He has been a head coach for parts of four decades at two perennial college basketball powers, winning over 600 games and appearing in the NCAA Tournament in all but two of his seasons as the man in charge of his program. He is also one of only four active coaches with two or more national championships, which automatically validates him as one of the all-time greats once he finally decides to hang up his whistle. However, while Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Calhoun and Billy Donovan; the other of the three coaches with multiple national championships, are not considered overrated, Roy Williams somehow is, according to a poll of his coaching colleagues released by CBS Sports earlier in the week.
It just doesn't make sense.
About to enter his tenth season at North Carolina, Williams has won his two national titles within the last eight years on the bench for the Tar Heels, continuing the tradition started by Frank McGuire and Dean Smith. After a stint at Kansas that featured many great teams and two national championship game appearances, but no wins, Williams was the Dan Marino of college coaches in that he had the credentials, yet lacked the testimonial.
If you want to talk about overrated, look no further than Williams' predecessor in Chapel Hill, one who committed the cardinal sin of going 8-20 at a program that had never had a season quite like that in its rich history. With only one NCAA Tournament appearance between his tenure at both North Carolina and Notre Dame, with a talented roster at each school to boot, Matt Doherty never did get the job done aside from recruiting Carolina's 2005 national championship team that Williams led to victory in St. Louis. Now, let's go back to Williams. Is he overrated just because the name of his program attracts elite players just as well as his own name and resume? Yes, North Carolina being North Carolina does help the cause, but you could put Roy Williams anywhere else and he would still not only win, but win big within a short period of time.
Take the University of Pittsburgh as an example. Pitt has been among the class of the Big East for the last decade, yet have never made it past a regional final under head coach Jamie Dixon, who has been at the helm of the Panthers just as long as Roy Williams has been in Chapel Hill. However, Dixon; who has managed to attract players that turn down better programs to play for Pitt, is not even among the top five overrated coaches when he in fact should be. If you switch the two coaches today, putting Roy Williams in charge of the Panthers and Jamie Dixon at the helm of the Tar Heels, Pittsburgh would be the bigger winner and better program, and with good; not great, players to boot. I'm not saying that Carolina would be unsuccessful, but the Dixon tradition of great regular season team and early postseason exit; kind of like the Philadelphia Eagles of college basketball, would carry on.
Are there coaches out there who can recruit better than Williams? Absolutely. Look no further than another historic college basketball blue blood, UCLA. The Bruins have managed to stay relevant even after the retirement and passing of John Wooden, but have only managed one national championship since then. Since Jim Harrick was dismissed in 1996, Steve Lavin and current UCLA coach Ben Howland have attracted some of the nation's best recruiting classes to Westwood, but have had nothing to show for it.
Howland has brought in a massive amount of talent this year with Shabazz Muhammad, Kyle Anderson and Jordan Adams to make his Bruins one of the favorites in the Pac-12 this season, but his in-game coaching has always prevented the Bruins from reaching the top of the mountain despite three consecutive Final Four appearances. The same can be said for Lavin, who never made it out of the Elite Eight in Los Angeles, and now has signed his second consecutive top recruiting class at St. John's. As charismatic and engaging as Lavin is, he has unfortunately yet to prove he belongs on the level of Williams, Calhoun, Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim and Tom Izzo, and this comes from a St. John's alumnus and broadcaster who has gotten to know the coach since he came to Queens in March of 2010. Considering Williams has won with less in the past, it would not be out of the ordinary to suggest he would be able to replicate his success if you hypothetically placed him in either of those two programs.
Here is a link to the CBS poll for those of you who have yet to see it. In it, Williams tells CBS' Gary Parrish that he considers himself good; not great, and goes on to say that he does not want to be in a situation where he has to determine whether or not he can win with average players, which explains his recruiting strategies.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/blog/eye-on-college-basketball/19753693/critical-coaches-who-is-the-most-overrated-coach-in-the-country
Maybe I may have lost touch with the whole "overrated" concept, but to paraphrase a line from the Adam Sandler movie "Billy Madison," if being overrated is cool, then call Roy Williams Miles Davis.
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