[ad_1]
Roy Williams is one of the great coaches in basketball history and now belongs to a club exclusive enough to say it.
The North Carolina head coach notched the 900th victory of his career Saturday with a 78-70 victory over No. 11 Florida State. Williams is the fifth college men’s basketball coach to cross the threshold at the Division I level, joining Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim, Jim Calhoun and Bob Knight.
After the match, UNC presented Williams with a personalized jersey to commemorate the achievement.
Williams said he appreciated the accomplishment after the game, but quickly recognized his players and assistant coaches.
From ESPN:
“It’s cool, and I appreciate all the players who have been involved in these things before,” said Williams. “My assistant coaches, for 33 years I felt like I had the best coaching staff in the world and I believe that every day. But it was good.”
Williams is the fastest coach to reach 900 wins, having done so in his 1,161st game as head coach. The next fastest: Krzyzewski with 1183.
Between his time at UNC and Kansas, Williams is also the only coach in this group to achieve all of his wins solely as a power conference coach (Krzyzewski and Knight both started in the military, Calhoun has started in Northeastern and Jim Boeheim took over Syracuse when it was still an independent).
Assistant under legendary Dean Smith (879 wins) for 10 years, Williams made his debut as a head coach at Kansas in 1988. After 15 seasons that still placed him third on the all-time winning list of the Jayhawks, Williams stepped back. at UNC to take over a program that had struggled under Matt Doherty. He led the Tar Heels to the national championship in his sophomore year and has since won two more titles at Chapel Hill.
Learn more about Yahoo Sports:
[ad_2]
Source link