Other College Basketball coaches think Roy Williams is overrated

[Gewebe14]

Oh, but we already know the answer to this. See 2010.

I know - the horror of having only 3 lottery picks in addition to 2 senior starters!

This is why I'm cautiously optimistic about this year - only ONE (probably) lottery pick!

[billy]

Ok, move along now, nothing to see here....just a another bit of media off-season crapola.

There seems to be a whole lot of this mentality coming out of chapel hill for the last few months

FWIW, I actually like ol' Roy; I find his bluntness refreshing. The fact that he doesn't give a ___ is just as infuriating to UNC fans as it is to everyone else, and, he still doesn't give one.

[subzero02]

The problem with Barnes is that you have to be rated before you can be overrated.

Well played...

[oldnavy]

I've been saying this same thing for years. I am happy to have 100 coaches agree AND the guy that wrote the article agree with my thoughts on Ol Roy. He is really good at recruiting, not great, because we just don't know if he could recruit at a smaller lesser known school than one of the 4 or 5 true BLUE BLOODS of the sport.

What they didn't touch on is his game management "lack" of skills. He is one of the worst big time coaches that I have seen at managing a game after the ball is jumped. There are lots of example of this which I have beat into the ground over the years (his use or lack thereof to use time outs, his substitution patterns, his play calling at end of games, etc...).

As a recruiter, well he has recruited well at UNC and KU... what can you really say about that?

As a coach... I think Ol Roy said it best, he thinks he is ok, but not great. I love the line about him not wanting to know if he could win with average players... one thing about Ol Roy, he lays it all out there for ya.

What is funny is that I can relate to Roy. I think I am more like him than I would want to admit.

[CDu]

Ok, move along now, nothing to see here....just a another bit of media off-season crapola.

Roy Williams is one of the top coaches in the game by any reasonable measurement of his career compared to any other coach out there.

Actually, it isn't media crapola. This was the opinion of the coaches themselves.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

I cannot wait until some media hound confronts him with this and asks for his opinion and response. Should be juicy!

[turnandburn55]

Ok, move along now, nothing to see here....just a another bit of media off-season crapola.

Roy Williams is one of the top coaches in the game by any reasonable measurement of his career compared to any other coach out there.

Perhaps you should re-read the article (or even the subject of this thread). It doesn't say "Roy Williams is a bad coach", it says "Roy Williams is overrated". There is a distinct difference.

[flyingdutchdevil]

Again, it's more a question of where those guys are actually rated. Williams may well be a better coach than those other guys. But most everyone THINKS Williams is better. So in a measure of who is overrated (rather than who is a better/worse coach), it's all relative to the perception.

I don't think anyone considers Barnes, Wright, Drew, or Howland among the best coach in the country. Many folks DO think that of Williams. So it's harder to say they're overrated.

Great point. Never thought of that. So, as per the article, if coaches are looking at this primarily from an Xs and Os standpoint, who is underrated? I'd have to say that Brad Stevens and (sigh) Jim Calhoun get top honors, no?

[rsvman]

As much as I love to dog on Williams, I would actually put Barnes ahead of him on this list. At least Roy has won - two titles in less than a decade, a Final 4 contender almost every year. You can pass it off as "anyone can win there," but you still have to actually do it. Barnes has great resources at Texas and has brought in great players but hasn't done much of anything.

+1,000,000. Barnes is way worse than Roy, IMO. Roy is not a very good X's and O's coach, though, and he doesn't even think about altering a playing style to fit his player's strengths and weaknesses. I guess I'd say his major defect is that he stubbornly sticks to a plan even when it is clear that it won't work.

[Wander]

Great point. Never thought of that. So, as per the article, if coaches are looking at this primarily from an Xs and Os standpoint, who is underrated? I'd have to say that Brad Stevens and (sigh) Jim Calhoun get top honors, no?

They did the underrated version the day before. The top vote-getter was Fran Dunphy of Temple, followed by Bennett of St. Mary's. Like CDu has been pointing out, it's an expectations/hype thing - I think everyone agrees Stevens and Calhoun are really good coaches to begin with.

By the way, they're doing this type of thing (asking ~100 coaches their opinion of some college ball subject) every day for a few weeks. It's a cool series.

