1) Hubert Davis, North Carolina, 2021 (replacing Roy Williams)
2) Bill Self, Kansas, 2003 (replacing Roy Williams)

When North Carolina and Kansas faced off in the 2022 NCAA Tournament National Final, it was a match-up of coaches that had replaced Roy Williams. Davis, who had previously played at North Carolina under Dean Smith, was Williams’ hand-picked replacement in 2021 after nearly a decade as an assistant. With Davis in charge, the Tar Heels now have a steady run of 60 years of being coached by Smith, a former Smith player, and/or a former Smith assistant coach. He pulled off something neither Williams nor Smith could muster, leading North Carolina to the Final Four in his first season as coach, a surprise trip as a #8 seed. That magical run ended in the National Final against Kansas, which was making its fourth Final Four appearance under Self, who replaced Williams in ’04-’05. That matched Williams’ mark with the Jayhawks but Kansas never won the title under Williams, something Self has now managed twice, in 2008 and 2022. He has also been honored as AP Coach of the Year twice, Big-12 Coach of the Year six times, and in 2021, he agreed to a lifetime contract with the school, effective until he retires or passes away. Self has also passed Williams for second on the school’s all-time wins list and will likely surpass the vaunted Phog Allen for the all-time program record during the ’23-’24 season. If you’re wondering who Williams was cheering for in that National Final, his allegiance was apparently with North Carolina.

3) Gene Bartow, UCLA, 1975 (replacing John Wooden)

When is a 27-5 record, a top five final AP ranking, a conference title, and a Final Four appearance considered a failure for a first year head coach? When you’re replacing the greatest coach in college history, who ended his career with a streak of nine consecutive Final Four trips, with championships won in eight of them. Wooden’s intangible presence was a constant for Bartow, like a Damocles Pyramid of Success dangling over his head, ready to crush him. When UCLA lost to #1 Indiana in the 1976 National Semifinals, it was somehow a disaster for the program and the pressure mounted even further when the Bruins were stunned by Idaho State in the 1977 Regional Semifinals. Bartow stepped down after just two seasons, opting instead for the lower pressure situation building the UAB program from the ground up as coach and athletic director (and he was successful at it, eventually getting inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame for those efforts). Bartow’s sun, Murry, also went into coaching and eventually landed the top job at UCLA as well, albeit briefly, taking over as interim coach for Steve Alford during the ’18-’19 season.

4) Kevin Ollie, Connecticut, 2012 (replacing Jim Calhoun)

In his wrongful termination lawsuit filed (and recently won) against Connecticut, Ollie specifically cited that his predecessor had job security for decades despite repeated recruitment violations. It was an acrimonious coda to a formerly fruitful relationship, which started when Ollie matriculated at UConn under Calhoun in 1991, earning All-Big East honors as a senior before embarking on a 13-year career in the NBA. Ollie then joined Calhoun’s staff in 2010 and was quickly thrown into the head job when his mentor retired two years later due to health concerns. This ended a quarter century of Calhoun at the helm, wherein he led the Huskies to the Final Four four times, with championships in 1999, 2004, and 2011. It also coincided with Connecticut leaving its longtime home in the Big East to join the AAC and being forced to sit out the 2013 NCAA Tournament due to previous recruiting infractions. But Ollie proved his worth quickly, leading UConn to a surprise NCAA championship in ’13-’14, pulling off five consecutive upsets along the way as a #7 seed. The young Ollie was the toast of the NCAA but things soured quickly, with Connecticut missing the tournament in three of the next four seasons and multiple recruiting violations happening under his watch. He was fired in 2018 and replaced with Dan Hurley but, as previously mentioned, successfully sued the school for breach of contract.

5) Andy Kennedy, Cincinnati, 2005 (replacing Bob Huggins)

