We're not knocking Roy Williams by comparing him to Dean Smith, but there are at least two areas where he comes off worse for he comparison: first in his relative lack of subtlety - remember when JJ Redick called out the play "California" when UNC had a chance to hit a very late shot to win in Cameron? Does anyone really think Smith would have been that predictable?
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In a word: no. If Smith was "Michelangelo," as Dick Vitale always calls him, Williams is more Andrew Wyeth. His teams are beautiful to look at but it's nothing we haven't seen before.
The second way is how he presents himself publicly. Smith wasn't perfect - at one point on his radio show he contemptuously called an FSU player "Mr. Choke" and over the years, he released some real zingers in his press conferences. There were reasons why he drove other ACC coaches and fans crazy.
Still, Smith would never have let himself say, as Williams did at Kansas, "I don't give a shit about North Carolina," and he wouldn't have handled the PJ Hairston situation the way Williams did Wednesday either.
When asked by about Hairston by an N&O reporter, Williams said
"Not talking about P.J. Iâve read about it all damn summer, Iâm tired of reading about, tired of talking about it. If you want to talk about anything else, Iâll talk about anything."
Smith would have just declined comment, made the reporter feel good about himself, and gone on his way.