Rank ‘Em: UNC Basketball’s Coaches Since 1944

#6 – Matt Doherty – Record: 53-43 .552 (2000-2003, 0 National Championships)

I think of a book titled “A Series of Unfortunate Events” when I think about Matt Doherty’s coaching tenure at North Carolina. As a player he saw great success for Dean Smith. Doherty was a four-year letterman and player on the 1982 national championship team. His coaching career got started when he took a job in Davidson as an assistant from 1989-1992. He went on to be an assistant for the then head coach of the Univer

sity of Kansas, Roy Williams from 1992-1999. From there he spent one season at Notre Dame for the 1999-2000 season and got them to the NIT championship game.

While Doherty was not the first choice to take over for Bill Guthridge, he ultimately took the job to take over the Tar Heels in 2000.When he started out at UNC during the 2000-01 season, it appeared that he would have a long, successful run as the head coach. Then it happened. The Tar Heels, after an unexpected absence of Joseph Forte (before being one-and-done was cool) and departure of Julius Peppers and Ronald Curry, finished the 2001-02 season 8-20. Not completely the fault of Doherty, but he has to take some of the blame. He went from the national coach of the year by the Associated Press to not qualifying for the NCAA tournament in one year. It just got worse for him from there. Wherever the opinion lies of if he was forced out of his job so Roy Williams could take over is another argument for another time. He at least did leave Roy with some good young talent that eventually won the 2005 national championship.