Mike Celizic

At this time in 2005, Roy Williams was the Colin Montgomerie of college basketball — the best never to win a major championship. The analogy wasn’t exact as Montie had four chances a year to lose a major while Williams had but one. But that didn’t make the title any less onerous to carry.

Montie never did win a major, and his title has since been assumed by Sergio Garcia. Williams won his that year, his second as coach of the Tar Heels after 15 at Kansas. It got the proverbial primate off his back, but, as with all things in sports, the question then became whether he could do it again — and this time with his own players and not a crew he inherited from Matt Doherty, his predecessor.

There’s more at stake than just Williams’ second national title in four years. If Williams can win this year, along with the team honor, he’ll be able to lay claim to the title of the best coach in the business.

His ability to win has never been in question. At Kansas, he took one season to get acquainted with the job, then ran off a string of 14 straight NCAA tournament appearances, winning at least one game in every trip to the dance. His worst regular-season record during that stretch was 23-10, his best was 34-2, and overall he won better than 80 percent of his games.

But he never won that big one, losing twice in the Final Four and twice in the championship game. After a while, it wasn’t unreasonable to ask if there was something lacking in his makeup.

Winning in his second year at his alma mater showed he could win that big one. But now he faces the real test — can he repeat it. That’s what the great ones do, and if he can pull this one off, he will deserve to be called the best in the business, better even than Florida’s Billy Donovan, who won the last two but did it with the same team. If Williams does it, it will have been with two totally different groups of players, and that ability to win, reload and win again is the true mark of greatness.

He’s already the best by regular-season measures. His 558-133 record translates to a .808 winning percentage, the best among all active coaches and third on the all-time list. He was the third-fastest to win 500 games, behind only Adolph Rupp and Jerry Tarkanian. He has been to five Final Fours, is tied with UCLA coaching great John Wooden for the most NCAA tournament wins with 47, has been a No. 1 seed seven times and has made 19 consecutive tournament appearances — the longest active streak — and has won at least one game in every one.

All that’s missing is another title — a second in four years — to settle the argument as to who is the best in the business right now.

Folks up the road from Chapel Hill in Durham may beg to differ with handing the title of the best in the business to Williams, and if they want to rank the titans of the dry erase boards by titles and games won over a career, that’s their prerogative. But if you believe that the rankings of coaches, like the rankings of teams, changes with each season, then you’ll have no choice but to give Williams not just his due, but also the respect that until recently has eluded him.

He has made a good start of it. In a tournament whose first two rounds were littered with upsets and close escapes, Williams’ Tar Heels have stampeded over Mount St. Mary's and Arkansas by a combined 70 points with just 16 total turnovers.

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Led by point guard Ty Lawson, who missed six games in February with a bad ankle that is still not 100 percent, the Tar Heels have been darned near flawless.

They were among the best teams in the country without Lawson. With him, they look unbeatable. He’s played just 42 minutes — two more than one full game — in the two blowout victories, but he has 11 assists, 40 points and zero turnovers in those two games.

Tyler Hansbrough, the team’s all-everything forward, has played 28.5 per game and has 38 points, 16 rebounds and just two turnovers.

Williams has two more very good points guards behind Lawson, but that combination of Lawson and Hansbrough are what make this team so great. It’s also what makes the prospect of a title-game showdown with UCLA and its great guard-forward combination of Darren Collison and Kevin Love so tantalizing.

First, both teams must make it that far. Based on what they’ve done to date, you have to figure North Carolina will uphold its end of the bargain. For Williams’ sake, it better, because if this train is derailed, it’s back to where Williams spent way too much of his career — as the guy who’s one win shy of the best.