[hudlow]

I always figured if I had Earnhardt Jr.'s car and backing that I could wreck or finish back in the pack as good as he could...

[UrinalCake]

As a coach... I think Ol Roy said it best, he thinks he is ok, but not great. I love the line about him not wanting to know if he could win with average players... one thing about Ol Roy, he lays it all out there for ya.

The quote where Roy said he thinks of himself as an ok coach who needs to have great players strikes me as a carryover from the Dean Smith era. Smith was always self-deprecating, he'd put himself down and place the blame on himself when the team lost while praising his players when they won. Everyone sort of understood this about him and respected it. But when Roy does it, it doesn't quite work the same way because people actually believe him when he says he's not that good 8-)

Also, it should be pointed out that the article clearly states that they are referring only to in-game coaching. It acknowledges that this is only one aspect of coaching. It's pretty hard to isolate just that part when evaluating a coach, because there are so many other aspects to the job - recruiting (both evaluating talent and getting the guys to come to your school), player development, managing the psychology/motivation of 18 year-old kids, etc.

[Indoor66]

I always figured if I had Earnhardt Jr.'s car and backing that I could wreck or finish back in the pack as good as he could...

Isn't that how we ALL fool ourselves?

[UrinalCake]

Isn't that how we ALL fool ourselves?

Yeah, like when people say if they had Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant then they could win as many titles as Phil Jackson.

[grit74]

"Uh, Coach Ole Roy , I think they're playing a zone."

"Dadgum it, don't interrupt me when I'm drinkin' a frickin' Coke."

"But, Coach, I'm pretty sure they're playing a zone."

"Listen, i've been coaching for thirty years. I know more than all you short pants assistants put together."

"Sorry, Coach, but we haven't scored in, like, forever. Don't you want to win?"

"Want to win? I've got more fire than a frickin' volcano."

"But Coach, it's a zone, and it's killing us."

"I don't give a damn about any zone."

[ohiodukefan]

This is ridiculous. He's taken 7 teams to Final Fours. There are only 3 other coaches in the history of this great game that have been to more, Wooden, K and Dean. How can anyone say that's over rated?? Plus he's taken 4 or 5 other teams to Elite Eights. Thank gawd for Kansas in 2012 and Kentucky in 2011 or Williams would have taken teams to Final Fours in 5 out of the last 8 years!!! How is that OVER RATED???

[dcdevil2009]

This is ridiculous. He's taken 7 teams to Final Fours. There are only 3 other coaches in the history of this great game that have been to more, Wooden, K and Dean. How can anyone say that's over rated?? Plus he's taken 4 or 5 other teams to Elite Eights. Thank gawd for Kansas in 2012 and Kentucky in 2011 or Williams would have taken teams to Final Fours in 5 out of the last 8 years!!! How is that OVER RATED???

Two reasons: first, because it's based on in-game coaching (aka, given your players, how should you have done?) and second, how are you generally rated? No one is denying that Williams is a great recruiter, nor are they denying that he's been successful at UNC. However, with the teams he's had, he hasn't exactly exceeded preseason expectations. I'm willing to ignore last year with the Marshall injury, but Roy has rarely been accused of getting the most out of his players. Instead, he's relied on his legitimately great recruiting ability and been successful when he has players that fit his system, but when it comes to using x's and o's to hide his teams weaknesses, he hasn't done a good job.

[Olympic Fan]

I always figured if I had Earnhardt Jr.'s car and backing that I could wreck or finish back in the pack as good as he could...

It's amazing that you bring this up because it relates to a story that shaped my perspective of NASCAR (and it applies to this thread).

When I was a kid, one of the top drivers on the NASCAR tour was a guy named Marvin Paunch, who drove for the Wood Brothers.

But then he was in a terrible crash. His car caught on fire and he was trapped in the driver's seat. An unknown driver named Tiny Lund (the Tiny was ironic -- he was huge) risked his life to pull Paunch from his car. The famous driver was hospitalized for about two months. During that time, the Wood Brothers offered the driving job to Lund. In his first race for the Wood Brothers (who proved to be one of NASCARs greatest teams), Lind drove to victory in the Daytona 500. Lund stayed with the Wood team for 3-4 races and was always running near the top -- he came within a couple of laps of running away with the Southeastern 500 before he blew an engine with a couple of miles to go.