It was obviously a long time coming when Huggins was forced to resign as Cincinnati coach in August of 2005. Despite his incredible success rebuilding the program from scratch and leading them to 14 consecutive NCAA Tournaments, including a Final Four in 1992, Huggins’ lax academic standards ran antithetical to the new school president’s directives. The final straw came in 2004, when Huggins was arrested for a DUI while on a recruiting trip. But even with all that leeway, Cincinnati failed to hire a new permanent coach by the start of the ’05-’06 season. They instead turned things over to Huggins’ top assistant, Kennedy, on an interim basis. In complete disarray due to transfers and withdrawn recruits, Cincinnati missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 15 years under Kennedy, instead settling for an NIT appearance. It was a solid performance, all things considered, but Cincinnati instead decided to hire another of the program’s assistant coaches for the full-time job starting in ’06-’07. Mick Cronin had served under Huggins in various capacities from 1997 to 2001 before a brief, successful stint as head coach at Murray State. He returned to Cincinnati to replace Kennedy and, after some initial growing pains, eventually built it back into a solid program. Huggins took over as head coach at his alma mater, West Virginia, in 2007 and has had a successful run, including a Final Four trip in 2010. Early in the ’21-’22 season, Huggins went head-to-head against his former assistant and successor for the first time, when West Virginia visited UAB, now coached by Kennedy.

6) Joe B. Hall, Kentucky, 1972 (replacing Adolph Rupp)

Thanks to a now revoked regulation that all university employees have to retire at age 70, Kentucky lost arguably the most prolific coach in NCAA history when Rupp was (against his wishes) forced to step down in 1972. Over four-plus decades in charge, Rupp essentially built the program from the ground up, ultimately leading them to seven Final Four appearances with four national championships and coaching 32 All-Americans, including future Naismith Hall of Fame inductees Frank Ramsey, Cliff Hagan, Dan Issel, and Louie Dampier. Hall was part of one of those four championship squads as a player, in ’48-’49, then became an assistant coach under Rupp starting in 1965. He stepped into one of the most difficult coaching situations in NCAA history, taking over not only for a be-all, end-all legend, but one who was bitter about his forced retirement and more than willing to make local TV and radio appearances second-guessing his successor. But one big advantage Hall had over Rupp was his willingness to recruit Black players, including Jack “Goose” Givens, who led the Wildcats to the 1978 NCAA title. Hall thus became the first, and still only, person to ever win an NCAA title as both a player and a coach. Kentucky also reached the 1975 and 1984 Final Four but Hall started to lose support amongst fans and alumni in the early ’80s as in-state rival Louisville built up their program and began poaching recruits. He stepped down in 1985 with a career winning percentage of .748 and 297 wins, which is third in program history behind only Rupp and Rick Pitino. In 2012, Kentucky unveiled a bronze statue on campus of Hall, captured in his signature look on the bench, bespectacled and clutching a rolled-up play call sheet.

7) Quin Snyder, Missouri, 1999 (replacing Norm Stewart)

It was an abbreviated yet extreme rise and fall at Missouri for Snyder, who took over as head coach in 1999 at age 33. In a couple specific ways, Snyder actually did match or improve on the legend who preceded him as coach. That celebrated man was Stewart, who was named head coach at Missouri in 1967 and held down the fort for 32 seasons, leading the Tigers to 16 NCAA Tournaments and as far as the Regional Finals twice. Starting in ’00-’01, Snyder did something Stewart never could, leading Missouri to NCAA Tournament wins in three consecutive seasons. That included a run in 2002 in which he matched Stewart’s best NCAA Tournament performance, taking Missouri to the Regional Finals as a #12 seed. But Snyder’s and the school’s reputations were shattered soon after, as the NCAA investigated recruiting violations, with the head coach specifically implicated for giving gifts to players. Even as the program went on probation for three years, Snyder continued on as coach until the ’05-’06 season, when he resigned halfway through following a six game losing streak. Still shy of 40 years old at the time, Snyder revived his career with several assistant coaching gigs in the NBA before taking over as Jazz head coach in 2014.

8) Fran Dunphy, Temple, 2006 (replacing John Chaney)

When Chaney retired in 2006, ending a 24-year run as a titan of coaching at Temple, the program was lucky to find a replacement that was already beloved and revered within the Philadelphia basketball community. Dunphy, who was raised in the Philly suburbs and played his college ball at La Salle in the city, had spent 17 seasons building Penn into a powerhouse program, winning nine Ivy League titles. When Temple hired him away in 2006, he became the first ever head coach of two of the “Big 5” Philadelphia programs (Temple, Penn, La Salle, Villanova, and St. Joseph’s). He was lucky to have the good will he’d accrued in Philadelphia, because while Temple had some good seasons under Dunphy, it ultimately paled in comparison to Chaney’s era. Chaney had led the Owls to 17 NCAA Tournament appearances in his first 19 seasons, including the Regional Finals five times. In Dunphy’s 13 seasons in charge, Temple made just eight NCAA Tournament appearances, and never reached as far as the Sweet 16. Dunphy stepped down as coach in 2019, replaced by Aaron McKie, who was the star of the ’92-’93 Temple team that reached the Elite Eight under Chaney.

