Ol’ Roy is No. 1; guess where Coach K and Duke are ranked?

A friend of mine named Billy from Colorado, who is one of Roy Williams’ biggest supporters, often sends me information that the media never sees or chooses not to publish. He was the first one to harp on Williams’ record against Mike Krzyzewski in regular-season finales where first place in the ACC was at stake.  Such a game happened seven times in the last 16 years, according to Billy, and the record is 7-0 in favor of Roy and his Tar Heels. But the latest info he emailed me is really a doozy.

It is a complicated chart tracking NCAA tournament results from 2000 through 2019. Granted, the first four of those years, Williams was still at Kansas, where his Jayhawks reached the 2002 and 2003 Final Fours. The next 16 years he has been at Carolina.  The chart uses Kenpom, the most popular analytics data out there; granted, the average fan (like me) usually doesn’t pay much attention to this kind of detail. But any ranking that has Roy Williams and Carolina at No. 1, I will take a look at.

The categories are Performance Against Kenpom Expectations (whatever those are); Performance against NCAA Seed Expectations; Wins, Losses and Winning Percentage in the Big Dance; Appearances in the Rounds of 64 and 32, Sweet Sixteens, Elite Eights, Finals Fours, National Championship Games and NCAA Titles; Plus, Years with a No. 1 or No. 2 Seed and the Likelihood of Getting To At Least 1 Final Four and of Winning At Least 1 National Championship.

GiGo, garbage in and garbage out, to most people without computer brains, but naturally after seeing Ol’ Roy and Carolina on the one line of the coaching and school categories, I started searching for the arch rivals down the road. And it took me a while to find them.

According to Kenpom, Coach K ranks No. 346 in all the amalgamated factoids I listed, and Duke is No. 227. I honestly have no idea why K and the Dukies are listed so low over the last 19 years, when they have won three national championships. But I suspect it is because they haven’t reached any other Final Fours and did go one and done in the 2007, 2012 and 2014 NCAA tournaments.

So, if any Dukies are listening, repeat after me, “We’re No. 227! We’re No. 227!”

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