More on the UNC Tar Heel victory on Monday night:
Christine Brennan of USA Today:
He listened all weekend to the talk in this town about Michigan State’s run with destiny. He and his Tar Heels endured everything this city and state threw at them: a surprising overnight spring snowstorm, the overwhelming home-court advantage for the Spartans, the sense that Michigan State might defy all odds and continue to ride the emotional wave and actually win this title as a gift for its economically devastated state.
Williams testily protested that his team had a cause too.
“We want to win a national championship, period, the end,” he said. “And if you would tell me that if Michigan State wins, it’s gonna satisfy the nation’s economy, then I’d say, ‘Hell, let’s stay poor for a little while longer.’ “
Obviously, Williams had had it with all the talk of the Spartans playing to make the people of Michigan feel better. He could have chosen his words better, but then his players went out and put their coach’s tough words into serious action.
Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports:
This wasn’t one shining moment; it was a three-week blaze of destruction.
Teams like this may not come along every day, but in Chapel Hill they may come along every few years.
The core of this team will move on, but freshman Ed Davis may have seen so little playing time he’ll return to campus and then become the No. 1 pick in the 2010 NBA draft. Of course Carolina also welcomes the No. 1-ranked recruiting class to campus next year.
Why wouldn’t they? The question for recruits now isn’t why Carolina, but why not?
Perhaps even more than the parade of talent that Smith brought in his tenure, Williams has made Carolina the ultimate stop for stars and, as a result, impossible to stop on the court.
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You can’t just coach anyone into being Ty Lawson or Wayne Ellington. You get that level of skill and try to maximize it.
“Roy Williams is not that good,” he said. “But Ole Roy has got some big-time players and that’s what it takes.”
After a post-Dean lull in Chapel Hill, which included brief stints by longtime assistant Bill Guthridge and young coach Matt Doherty, the program returned to steady hands and hasn’t looked back.
It’s a tour of force right now, and Williams looks unwilling to take his foot off the pedal.
Columnist Jim Litke:
Once he became Smith’s assistant, Williams learned how to bring those plans to life. When he struck out on his own at Kansas in 1988, he adapted them to fit his own philosophy, though he never strayed far from his teacher’s principles. The more he succeeded – the Jayhawks reached the Final Four twice in his first five years and twice more after that – the more he acknowledged his debt to Smith.
He wasn’t about to stop Monday night, even though he now has as many as the master himself.
“Somebody told me if I win, I’d be the 13th coach to have more than one,” Williams said. “I have a hard time believing that. …
Roy Williams and Dean Smith don’t fit in the same sentence. I really believe that.”
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In the closing seconds against Illinois in 2005, Williams walked down the sideline as the final seconds ticked off, adjusting his glasses so he could see the scoreboard for himself. This time, with about a minute left, he started clearing his bench, then pulled a pin off the lapel off his jacket so it wouldn’t get knocked off and lost in the celebration. Just before walking toward Izzo to shake hands, he folded up the glasses and stuffed them into the breast pocket of his suit jacket.
Maybe he wasn’t a better coach at the end of the game than when he began it, but he was certainly a more comfortable one. Williams will never be Dean Smith, at least not in his own mind, but there’s no question that he’s earned the right to sit on the same throne.