9) Rollie Massimino, UNLV, 1992 (replacing Jerry Tarkanian)

When Tarkanian resigned at UNLV in 1992 amid numerous scandals involving improper benefits for his players, the school thought it had found a perfect replacement in Massimino, a man revered for both his winning ways at Villanova (including the 1985 NCAA Tournament title as a #8 seed) and his dedication to ethics and compliance. Instead, they wound up with another firestorm, as Massimino was fired two years later under allegations that he himself had accepted improper payments and benefits from the athletic director. Even more egregious, Massimino had failed to keep up the winning culture, finishing with a 15-13 record in ’93-’94 as attendance tanked at the Thomas & Mack Center. The school attempted to rectify this debacle by replacing Massimino with top Tarkanian assistant Tim Grgurich but he lasted only seven games into the ’94-’95 season before resigning due to health issues. In fact, in the first 12 years after “Tark the Shark” stepped down, the Runnin’ Rebels cycled through nine head coaches and made just two NCAA Tournament appearances, each of them first round exits. Meanwhile, after an ill-fated stint with the Spurs, Tarkanian found success in the late ’90s and early ’00s at Fresno State. UNLV finally turned its program around in 2004 with the hiring of Lon Kruger, who coached them to four tourney appearances in his seven years at the helm.

10) Joey Meyer, DePaul, 1984 (replacing Ray Meyer)
11) Sean Sutton, Oklahoma State, 2006 (replacing Eddie Sutton)

When in doubt, maybe turn your basketball program into a family business? It worked out pretty well at DePaul, where a Meyer was head coach for 55 continuous years. The elder, Ray, took over in ’42-’43, immediately recruited George Mikan to campus, and led the team to the Final Four of the 1943 NCAA Tournament. Over the next four decades, he guided the program with a steady hand, especially in the late ’70s and early ’80s, when local prep superstars Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings were recruited, and the Blue Demons made a return appearance to the Final Four in 1979. The younger Meyer was born in his father’s seventh season as coach and then replaced him at age 35, finding some initial success. DePaul reached the Sweet 16 twice in Joey’s first three seasons as coach but the program struggled to adapt to the modern era and fell into a steady slump in the early ’90s (one major factor: WGN stopped carrying their television broadcasts nationally). Joey was fired after finishing 3-23 in ’96-’97 but a series of replacements have failed to return the program to prominence, with just two NCAA Tournament appearances in the last 25 years, both first round losses. As of the end of the ’20-’21 season, the Meyer father-son duo combined for 955 wins at DePaul, while all other coaches in the program’s history have 533 total wins altogether.

The family succession was much less prosperous at Oklahoma State, where Sean replaced his father, Eddie, during the ’05-’06 season. That was due to Eddie being arrested for a DUI, which forced him to come clean about years of alcoholism. It was an unfortunate end to an incredible 16-year run as the Cowboys’ head coach, leading the team to 13 NCAA Tournaments, six Sweet 16 appearances, and Final Four bids in 1995 and 2004. Perhaps owing to that legacy of success, the school inexplicably allowed Sutton to handpick his son as his successor, even as he was being forced to resign in remorse. Inheriting a program that had skidded in his father’s last couple years, Sean did little to turn things around and stepped down after just two years, finishing with an overall record of 39-29 and no NCAA Tournament appearances (they did reach the NIT in each of his seasons). Eddie’s youngest son, Scott, also went into coaching, leading Oral Roberts for 17 seasons, including several with Sean on his staff as an assistant.

“School officials insisted that the 60-year-old Guthridge was not a stopgap but everyone, including Guthridge himself, had to have known better.”

