UNC Basketball: 12 candidates to succeed Roy Williams as head coach
By Joey Loose
After a legendary coaching career, spending more than four decades involved in college basketball, Roy Williams has announced his retirement, stepping down after 18 years leading North Carolina as head coach. A true legend of the game, Williams played and coached under the great Dean Smith at North Carolina, while also briefly coaching high school ball in the state.
His first collegiate head coaching job came at 1988 at Kansas following a decade-long stint as one of Smith’s assistants. Williams led the Jayhawks to four Final Fours in fifteen seasons but came up just short of winning his own national championship.
He finally returned home, taking the North Carolina job in 2003 after refusing on two previous occasions. The success was instant, leading the Tar Heels to the national championship in 2005. He recruited some incredible talent to Chapel Hill, a list that includes Sean May, Tyler Hansbrough, Harrison Barnes, Tyler Zeller, and many more over the years. He led the Tar Heels to five Final Fours, winning two more national titles in 2009 and 2017, with a slew of ACC titles along the way.
There is no question that the last few seasons have been a struggle for North Carolina, but Williams is still going out on the top of his game. His program only missed a single NCAA Tournament during his 18-year tenure, including ACC regular-season titles in three of the last six seasons. In fact, this past NCAA Tournament was the only time in his entire career when his team did win their opening-round game in the Big Dance.
Still, the struggles in the past few seasons could be a result of a changing landscape in college basketball, especially in regards to recruiting. Williams was no fan of how the transfer portal has completely ballooned in recent years, but then again there can’t be a single coach pleased with this development. The next head coach at North Carolina isn’t tasked with some turnaround or rebuilding project; they’ll be given the keys to the program that Dean Smith and Roy Williams built into one of the Blue Bloods of our time.
We’ll be taking a closer look at a great number of candidates for this ACC job, one that certainly won’t consider just anybody for the position. Recent trends indicate that the Tar Heels will likely lean to someone in the North Carolina family, but we’ll certainly be examining a few outside candidates as well. This is a humongous job opening and it’s pertinent that the Tar Heels find the right man to succeed Roy Williams, a true legend of the game.
Without further ado, let’s start in on the candidates, listed alphabetically.