North Carolina’s head coach and Basketball Hall of Famer Roy Williams recorded the 800th win of his career after the Tar Heels defeated Syracuse 85-68 on Monday night.
Williams, in his 29th season as a head coach, reached the historic milestone in just 1,012 career games. The only coach to reach the milestone in a faster manner was Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp.
Williams began his college coaching career in 1988 with the Kansas Jayhawks and tallied 418 wins during his tenure in Lawrence before taking the North Carolina job in 2005. Monday’s victory was his 382nd win as the head man in Chapel Hill.
Williams joins Mike Krzyzewski, Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Jim Calhoun, Jim Phelan, Rupp, Eddie Sutton, Rollie Massimino, Bob Huggins and Jim Boeheim as the only coaches to record at least 800 career wins in Division I basketball.
After last night’s game, Tar Heel legend Michael Jordan gave Williams an exclusive pair of Jordan sneakers with 800 etched on the outside of the box.
Post game, Williams spoke on his elation of the feat.
“Two hundred is more impressive than 100, so when you get to 800 not a lot of guys have done that, he said. So Im human. Ive got some feelings about those kind of things, and that was nice, but I hope that I get a few more.”
