Roy Williams is right; he is one lucky sucker.
Ol’ Roy often says, only half kidding, that he’s the luckiest guy in the world, coaching basketball at schools like Kansas and Carolina. Not bad for the first college graduate in his family that lived in near-poverty outside of Asheville.
Williams, like his predecessor Dean Smith, has never sought the spotlight. Spending time with his grandkids and a good golf game are his main loves away from basketball. He wasn’t at the NBA Draft, because his mug doesn’t have to be on national TV at every opportunity.
For someone who did have bad luck during a recruiting downturn as the NCAA churned through its investigation, Williams is on a new run of good luck. Take his point guard situation, which could have been a problem after Joel Berry and Marcus Paige each spent four seasons at Carolina.
Ol’ Roy knew before Coby White did that he would be a first-round NBA draft pick and one-and-done in Chapel Hill. Williams saw White, the all-time leading scorer in North Carolina high school basketball, in a summer league game when Coby had five 3-pointers and five dunks. You don’t have to be a savvy talent scout to know the kid who did that is pretty dad-gum good. So he told his staff to start looking for their next point guard since Coby would be around only one year.
On paper, his 2020 Tar Heels would have been in the middle of the ACC if the recruitment of 5-star Cole Anthony had turned out differently. Williams said he didn’t talk “what if’s” with Anthony because he was pretty sure White wasn’t coming back. Still, Anthony had to be patient and wait until White announced he was turning pro before committing to Carolina. There may have been too much of the basketball to share with Coby and Cole in the lineup together.
So even after losing three first-round draft picks for the third time in his 16 years here, and no more negative recruiting keeping recruits away, Williams still has a program of today that looks like a combination of old and new.
The one-and-dones are coming, the foundational players are staying four years and even graduate transfers are lining up to visit after seeing how Cameron Johnson improved under Roy’s tutelage. And if you read the recruiting reports, which I rarely do, UNC has another motherlode class coming in for the 2000-21 season.
Yep, this coach’s charmed life keeps chugging along toward his 70th birthday next August.
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