No great surprise here - Clemson
beat Puerto Rico-Mayaguez like a cowbell, 101-60. Holy Cross is up
next.
Here's
a bit more on Gary Williams' new contract, with some quotes from the man
himself.
Assuming he stays at Maryland until the end of his contract, he'll be around
68. That's pretty much retirement age, but Lute Olson is 70-something and
still doing okay, and Joe Paterno is nearly 80. Williams will probably be
like Bear Bryant. If he quits coaching Maryland, he'll end up coaching
Little League.
In the only ACC action Tuesday, FSU
faces Stetson. Stetson used to be not bad, but they have fallen on
hard times in recent years. Currently they are 0-8, and shouldn't pose
much of a challenge for FSU.
Al Skinner is hoping that Sean Williams is back soon - his team could use an
imposing center - and
he should know soon. But do you buy the idea that Skinner doesn't know
what the court requires of Williams? That seems awfully detached.
Matt Doherty continues to slowly come clean about his
feelings about leaving UNC. Don't get us wrong: anyone would be
upset. But he's gradually spinning the story to put the blame squarely on
UNC.
After it happened, he talked about his own flaws and regrets. Lately, though,
he's said that "There could have been more support from upper management,
quite frankly. They're the ones who came after me."
Now he's gradually easing into how Roy Williams was hired: "If
they would have just come to me and said, 'Matt, Coach Williams is available
now. He's who we wanted in the first place. . . . We'll say good things. We'll
help you get another job.' I wouldn't have liked it, but I'd like it a lot
better than the way it was handled."
Dean Smith is quoted in the article as saying "I believe if you give a
guy a contract, well, then let him finish it," but when the ax fell, he
said this: "I was pushing to give him more time, very much so, and
then some people shared some of the problems and then you could see where they
were coming from. You can put it that way."
The article refers to rumors that went around. As we recall, there were
more than rumors, although the rumors were pretty amazing. Here are some
things we printed at the time.
- Two parents of players are seriously furious, one saying his/her kid has
been through "hell.". Neither wishes to be identified at this
time. The same parent who said his/her kid had been through hell also says
"[n]obody's happy. They can't stand the coach." - You already knew this - six players have left the team since Doherty took
over - Julius Peppers, Ronald Curry, Joe Forte, Neil Fingleton, Adam Boone,
and Brian Morrison - and several others have considered it as well. The
first three are significant; the last three aren't. The common denominator,
though, is the unhappiness with Doherty. - Adam Boone's parents wrote a letter to Dick Baddour and accused Doherty of
being abusive. - "There were some times in the season when guys didn't respect
(Doherty) and he didn't respect us.That's not what we came to Carolina to
do."
Rashad McCants - "All year, me and Coach Doherty didn't see eye to eye. A lot of
players didn't like his coaching style. It's just something that just kind
of happened. It's a lot of things. I don.t really want to speak on
that. But we just didn't have the connection that he had with other players
on the team. I guess that happens with some teams, but it probably happened
with more players than he expected."
Rashad McCants - "I care about the coaching staff,
but I guess it's the best decision for this program."
Melvin Scott - ''The issue here is not basketball, wins and losses, or players running
the program. It's leadership."
Chancellor Moeser - "Doherty's arrival in Chapel Hill was tainted from the beginning,
when he turned off his cell phone so his former players at Notre Dame could
not say goodbye."
Steven Smith, Philly Enquirer - Jawad Williams' mom, Gail Hillman-Williams, told the Wilmington Star that
"(Doherty)" drove those kids insane last year He drove them
nuts." - Another parent told the Poop Sheet this: "What my son has been
through has been unbelievable. It's been hell, absolute hell. It hurts me to
say this, because my son and I have great respect for Dean Smith and Bill
Guthridge and Phil Ford and everything else Carolina basketball has
represented, but we're at the point where we're counting the days until it's
over (with Doherty), and that's really, really sad." - "It is undeniable there has been some turmoil regarding the status of
players in the program. Coach Doherty worked hard to get beyond that turmoil
and at times was successful."
Dick Baddour at the press conference to announce Doherty's
"resignation"
Doherty can blame UNC or do whatever he wants to to shift the blame
elsewhere. But when you go back and look at what happened and what was
said...pretty clearly, if Doherty could have controlled himself a bit better, he
would not have alienated so many people. Even Dean Smith tacitly admitted
there were serious problems. When he was having trouble finding a job, Doherty seemed much more contrite. That's no longer the case, and that will prove, we suspect, to be quite revealing.