The Roy Williams-Dean Smith victory chase is officially on.
Dean Smith retired after winning 879 games, which was then the all-time record for a major college basketball coach. Smith had tied Kentucky legend Adolph Rupp, who had 876 career victories, at the 1997 NCAA tournament in Winston-Salem by beating Fairfield in the first round at Joel Coliseum, which is still Wake Forest’s home court.
Tickets for the second-round game against Colorado and All-American Chauncey Billups were impossible to get, but hundreds of former Carolina players still got into the game. They came from all over the state and country to pay homage to their coach and special friend.
After winning his record-breaking 877th game, Smith typically was happier for his team that advanced to another Sweet Sixteen the next weekend in Syracuse. But he left the locker room after the 17-point win over the 24th-ranked Buffaloes to find the hallways lined with his players and their families from the prior 35 years.
Smith was genuinely stunned that so many got into the game because UNC’s tickets were limited for the NCAA tournament. If he had an ego at one time during his four decades of coaching, Smith chalked off the record to having been around for a long time. We didn’t know it then, but that would be his final season coaching the Tar Heels.
Smith has been retired for 22 years and passed away in 2015, but he will be in the news a lot for the next couple of weeks. One of his many protégés is approaching his all-time career record, and Roy Williams will downplay his accomplishment just as his mentor did his on that Saturday afternoon in 1997.
Williams has 873 victories after his 17th Tar Heel team defeated Notre Dame and UNC-Wilmington in its first two games. Ol’ Roy needs seven more to reach 880 and break Smith’s mark, but the schedule gets pretty tough in late November an early December.
He should get Nos. 874 and 875 against Gardner Webb and Elon in Chapel Hill, but three tough games at the Battle-4-Atlantis in the Bahamas follow, plus the ACC-Big Ten Challenge against Ohio State here on December 4 and then a visit to defending NCAA champion Virginia.
It would nostalgic if Williams tied or passed Smith’s record by beating Wofford on December 15; that game is in Carmichael, where they both first coached together during the 1978-79 season, 41 years ago.
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