12) Dick Harp, Kansas, 1956 (replacing Phog Allen)

Kansas has a storied and steady history, with just eight full time head coaches in 124 years, starting with the inventor of basketball himself, James Naismith. The most notable of those coaches was Allen, who served for 56 years at the Lawrence campus, reaching three NCAA Tournament finals, winning one (in 1952) and earning the honorific as the “Father of Basketball Coaching.” Those were big shoes to fill for Harp, who played at Kansas for Allen, then served as an assistant under him for several years. It helped that he inherited Allen’s final big time recruit, Wilt Chamberlain (Allen himself wanted to coach Chamberlain, but similar to Adolph Rupp, was forced to step down at age 70 due to state law), who led Kansas to the National Final in Harp’s first season as coach, ’56-’57 (where they were defeated by North Carolina in triple overtime). Unfortunately for Harp, “The Stilt” didn’t hang around long after that, skipping campus before his senior season to join the Harlem Globetrotters. The Jayhawks did remain competitive under Harp, thanks mainly to his willingness to continue recruiting Black players like Bill Bridges and Wayne Hightower. But that racial integration didn’t sit well with most Kansas fans, especially when the team made the NCAA Tournament just once in the next seven seasons, and Harp stepped down in 1964, replaced by Ted Owens. Harp’s eight years as coach is the second shortest stint in program history, trailing only the notoriously itinerant Larry Brown, who led the team for five seasons.

13) Mike Davis, Indiana, 2000 (replacing Bobby Knight)

Becoming a head coach for the first time is a dream come true for most but for Davis it was simultaneously a nightmare. His predecessor was a titan of the game, with 30 years at Indiana highlighted by 24 NCAA Tournament appearances and three championships, including a perfect season in ’75-’76. But Knight’s rein was also often one of terror, as chronicled in 2000 by former player Neil Reed, who claimed (with video evidence) that the venerable coach once choked him in a practice. Knight was soon after fired but not without its own controversy, as students and alumni protested the move, even going so far as marching to university president Myles Brand’s home to burn an effigy of him. With several Knight recruits also threatening to transfer, Brand attempted to assuage tensions by promoting Davis and fellow assistant John Treloar as “co-head coaches.” This ridiculous plan fell through when Treloar declined the offer, so Davis took over as solo head coach in ’00-’01. One thing going in Davis’ favor was that Knight’s Indiana teams had been struggling late in his tenure, losing in the first or second round of the NCAA Tournament for six straight years at the end. He therefore won over fans in 2002, when Indiana made a surprise run to the National Final as a #5 seed, pulling off a massive upset of Duke along the way. But the pressure only mounted on Davis from there and he and the Hoosiers cracked, missing the NCAA Tournament altogether in back-to-back seasons in 2004 and 2005, something that had never happened under Knight. Davis resigned in 2006 to avoid being fired and has since led UAB and Texas Southern to tournament appearances. Knight re-emerged in 2001 at Texas Tech, where he kept up his late career tradition of early tournament exits for a few years before handing over the keys to his son, Pat.

14) Stan Heath, Arkansas, 2002 (replacing Nolan Richardson)

After several years as an assistant under Tom Izzo at Michigan State, Heath made his head coaching debut at Kent State in ’01-’02. He made an immediate impact in his first season, guiding the Golden Flashes to the best campaign in program history, with 30 wins and a thrilling Cinderella run to the Elite Eight. This was instantaneously leveraged into a more prestigious job, with Heath getting announced as head coach at Arkansas less than a week after Kent State’s season ended. Even though he was replacing a legend at a storied program, pressure was relatively low on Heath in Fayetteville. Arkansas had slipped in quality in the late ’90s and early ’00s under Richardson, even missing the NCAA Tournament entirely in 2002. This ran counter to Richardson’s first decade at the helm, when he deployed his patented “40 Minutes of Hell” pressure defense and led Arkansas to the Final Four three times and a national title in 1994. But Richardson’s era ended in not just mediocrity but also controversy, as he accused the school’s athletic director of racist mistreatment right before getting fired. Heath got off to a slow start as coach as expected but just didn’t progress as quickly as school administrators and fans hoped. Arkansas finally made it back to the NCAA Tournament in 2006 and 2007 but lost in the first round each time, leading to Heath’s dismissal. In the meantime, Richardson sued Arkansas for discrimination but the case was dismissed. His relationship with the program was finally repaired in the ’10s, when they hired his longtime assistant and friend Mike Anderson as head coach and eventually renamed the home floor as the Nolan Richardson Court.

