Will Roy Williams Never Get Respect from His Peers?

Roy Williams still in his prime. (AP Photo)

As we know, Roy Williams, the head coach of the Tar Heels, suffered during a vote that dealt with the "most overrated" coaches. He headed the list. In my book, this means that Roy Williams has been more maligned by his peers than any other sports personality in college basketball history.

I know. Hyperbole may get some attention but the cognoscenti automatically reject this as not worth reading.

Perhaps you would like to take on some notorious college coaches like Bobby Knight, Bruce Pearl and Jim Calhoun and claim they did not deserve their bad raps.

But shocking as it may be, none of these personalities ever suffered very much from their peers despite their real and alleged misdeeds.

So when I read that The University of North Carolina received commitments from two of the top five star 2014 high school basketball recruits yesterday, all I could do is think about Roy Williams' peers. Groaning and complaining some more about how bad a coach he is, and how he only wins because of the talent he gets.

Roy Williams has had little to say about this notorious and undeserved ranking by his peers. But it must hurt deeply. What we want most is respect from our peers. Not undeserved criticism.

So what does "Ol' Roy," a denigrating term used by sports reporters even when he was young, do this year? Accomplish one of the greatest coaching jobs of his or any other coaching career.

Losing four starters to the NBA surely would be a problem for most coaches. But the polls, including one whose voters are only his peers, said he had a top 10 team at the beginning of the 2012-13 season. Why? Because in their view he had top 10 talent?

If you watched any of the creamings UNC's Tar Heels have suffered this year at the hands of Indiana and other teams, you would have said "nonsense" and moved on. The "talent" was not what it could have been for this Hall of Fame coach.

So how is it that Roy Williams stands at the top of the ACC standings and is still able to recruit? Is it only because he is one of the great coaches. Faulted by me and others for being a bad bench coach due to second halves, he has proved us wrong largely because he clearly was not getting his best from his players at the end of the games and he has fallen short in comebacks of greater than 20 points.

Has he underachieved because he is nowhere near the place where the pollsters put his team at the beginning of the year or was his team overrated?

A bit of both. His talent was far from where it should have been at the beginning of the year and his team was overrated. Yet, as one watches the Miracle on Sipper Bowles Drive, we have to believe that these Heels were improving all the time.

Now we have the four guard lineup that will get the Heels a seeding lower than it should, teams that will be tough during the tournament since this tournament is wide open, and another chance for Roy Williams to shine.

Once the Heels beat Maryland, certainly not a given, another classic Blues fight is brewing at the Dean Smith Center, although the return of dark blue Duke's Ryan Kelly has made this game entirely different from the last one.

Can Carolina's blue beat Duke with their revived lineup as short and funny as it is at the moment? Or will Williams be forced to go big?

Not likely. This game will be won or lost on fast breaks, assists (the Tar Heels are number 2 in the country), turnovers and the ungodly shooting of Kelly at the three point circle.

The bet here is that even if Williams wins, he will not get much praise. With Miami's regular season win all but tied up, only the first round bye likely already obtained matters.

But don't bet against Roy and the Tar Heels next week.

Note: The AP has eight teams with seven or more losses in the Top 25. If it were not for the over-rated Big Ten, the ACC would have more. Look for this conference to do its usual swoon in the NCAA. Basketball polls mean nothing if you are in the tournament, especially this year.