. "I couldn't imagine playing for anybody else."

Paul's going to Wake for all the "right" reasons -- the high level of education at WFU coupled with the high caliber of hoops in the ACC -- but Prosser is a pivotal part.

"I'm so excited he decided to stay," Paul said. "I called him right away and told him 'thank you so much.'"

And if he had left? Does Paul think he should've been allowed to leave with him?

"I think it should be your decision," he said. "It's that bond you have with your coach."

The same bond Giddens felt.

Williams, after all, was the first marquee coach to make Giddens a recruiting priority.

"He discovered me," said Giddens, who had "J.R. Jayhawk" written on his Jordans here the other night but responded with a hesitant "no comment" when asked directly if he was still dead-set on KU.

"I still have the utmost respect for him. And I'm always going to be a Jayhawk. I just wish I had the chance to play for him. But I can't really feel betrayed. He made the decision that was best for him and his family in his eyes."

Still, though …

"I told all the players here that I wasn't even worried about him leaving," Giddens said. Then he left. "And he took a little piece of my heart."

Michael Kruse, who writes for the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com.