CHAPEL HILL – Roy Williams unknowingly caused a bit of an uproar Saturday night when he kissed the Smith Center floor following North Carolina’s win over Duke.

It happened on Senior Night and after the four UNC seniors’ videos played inside the arena. Williams grabbed the microphone and addressed the crowd, discussing each player for a few minutes.

Williams’ smooch generated a buzz of concern from UNC fans wondering if it meant the Hall of Fame coach was saying goodbye to the court that dons his name. Many in the media wondered aloud, too.

Showing emotion isn’t something Williams avoids in public, there is an element of what you see is what you get with him. And that gesture was simply a reaction his extremely young team finishing the season 10-1 at home and unbeaten in ACC play, he said afterward.

“We only lost one game there,” Williams said Saturday night. “And I’ve always thought I loved the home arena and what we were doing. And this year, the home court was not fans, it was the familiarity of the basket, familiarity with the floor, familiarity with the backdrop, background.

“And I'd like to go back over and play that Marquette game again, but it's not like golf. You don't get a mulligan.”

That should have ceased speculation about his future but didn’t. On Monday morning, UNC put out a release that Williams and his wife, Wanda, were donating $3 million to “support multiple scholarships” at UNC, adding fuel to the narrative he was retiring. Those advancing conjecture figured there was a connection between giving the school such a generous gift and Williams kissing the floor.

Williams, who turned 70 last August, opened his pre-ACC Tournament zoom Tuesday addressing the hysteria.

“This stuff has gotten a little crazy,” he said. “I said after the game, I kissed the floor as I started to walk off, and I've had plenty of times in my life I wish I had kissed the floor at Allen Fieldhouse, 10, 20, 30 times. This year, we were undefeated in the conference at home, our last two games the crowd came in and they were sensational…

“I knew that we won a lot of games at Kansas and here that I thought the crowd was extremely important to us. I knew it was the last game this season in the Smith Center, and that's all it was. That's all it was.”

As for the contributions being tied to the kiss?

“And then all this stuff's come out about our contributions,” Williams said. “If you really think about it, guys, come on, one of the things it said in there is that the total was about 5.8 million in the 18 years, so I'm not giving $3 million here. This is not the first time I've ever done this, or Wanda and I, have ever done.

“This is something that we've consistently done and we did it at Kansas as well. Somebody said I was, ‘trying to buy another year from Bubba (Cunningham).’ I’ve got a dadgum contract through 2028, I mean, do you think I need to buy another dadgum year? I've already got a contract, Jesus Christ. But it's something I've done my entire life.”

Williams is uncomfortable making the donation public because he doesn’t care to bring the attention to himself, and, based on his words, doesn’t care for how his actions get twisted into something unrelated to reality.

“It's just that I hadn't really cared if people knew about it and I damn sure wish people didn't know about it now so I didn't have to listen to all this junk,” he said. “But it's something that we love doing. I love supporting the university. I love supporting other sports programs.”

The reason this was made public, the coach said, is because he and his wife hope it will inspire others to also donate, and it has.

“We made the commitment in November and gave them the money in December,” Williams said. “And I just didn't want anything to do with everything about all the knowledge. I don't think everybody needs to know all my business.

“But David Ruth in our development office, he’s a great guy. Basketball High School player, played for Mac Morris, one of my great friends and one of the great high school coaches in the state, thought that it would be something that might encourage other people to give. And I've already had three phone calls yesterday and today of people that decided they were going to do that.”

Now, about his future? Was there really anything more to the kiss?

"Let's put all this other stuff to rest," he said. "There's no master plan, there's no minor plan. I’m doing what I've done my whole life.”

A kiss, a donation, and plenty of hysteria. That's all it was. Nothing more, nothing less.