Former KU men’s basketball assistant coach Matt Doherty has resigned from his job as head coach at North Carolina.
“Clearly, this has been a most difficult day for my staff, their families and for me,” Doherty said in a statement read during a press conference Tuesday. “I thank the players, the coaches and their families, and the administrative staff for their dedication and hard work.
“I would also like to express my appreciation to the students and fans that made the Smith Center such an exciting place to be this season. I continue to wish the best for this program and this university.”
Doherty’s resignation came after athletic director Dick Baddour held a series of meetings with players and parents, who had openly questioned Doherty’s intense coaching style. During the press conference, Baddour said Doherty’s resignation was not about wins and losses.
The Tarheels went 26-7 in Doherty’s first season, won 18 games in a row, was ranked No. 1 and made the NCAA Tournament as Doherty was named The Associated Press coach of the year.
Star sophomore Joseph Forte decided to go pro in the offseason, though, and mentioned an inability to get along with Doherty as one reason for his departure. UNC plummeted to 8-20 the next season — the team’s worst record ever.
Three more Tarheels transferred after the nightmare season — Adam Boone, Brian Morrison and Neil Fingleton — and some of Doherty’s initial recruiting class also contemplated leaving.
Doherty, whose past two recruiting classes have both been ranked in the top five, guided UNC to a 19-16 record this season, after a 5-0 start that included a 67-56 victory over Kansas in the Preseason NIT. The Tarheels faltered midway through the season, though, and even late victories over Duke and Maryland weren’t enough to get them into the NCAA Tournament.
“This is a difficult day for all of us who love the University of North Carolina,” Baddour said at the press conference. “It is not a day I expected to occur as I watched our season unfold. I respect coach Doherty’s decision to step down as head coach and thank him for putting the interests of the university, its basketball program and its student-athletes ahead of his own.”
“It’s difficult to follow two coaches as successful as Dean Smith and Bill Gutheridge, but coach Doherty handled that with a great deal of class. He has a great passion for the basketball program and the university.”
The 41-year-old Doherty, who had three years left on a six-year contract that paid him $855,000 a season, was a Tar Heel fixture long before he took over the program, having played with Michael Jordan in the early 1980s.
Speculation has KU head coach Roy Williams as the top candidate to replace Doherty. At his weekly press conference Tuesday, Williams refused to discuss anything — including the possibility of coaching UNC — other than the NCAA Tournament and the Jayhawks.
“This is a very satisfying, exciting time for me and my players and the University of Kansas and our basketball program,” Williams said. “I’m going to enjoy the hell out of this week and I’m not letting anybody bother me with any junk if it doesn’t do anything with Kansas basketball, my players, great places to eat or rivers to spit in.
“I’m not messing with anything else. This is too exciting a time for me and our kids and our program. That’s the extent of my conversation about any other job, whether it’s North Carolina or anybody.”
— The Associated Press contributed to this story.