15) Sam Aubrey, Oklahoma State, 1970 (replacing Hank Iba)

In 1946, Oklahoma State (then called Oklahoma A&M) became the first school ever to win back-to-back NCAA titles. On the court, starting at power forward, was Aubrey, a decorated war hero who joined the team less than a year after getting shot in the hip in Italy during World War II. On the sidelines was Iba, who ultimately coached Oklahoma State for 35 years, reaching the Final Four six times before finally retiring in 1970 as the then second winningest coach in NCAA history. Following stints coaching at a high school and a junior college, Aubrey had returned to Stillwater in 1953, first as coach of the freshman team and later as an assistant under Iba, and then took over as head coach when his mentor stepped down. Perhaps owing to the game having somewhat passed him by, Iba’s teams had struggled in his later years and Aubrey was unable to revive the suffering program. All three of Aubrey’s seasons as coach ended with a losing record for Oklahoma State, including a 4-22 debacle in ’71-’72. Even so, his resignation in 1973 was met with disappointment from his players and most notably his mentor Iba, who felt that Aubrey didn’t get a fair chance to succeed on his own terms. Though it was the end of Aubrey’s coaching career, he did take on various administrative roles within Oklahoma State’s athletic department over the ensuing years. In addition his accolades at Oklahoma State, Iba was also the coach of the U.S. national team that won gold at the 1964 and 1968 Olympics. Throughout his time coaching the Cowboys, he also served as the school’s athletic director and often filled in triple duty as the baseball head coach. He is enshrined in both the Naismith and College Halls of Fame and in 1987 Oklahoma State renamed its home arena in his honor.

16) Craig Esherick, Georgetown, 1999 (replacing John Thompson)

A John Thompson was head coach at Georgetown for 40 seasons, but not continuously. John Thompson, Jr. was at the helm from 1972 to 1999 and willed the program to national prominence, recruiting top flight talent like Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, and Allen Iverson, and leading the Hoyas to the Final Four three times, including a national championship in 1984. His son, John III, took over in 2004 and revived the team, snapping a four year tournament drought in 2006 and following that up with a Final Four appearance in 2007. In between was Esherick, who was not related to the Thompsons but was surely a treasured member of the Georgetown family. For almost his entire adult life, Esherick was involved with the Georgetown basketball program, first as a player under Thompson, Jr., then as an assistant coach for almost two decades before replacing Thompson in 1999. Esherick was hand picked by Thompson, Jr. as his successor, as Thompson III was, at the time, being groomed as Bill Carmody’s replacement at Princeton. Just browsing Georgetown’s history, it would be easy to assume Esherick was a fiasco in between Thompsons but his six seasons as coach were difficult for reasons outside his control, especially due to the “Hoya Paranoia” fans unwilling to give him a fair shake. Esherick did lead Georgetown to the Sweet 16 in 2001 but missed the tournament in all his other seasons and was summarily fired in 2004 and replaced with Thompson III.

17) Kevin O’Neill, Arizona, 2007 (replacing Lute Olson)

A staple of coaching consistency in his first two decades at Arizona, Olson became suddenly capricious after the ’06-’07 season. It started when he shockingly fired his associate coach and assumed successor, Jim Rosborough, and replaced him with O’Neill, a former assistant from the ’80s who had spent the interim in various head coaching gigs, including with Marquette, Tennessee, Northwestern, and the Toronto Raptors. Olson then announced an indefinite leave of absence right as the ’07-’08 season was set to begin, setting off a swirl of rumors on and around the Tucson campus. Amidst an uncertain future, O’Neill stepped in as interim coach for ’07-’08 and kept Olson’s streak alive with a 24th consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance for the Wildcats, albeit a first round loss. Almost everyone, including O’Neill himself, expected Olson to return for ’08-’09 with O’Neill as his top assistant, then hand the reins back over to O’Neill within a few years. But instead, Olson gave a bizarre press conference that offseason, informing reporters that O’Neill would never coach at Arizona again but making no commitments about his own coaching priorities. Olson finally officially retired that October, after which his personal physician informed journalists that the coaching legend had recently suffered a stroke, the effects of which caused impaired judgement and severe depression. It was a grody end to an incredible tenure, with Olson having built Arizona into one of the top programs in the nation over the previous quarter century, a run that included a national title in 1994. O’Neill accepted a position with the Grizzlies as an assistant coach but eventually returned to the NCAA as head coach of Arizona’s rival, USC. The school replaced O’Neill with Russ Pennell, who also lasted just one season before getting supplanted by Archie Miller.

