Roy Williams named AP coach of the year

North Carolina coach led Tar Heels to national title, then top-10 finish

Andy Lyons / Getty Images

Roy Williams coached North Carolina to the national title last year.

NCAA tournament projections

Who’s dancing?
Feb. 8: The A-10 placed more teams in our latest bracket than the SEC or Big Ten. What about the rest of the field? Dave Ommen from BRACKETVille has the details.

NBCSports.com

Tweets from D-1 hoops coaches

Loading the latest posts…

Source: @Peter_R_Casey. For more college hoops tweets, follow @BeyndArcMMiller.

College basketball

Mailbag: Handicapping player of year race

Davis: Duke a title contender? Hah!

Games to watch this season | Question?

Beyond the Arc: Our college hoops blog

Power 24: Ranking the game’s best

Images: Team cheerleaders | Mascots

Slideshow

Three cheers for college hoops
Take a look at cheerleaders in action from around the country.

more photos

updated 11:03 p.m. ET March 31, 2006

INDIANAPOLIS - Roy Williams, who followed a national championship season at North Carolina by leading an inexperienced team to a Top 10 finish, was selected coach of the year by The Associated Press on Friday.

Williams, who won the award in 1992 at Kansas, is the second coach to win it at two schools, joining Eddie Sutton, who won at Arkansas in 1978 and Kentucky in 1986. He is the seventh coach to win it more than once, with UCLA’s John Wooden the record holder at five times from 1967 to 1973.

“Fourteen years ago I thought it was neat to win this award, and now I’m so much more appreciative of it,” Williams said Friday. “From the first day of practice this team was fun to coach yet they were focused on what they had to do.”

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

The Tar Heels won the national title last season, Williams’ second at his alma mater. The top seven scorers from that team either graduated or left early for the NBA and North Carolina wasn’t even ranked in the preseason poll.

Led by freshman Tyler Hansbrough, the Tar Heels went 23-8 and were ranked 10th in the final poll, finishing second in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Slideshow
Week in Sports Pictures
The Saints triumph in the Super Bowl, Olympians work on final preparations for Vancouver, and more.
more photos
Williams received 29 votes from the 72-member national media panel that selects the weekly Top 25. Jay Wright of Villanova had 15 votes to finish second in the balloting that was conducted before the NCAA tournament. Bruce Pearl of Tennessee was third with 11 votes.

Williams is the second North Carolina coach to win the award, which was first given in 1967. Matt Doherty, whom Williams succeeded at Chapel Hill, won in 2001.

Bruce Weber of Illinois won the award last season.