Roy Williams is one of the great coaches in basketball history, and now belongs to a club that is exclusive enough to say so much.
The North Carolina head coach achieved his 900th victory in his career on Saturday with a 78-70 victory over Florida 11. Williams is the fifth basketball coach for men to cross the threshold at Division I level and joins Mike Krzyzewski , Jim Boeheim, Jim Calhoun and Bob Knight.
After the game, UNC handed over a custom jersey to Williams to commemorate the achievement.
Williams said he appreciated the performance after the game, but he was quick to acknowledge his players and assistant coaches.
From ESPN:
“It’s neat and I appreciate all the players who were ever involved in that,” Williams said. “My assistant coaches felt for 33 years that I had the best coaching team in the world, and I believe that every day. But it was fun.”
Williams is the fastest coach to achieve 900 wins, having achieved it in his 1,161st game as head coach. The following fastest: Krzyzewski with 1,183.
Between his time at UNC and Kansas, Williams is also the only coach in that group to have achieved all his victories as a strength coach (Krzyzewski and Knight both got their army in the Army, Calhoun started in the Northeast and Jim Boeheim took over Syracuse when it was still an independent).
Williams was an assistant under the legendary Dean Smith (879 wins) for 10 years. Williams started as head coach in Kansas in 1988. After 15 seasons still capturing him third on the Jayhawks list of all time, Williams retired. to UNC to take over a program that was struggling under Matt Doherty. He led the Tar Heels to the national championships in his second year and has since won two more titles in Chapel Hill.
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