But then Paunch came back and Lund disappeared. He lost his ride with the Wood Brothers and bounced around to other teams without success. He DNF in his next 21 races. Eventually, he hooked up with Petty Enterprises as their No. 3 driver and had some decent races, but never won a major race again.

The point is that Tiny Lund was an average driver. But when he drove for a great team, he was a great driver - the equal of Petty, Lorenzon or Junior Johnson.

It's the same for college basketball coaches. Roy Williams has had the benefit of coaching at two of the established blue blood schools in the sport. He's had great success at thos two schools. He deserves credit for that. But don't we also have to look at the situations he inherited and assign degree of difficulty.

PS I'm sure a critic could say the same thing about Coach K's success at Duke ... except that Duke wasn't a blue blood when he took over. He MADE Duke one of the top programs in the country (just as Rupp did at Kentucky, Wooden did at UCLA and Dean Smith did at UNC).

I'm glad to see that the 100 coaches polled agree with that evaluation.

[Indoor66]

It's amazing that you bring this up because it relates to a story that shaped my perspective of NASCAR (and it applies to this thread).

When I was a kid, one of the top drivers on the NASCAR tour was a guy named Marvin Paunch, who drove for the Wood Brothers.

But then he was in a terrible crash. His car caught on fire and he was trapped in the driver's seat. An unknown driver named Tiny Lund (the Tiny was ironic -- he was huge) risked his life to pull Paunch from his car. The famous driver was hospitalized for about two months. During that time, the Wood Brothers offered the driving job to Lund. In his first race for the Wood Brothers (who proved to be one of NASCARs greatest teams), Lind drove to victory in the Daytona 500. Lund stayed with the Wood team for 3-4 races and was always running near the top -- he came within a couple of laps of running away with the Southeastern 500 before he blew an engine with a couple of miles to go.

But then Paunch came back and Lund disappeared. He lost his ride with the Wood Brothers and bounced around to other teams without success. He DNF in his next 21 races. Eventually, he hooked up with Petty Enterprises as their No. 3 driver and had some decent races, but never won a major race again.

The point is that Tiny Lund was an average driver. But when he drove for a great team, he was a great driver - the equal of Petty, Lorenzon or Junior Johnson.

It's the same for college basketball coaches. Roy Williams has had the benefit of coaching at two of the established blue blood schools in the sport. He's had great success at thos two schools. He deserves credit for that. But don't we also have to look at the situations he inherited and assign degree of difficulty.

PS I'm sure a critic could say the same thing about Coach K's success at Duke ... except that Duke wasn't a blue blood when he took over. He MADE Duke one of the top programs in the country (just as Rupp did at Kentucky, Wooden did at UCLA and Dean Smith did at UNC).

I'm glad to see that the 100 coaches polled agree with that evaluation.

When Dean took over at UNC they were three years from an undefeated season and winning the national championship - over Kansas and Chamberlain. He had a good start.

[CDu]

This is ridiculous. He's taken 7 teams to Final Fours. There are only 3 other coaches in the history of this great game that have been to more, Wooden, K and Dean. How can anyone say that's over rated?? Plus he's taken 4 or 5 other teams to Elite Eights. Thank gawd for Kansas in 2012 and Kentucky in 2011 or Williams would have taken teams to Final Fours in 5 out of the last 8 years!!! How is that OVER RATED???

Because it isn't simply a measure of who is the best coach. It is a measure of which coach has the biggest discrepancy between actual coaching ability and perceived coaching ability. More specifically, this poll is a bunch of coaches' subjective assessments of the difference between:

a. Their perception of a particular coach's ability; and
b. Their perception of the general public's perception of that coach's ability

The coach whose general public perceived ability most exceeds his perceived ability in the poll-voting coach's eyes is the most overrated (as determined by that poll-voting coach). The coach whom gets the most votes for overrated is then the most overrated coach amongst those coaches who voted.

So again, there is absolutely nothing necessarily inconsistent about saying that Williams is a better coach than Barnes AND saying that Williams is more overrated. It's purely a matter of the difference in meaning between overrated/underrated and good/bad.