18) Jason Rabedeaux, UTEP, 1999 (replacing Don Haskins)

While Haskins’ overall resume at UTEP may not be as impressive as some of his peers, his legend will live on in basketball lore forever as the head coach of the ’65-’66 Miners. Haskins made history with that team, then called Texas Western, by starting five Black players in the National Final, which they won over Adolph Rupp’s Kentucky. That would turn out to be the only Final Four appearance of Haskins’ career but it was still a storied one, with 719 wins compiled over 38 seasons, while future NBA stars like Tiny Archibald and Tim Hardaway passed though the program. He was such a legend in El Paso that even before he announced his retirement in 1999, the school renamed its arena after him. His replacement was Rabedeaux, a first time head coach who had amassed a reputation as a cutting edge recruiter in assistant jobs at Washington State and Oklahoma. Things looked good early for Rabedeaux, with UTEP finishing a solid 23-9 in ’00-’01 but just a year later, after a losing record in ’01-’02, he stepped down as coach, citing personal reasons. This was unfortunately just the beginning of his troubles, as it was later revealed that Rabedeaux had developed a drinking problem while at UTEP, leading to erratic behavior and health issues, which only multiplied during later roles coaching various pro teams across Asia. In 2014, he passed away at age 49 under mysterious circumstances in Saigon. Though several high profile coaches like Billy Gillespie and Tim Floyd have come and gone since Rabedeaux, UTEP has continued to struggle and is now over 30 years removed from its last NCAA Tournament game win.

19) Mark Turgeon, Maryland, 2011 (replacing Gary Williams)

Early in the ’21-’22 season, Turgeon made a surprise announcement that he was stepping down as coach of Maryland. His longtime friend Danny Manning (who played under him on the fabled ’87-’88 Kansas title team when Turgeon was an assistant for Larry Brown) took over on an interim basis, marking him as just the fifth Maryland coach in the last 50 years. Save for a tumultuous three-year stint from Bob Wade in the late ’80s, the Terrapins have been stringently consistent at head coach, from Lefty Driesell for 16 years to Williams for 22 to Turgeon for 10 before he resigned. Driesell is largely credited with building the program into a modern era powerhouse but it was Williams who lifted the team its highest highs, including a national championship in ’01-’02. Williams’ Terps also made the Final Four in 2001, and as far as the Sweet 16 in five other tournaments. He retired in 2011 as the third winningest coach in ACC history behind only Coach K and Dean Smith (Maryland has since moved to the Big 10). His replacement was Turgeon, who had found success in previous brief stints with Wichita State and Texas A&M. Just as Maryland was transitioning into the Big 10, Turgeon did manage to turn them back into tournament contenders, making five appearances in their first seven seasons in the new conference, though as far as the Regional Semifinals only once. Maryland fans began to get restless, pining for the glory days of Williams and Driesell, and perhaps they’ll get it again with Turgeon’s replacement.

20) Bill Guthridge, North Carolina, 1997 (replacing Dean Smith)

Towards the end of Smith’s 36 year rein at North Carolina, which included 11 Final Four appearances, two national championships, 18 All-Americans, and one Michael Jordan, it was a worst kept secret around the NCAA that his former longtime assistant and protege Roy Williams would succeed him. But when Smith did make his retirement announcement in 1997 at age 66, it came as a surprise to the university administration and to Williams, who was not yet ready to abandon his post at Kansas. North Carolina thus turned things over to Guthridge, who had spent the past three decades as Smith’s assistant and consigliere. School officials insisted that the 60-year-old Guthridge was not a stopgap but everyone, including Guthridge himself, had to have known better. That being said, Guthridge was, by any metric, wildly successful in his three years in charge, essentially acting as a continuation of Smith’s ’90s success. Inheriting a roster anchored by Antawn Jamison, Brendan Haywood, and Vince Carter, Guthridge led the Tar Heels to Final Four appearances in 1998 and 2000 (sandwiched in between was a major first round upset at the hands of Weber State) before following his former coach into retirement. Once again, the Williams rumor mill churned, with even Smith himself reportedly lobbying him to take the job, but once again Williams declined to stay at Kansas and the position went to former UNC player Matt Doherty. Williams finally did take over from Doherty in 2003, eventually leading the Tar Heels to three national championships before turning over the keys to Hubert Davis.