University of North Carolina Athletics
Comprehensive Matt Doherty Bio
July 11, 2000 | Men's Basketball
July 11, 2000
CHAPEL HILL --- Matt Doherty, a 1984 graduate of the University of North Carolina, has been named the 17th head men's basketball coach in school history. Doherty played at Carolina from 1980-84 and was head coach at the University of Notre Dame last season. He led the Irish to a 22-15 record and a berth in the NIT finals in his only season as a collegiate head coach.
Doherty is just the second former Tar Heel player to be named head coach of the Tar Heels. Monk McDonald, who played at UNC from 1921-24, led Carolina to a 20-5 record in 1925 in his only season as head coach.
Doherty had been an assistant coach at the University of Kansas for seven years and at Davidson College for three years prior to his stint at Notre Dame.
Married to: Kelly Propst of Concord, N.C. Two children: son Tucker, 3, daughter Hattie Fitzgerald, 10 months Education: B.A. in Business Admistration, UNC, '84 |
The 22 wins by the Irish were the most the program has enjoyed since posting a 21-9 mark in 1988-89. Notre Dame's 8-8 finish in BIG EAST Conference regular-season play this year marks the first season in the Irish's five-year membership in the league that the team has not posted a losing record.
Notre Dame junior forward Troy Murphy was a consensus first-team All-America selection and was named Big East Conference Player of the Year.
Doherty and the team took on one of the toughest schedules in the country as 14 of the 36 games the Irish played were against teams that participated in the 2000 NCAA Championship and six more played in the NIT.
The team defeated five ranked teams in 1999-2000. His Irish got off to a quick start on Nov. 18 with a 59-57 win at Ohio State in the first round of the Preseason NIT. The Irish wound up finishing fourth in the event as they spent Thanksgiving weekend in New York City. The Buckeyes were ranked fourth at the time of the game in the Associated Press poll and advanced to the '99 NCAA Final Four.
The Irish also posted a pair of wins over defending national champion Connecticut and defeated nationally-ranked St. John's and Seton Hall.
The 22 wins ranked Doherty second in the country among first-year head coaches behind Mark Few of Gonzaga, who had 26. The 22 wins for Doherty also marked the most-ever by a first-year head coach at Notre Dame.
Doherty was named the 16th head basketball coach for the Irish on March 30, 1999.
As the veteran assistant at Kansas for Roy Williams, Doherty helped the Jayhawks to the NCAA tournament each of his seven seasons in Lawrence. During those seven years, Kansas played in the '93 Final Four, advanced to the Final Eight in '96, the Sweet 16 in '94, '95 and '97 - and to the second round each of his last two years.
Kansas won five Big Eight/Big 12 Conference titles during his stay and compiled an overall 202-42 (.828) record, including a 15-7 mark in NCAA tournament play.
Doherty coordinated the recruiting and scouting areas at Kansas and assisted in all day-to-day operations of the Jayhawk program. During his tenure at Kansas, he played a key role in signing nine McDonald's high school All-Americans, including standouts Jacque Vaughn, Raef LaFrentz, Paul Pierce, Ryan Robertson, Lester Earl, Eric Chenowith, Kenny Gregory, Jeff Boschee and Nick Collison (current Jayhawk freshman). Both Vaughn and LaFrentz (twice) earned Big Eight or Big 12 Conference player-of-the-year honors - while LaFrentz and Pierce earned consensus All-America honors in 1998 and Vaughn won first-team honors in '97.
LaFrentz (Denver), Greg Ostertag (Utah), Pierce (Boston), Scot Pollard (Sacramento), Vaughn (Utah), Rex Walters (Miami) and Ryan Robertson (Sacramento) are among the NBA players coached by Doherty.
Here's a year-by-year look at what the Jayhawks accomplished in each of Doherty's seven seasons on the staff:
Prior to his seven-year stop at Kansas, Doherty spent three seasons (1989-90 through 1991-92) as an assistant coach at Davidson under head coach Bob McKillop, who coached him in high school. The high school seniors he helped recruit in his final season at Davidson finished 25-5, ended up unbeaten in league play and participated in the NIT as college seniors in '96. Doherty's playing career at North Carolina included a starting role as a sophomore on the Tar Heels' national championship squad of 1982. As a senior in '84, the 6-8 forward was part of a starting five that included Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty and Kenny Smith. That same year, he helped Carolina to a 14-0 Atlantic Coast Conference record (only the sixth team in the ACC to do that) while becoming only the second player in ACC history (North Carolina's Walter Davis was the first) to accumulate 1,000 points, 400 rebounds and 400 assists in a career.
Here are details of Doherty's accomplishments as a player at North Carolina:
Doherty was a sixth-round pick by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 1984 NBA draft as the 119th overall selection.
A 1984 North Carolina graduate with a degree in business administration and Dean's List honors, he's a graduate of Holy Trinity High School in Hicksville, N.Y. He first worked in New York City for more than three years as a bond salesman for Kidder Peabody & Co., Inc., then spent a year as an executive search consultant with Sockwell and Anderson in Charlotte, N.C. He served two seasons as a basketball analyst in 1987-88 and 1988-89, handling the color commentator assignment for the Davidson basketball radio network and also working games at North Carolina, St. Francis (N.Y.) College and Charlotte area high schools.
He has been involved with a variety of charitable causes, including the National Kidney Association, Special Olympics and the Salvation Army.
Doherty immediately became immersed in the Notre Dame community as he played in the famous Bookstore Basketball Tournament that takes place each spring. The tournament is the world's largest five-on-five full-court tournament, drawing over 400 teams annually.
Born Matthew Francis Doherty on Feb. 25, 1962, in East Meadow, N.Y., he and his wife, the former Kelly Propst of Concord, N.C., are parents of a son, Tucker, born June 17, 1997, and a daughter, Hattie Fitzgerald, born Sept. 13, 1999.
