University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Indisputably Rank
March 19, 2014 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
It's NCAA Tournament week, so it's a week of lists. From the inane to the relevant, there's a list or a bracket for everything this week.
Recently, for example, we were gifted with a click-bait ranking of "the top 25 active tournament coaches." On that list, Roy Williams was ranked 11th.
We will pause here for the laughter to subside.
Before we get started, let's be very clear--this is in no way meant to disparage any of the first ten men on this list. All are excellent coaches, some are all-time great coaches.
Williams belongs higher on that list. Not because this is GoHeels.com, but because he's earned it, and the numbers prove it.
The lone sentence about Williams in this story was as follows: "Many question his ability to coach, but he still has a couple of national titles and has gone to seven Final Fours."
This sentence is the overwhelming number-one national seed in a bracket I am personally constructing of the laziest sentences ever written. Let's start with the first clause.
"Many question his ability to coach." Well, OK. Who are these "many"? Presumably not the people who saw him spend the season going outside his preferred man-to-man comfort zone and shuttling between multiple defenses to hide some of his team's deficiencies and enhance its ability to win, including breaking out a rare 1-3-1 to beat Duke on Feb. 20. And presumably not the people who picked Carolina to finish third in the league with P.J. Hairston, an almost surefire All-ACC pick, and then watched the Tar Heels lose P.J. Hairston and finish...third.
And probably not the people who have watched him rack up 62 all-time NCAA tournament victories, second among active coaches and third all-time (read that again and try to reconcile this: he has more tournament wins than every other active coach except one...and he's 11th on this list of best active tournament coaches).
So it's not very clear exactly who these "many" people might be, or why they have one coach in their top 25 of "best tournament coaches" who will be sitting home tomorrow while 64 other coaches participate in the actual NCAA tournament. But it is pretty clear that they have almost certainly lost some games to Roy Williams or otherwise been stifled by him.
Let's move on to the second clause: "But he still has a couple of national titles..."
Oh, you mean just a couple of national titles? Those old things? As in two national titles, as in more than seven of the coaches ranked ahead of him on this phenomenal list (that, by the way, people had to pay to access). If "many" people are questioning the coaching ability of the man with two national titles, just imagine what they're saying about those seven guys ahead of him who don't have at least a pair of championships. In case you were wondering, here's what they are saying, in a sampling from the coaches without two national titles who are ranked above Williams:
"Elite X and O guy...downright remarkable...one of the best all-around guys in the business...terrific tactician...underrated...one of the best out there."
Hmmmm, something doesn't make sense here.
The description of Tom Izzo--again, a great coach, and almost certainly the man I would want coaching North Carolina if Williams was not the coach--uses the most bizarre qualifier ever: "His record in quick turnaround games (18-3) is downright remarkable." Right. You know who handed him two of those three losses, including one blowout defeat in a national title game played in Michigan State's backyard? Roy Williams. Some might say that is "downright remarkable."
Let's make sure we stick to the alleged criteria. We are supposedly measuring tournament coaching ability--not program building, not loyalty from players, not regular season victories. That means we are leaving out the fact that Williams is sixth all-time in winning percentage. But it does mean we can consider the following:
Roy Williams is the only coach ever to win an NCAA tournament game in 20 consecutive seasons. Roy Williams is second among all active coaches in NCAA tournament winning percentage (.747). Roy Williams is 11th in the history of college basketball-among every coach who has ever coached a single game-in NCAA tournament winning percentage.
And yet Roy Williams ranks 11th on a list of best current tournament coaches.
Consider this: there is a coach ranked above Williams who may very well be a nice man and a fine coach, but has never been to one single Final Four. And this is a list of "the top 25 tournament coaches." Deciding how to rank such a list is nebulous, but couldn't we all agree that something wacky like success in the tournament should be among the criteria for such a list?
Williams, for the record, has gone to seven Final Fours in 26 seasons as a head coach. Eight coaches ranked ahead of him have been to fewer. And this is supposed to be a list of "best tournament coaches."
The top three men on the list--Mike Krzyzewski, Izzo and Rick Pitino--are titans of coaching. They are indisputably some of the best coaches in the college game.
Roy Williams is 5-2 against that trio in NCAA tournament games.
And yet, "many question his ability to coach."
Probably so. That's one of the few available activities while sitting at home watching television while he wins more NCAA tournament games.
Adam Lucas is the editor of CAROLINA.
