Roy Williams on Doug Gottlieb

He's been making concerted media rounds of late basically portraying himself as someone trying to protect his beloved UNC from the NCAA in the ongoing academic scandal investigation. In the process, he's consciously and very clearly trying to flip the narrative from "UNC systematically cheated over a very lengthy period of time" to "This process is dragging on too long and it's unfairly hurting UNC's standing and recruiting." He's trotting out lame excuses and diversionary arguments, and basically trying to paint himself and UNC as the victim in the whole ordeal.

Pretty tired, lame stuff. And sadly, I can't say it surprises me with him. He's always been a lot more complicated than the "Aw, shucks" Huckleberry Hound persona he likes to present.

konza63 wrote: He's been making concerted media rounds of late basically portraying himself as someone trying to protect his beloved UNC from the NCAA in the ongoing academic scandal investigation. In the process, he's consciously and very clearly trying to flip the narrative from "UNC systematically cheated over a very lengthy period of time" to "This process is dragging on too long and it's unfairly hurting UNC's standing and recruiting." He's trotting out lame excuses and diversionary arguments, and basically trying to paint himself and UNC as the victim in the whole ordeal.

Pretty tired, lame stuff. And sadly, I can't say it surprises me with him. He's always been a lot more complicated than the "Aw, shucks" Huckleberry Hound persona he likes to present.

As I understand it from an article I read online a couple of weeks ago (forget where, sorry), "this process" is dragging on because UNC keeps dribbling out self-reports on additional, piddling things related to the case, essentially resetting the NCAAs clock, pushing any action further down the road to allow time to investigate the new info. If that is *not* how the system works, my apologies for muddying the waters, but it sure makes sense to me that a cunning compliance office, in conjunction with their lawyers, would adopt their own version of the "4 corners" to stall the process.

I am really looking forward to UNC losing a ton of games -- and at least one NC -- when this case is finalized. "Won't happen, it's UNC!" people insist. It might not. However, anything less will represent the death knell of the NCAA as a viable organization.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

USAF Jayhawk wrote: Again, I recall a lot of speculation and rumor, but no credible facts. Was Dean sniffing around RW like a dog in heat? Never read any evidence of that. Was the press going crazy about the possibility ofter Matt was fired? Of course they were, it was a juicy story. But, there was never any supportable stories that any discussion took place before the tourney was over.

That said, did the rumor of RW leaving affect the players...how could it not. I say blame the press, not RW. That is, unless you can present a credible source that backs that up.

You won't find any documented stories because the tarred ones aren't going to leave that kind of a trail and be accused of tampering. Even if it is not illegal in the college ranks, it's just not something that good institutions, especially "classy" ones like the pallid blue <cough, cough> do, especially to the alma mater of their iconic coach. ("Riiiiiiight... ) I remember reading that Dean and Roy talked a lot leading up to and just after the title game, with all comments including the disclaimer that they did not talk about the tarred heels job. And Dean was in Louisiana for the Final Four, and they did see each other there. There was a reason why the media was so hot to trot on the story, they saw the signs and followed them.

But let's be real here -- Dean never needed to talk to Roy about the job. It was always the elephant in the room whenever he was offering Roy moral support. Roy loved that man, and he loved Carolina, and Dean knew it. Like the good fisherman, Dean did not *want* to be obvious, and he did not have to be. His very presence was the sales pitch, the hovering reminder, the lure to the trout. And that is why he will always be The Traitor Smith to me. I will never forgive Dean for potentially screwing over his alma mater, especially the timing of it.

But I don't fault Roy for his decision to go home. I can understand that, and so be it. Where I fault Roy is how he handled the whole thing.

First, given all that was happening in the press, he should have told Dean to stay away, that he would talk with him after the Jayhawks were done. And even before they were, I really believe that once Matt Doherty was fired, Roy he knew from that point on that he was going home.

Anyone with a sound business and basketball mind that examined the situation back in 2000 would quickly realize that the only reason Roy stayed then is that he looked at Gooden, Hinrich and Collison and then compared that stable to what the pallid blue had for next year with Bill Guthridge leaving. Roy knew he could win with GH&C sooner than he could with the UNC kids (remember, the guys he won with in 2005 were a mix of his and Doherty's guys, not Guthridge's). With Gooden gone early after 2002 and Kirk and Nick gone after the 2003 season, that same comparison in 2003 favored the tarred ones. Throw in the allure of returning home (for all sorts of family reasons, starting with but not limited to Wanda), and there was never any question in my mind (or his, I'm quite sure) that he was going home -- and again, I don't blame him for making that decision. But I do blame him for delaying the announcement, stringing along a team and fanbase that was thinking "he stayed once, he'll stay again" and reinforcing that belief with every day he delayed and what he said after the NC game loss. And the delay was all about -- and yes, I am reading the tea leaves, but the conclusions are sound given what we know of the man -- figuring out how to tell the Jayhawks he was leaving behind that the guy that Wayne Simien "gave his right arm for" didn't really care enough for *this* group of guys to stay at Kansas when the tarred ones came calling again. But he couldn't do it, because there was no easy way to do it. Stringing it out was not the way to go, and that is a huge reason why so many people really despised his actions. Then he rubbed a little salt in the wounds during a subsequent press conference, talking about not wanting "his" recruits to be "stuck" with Kansas. That *was* documented, and for many of us, that was a real insight into how Roy truly felt. (Aside -- I had forgotten about that incident until I started writing this response. I truly wish I had not remembered it now. Hmm.)

The bottom line is that Roy and Dean did talk all the time, had done so for years, and before and after Doherty was fired. They were close, they talked. After Roy exploded on the scene in the early 1990s, Dean was always careful to maintain his ties with Roy. The pallid blue faithful will talk reams about how Dean wanted Roy to take his place when he first stepped down (that time it never went beyond a phone call, Roy told him he was happy at KU -- and let's be honest, few people want to be the first to follow a legend), and then to take Guthridge's place when *he* stepped down, and finally to replace Doherty when he was fired. In the face of such a mountain of circumstantial and collateral evidence, much of it coming from the enemy camp, to think that just because there are no vetted and published "hard facts" documenting an impropriety that the impropriety never occurred is very trusting.