UNC, Dean Smith, Bill Guthridge and Roy Williams created this whole tsunami and then all ran for cover when it occurred. I think Dean Smith is a very decent person but the deification process among some UNC fans is not much different from that of Bear Bryant at Alabama.

Doherty may have been a mediocre coach. He might have been a jerk at times, but it is the height of presumption to lay everything at his feet. He left one of the top 30 or so basketball jobs in the country, one where he probably was a much better fit, to go back to Chapel Hill because the University asked him to.

The idea that recruits just fell into Doherty’s lap because he was at UNC seems ludicrous given that recruits were actually doing the opposite during the Guthridge years and falling out of our laps. He has also recruited well at Notre Dame and SMU. I also think that Doherty was willing to recruit a wider range of players. From what I have read, I don’t think Roy Williams would have recruited Rashad McCants at all and apparently viewed McCants similarly to how he may have viewed John Wall.

Yes, there were transfers and carping. I seem to recall transfers and carping at Duke and Indiana, both successful programs. This type of bellyaching often springs up when there is a coaching change, particularly from someone passive like Guthridge to someone emotional like Doherty, but it is normally kept under control when a coach is not chopped off at the kneecaps. Once players sniff blood in the water, however, certainly such things can become untenable. Just let any 18 year old kid critique his parents and see what you end up with, but it rarely means a whole lot. Kids complain. That is their nature. Roy Williams had plenty of problems with the same parents that Doherty had problems with, but he was Roy Williams and he still had his knee caps. Problem solved–the parents shut up.

Dean Smith was primarily to blame for the problems UNC had in 2002, and who cares? I forgive Smith for retiring way too early, right with the program on the brink of a return to the sustained success of the early 1980′s, and for the way he set up Guthridge–someone apparently with little or no desire for the job–as head coach via palace intrigue. I forgive him for undercutting Doherty from the very instant that Doherty was interviewed. I forgive him for tryng to act as though he still supported Doherty right up to the end.

Dean Smith was/is a very good man, who simply lost his footing once he gave up the job that he spent his life being great at. I think it is especially lamentable for Smith that he sacrificed the close relationship he had with his own alma mater during this process and ended up becoming a persona non gratis to many of his fellow alumni at Kansas. Dean’s reputation ended up taking the same kind of hit in Kansas that Doherty’s took in North Carolina.

The fact of the matter is that all of that Guthridge/Williams/Brown/Doherty/Williams imbroglio played out over 5 years was Dean’s last hurrah. He no longer seems to have much pull or influence in the program. This is Roy Williams’ show now and for the most part, he is running it as well or better than Dean did.

It is not that big of a deal that UNC had one terrible season (actually not even all that terrible in the ACC, compared to Duke in 1995). What is unforgivable is the way that Doherty was treated financially in the aftermath, and some of the constant blowhards who continue to place all the blame on Doherty, rather than on Smith and the administration where it belongs. If this is a rapproachement between Doherty and the University, then let it happen, but bashing Doherty for being a bad recruiter is really grasping at straws….

yeah tough to say on boone, no doubt it would have been good to have solid experienced play at the backup pg spot in the early days of felton, i can’t comment on why he left b/c i am too lazy to really look into it, but i can only compare it to the innocent by stander status. like when an nfl team brings in a new coach, they get players who fit their system/style of play and other quality guys just don’t work out. that’s what i assumed happened w/ boone..oh well…past is past and present is present, and presently we’re looking nice.

go heels!

And Boone didn’t leave because he wanted to be a starter–I think it is clear from comments made then and later he left because of Doherty. Boone was a great kid maybe not that good of a basketball player but the type of role player that teams need to go far. Incidentally, he is exactly the type of player that K keeps on losing and Dook apologists keep on saying don’t matter. (And by no means am I attempting to compare you with a Dook fan).

I might be wrong but from what i read on this blog, Roy couldn’t keep waiting around for Gut to step down so he made the comitment to stay for the length of his latest recruiting class of heinrich collison and gooden when yet again he was put on hold by the powers that be at carolina. so for that i’d blame UNC, not roy or gut.

and doherty did NOT lose me when boone transferred and he then proceeded to bring in Raymond FELTON. if boone wanted to be a starter that’s his prerogative. i’ll take felton mccants and may over boone morrison and fingelton any day.

but seriously no offense to the loyalty and time and effort gut put into the program, he has truly helped build what we know today as carolina basketball.

One, Roy explicitly thanked Matt Doherty in his press conference after the Illinois game saying “Matt Doherty needs to be back in coaching,” so I am a little perplexed by what he said in the interview earlier this week.

Second, and more importantly, this complaining about Guthridge should not stand. Even going beyond the fact that we should be loyal to such a great Tar Heel, he did a great job as head coach. The job he did in 1999, with only one player (a very raw sophomore Brendan Haywood) who played a day in the NBA should not be forgotten. That team had no business being good enough to get #3 seed in the tourney and being the only team who even tested Dook during the regular season (the game was in doubt late in Cameron).

Yes, I believe he missed out on some recruits in that 2000 class but remember all along the plan was for Roy to come back after that year. Get mad at Roy not Guthridge.