NCAA Basketball: Ranking the last 25 national title winning head coaches

The legendary coaching career for Roy Williams began when he learned under a fellow Tar Heel legend. Mentored by Dean Smith, Williams embarked on a legendary coaching career of his own, bringing three more national championships to North Carolina after an impressive run at Kansas.

Few head coaches will ever be able to boast Williams’ accomplishments, becoming one of the ACC’s greatest coaches of all time.

After playing briefly for the Tar Heels, Williams’ coaching career began at the high school level in North Carolina. In 1978, Smith brought him back to Chapel Hill as an assistant coach. Williams would play a role in the 1982 national title team, Smith’s first with the Tar Heels.

After 10 seasons, he accepted the head coaching position at Kansas. He’d take the Jayhawks to four Final Fours, but never could quite win the national title. Despite rumors, he stayed at Kansas after Smith’s retirement, though he’d get his shot to return very soon.

In 2003, he returned to North Carolina as their new head coach and the results were immediate. The Tar Heels were national champions by 2005, giving Williams his first ring. Title teams would follow in 2009 and 2017, while the team lost the 2016 title game at the buzzer.

He’s coached players like Ty Lawson, Tyler Hansbrough and Marcus Paige to incredible heights. He’s taken the program to new heights and more than continued the legacy that Smith left all those years ago.

In all, Williams has led his teams to nine Final Fours, an incredibly impressive tally. He’s won nine ACC regular-season titles in his 16 years in Chapel Hill and built a tenable power at Kansas as well.

Williams’ success at two of college basketball’s most prolific programs makes him incredibly unique. As he nears 900 career coaching wins, he continues to write his legacy. For as long as he remains in coaching, he’s going to have one of the most impressive programs in the game.