After he and his North Carolina Tar Heels had found a string of success at Cameron Indoor, that all came crashing down in a big way when the Blue Devils blasted them by 32 points. It was a lowlight in a season that had plenty of them.

Don’t expect any such blowout this time around. The teams meet at Duke tonight in what could be the latest classic in one of college basketball’s most storied rivalries. The Tar Heels are back in the national rankings and first place is on the line as the Heels try to avenge last year’s embarrassment.

Roy Williams joined The Dan Patrick Show to discuss if he’s scared to play at Duke, whether he ever worried about his future as North Carolina’s coach when the team struggled last season, if North Carolina’s season will be measured by whether it beats Duke, what it will take to beat the Blue Devils and BYU standout Jimmer Fredette.

What it means that he is scared to death to take his team to play at Duke:

“I have no idea, I don’t even remember saying it, but I’ll tell you what it feels like as you’re going over there. They’re really, really a big-time team. … We had had a run of four straight years of winning in Cameron and they were laying awake for us last year and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, just let me live to see the day tomorrow. I felt like it was Custer’s last stand and I didn’t know if I was going to be standing at the end.”

Did he ever worry about his future at North Carolina during last year’s skid?:

“No, no. Maybe I’m naive or something like that, but we had had a pretty good run there for the first six years I was back. … We had more injuries [last year] than I had ever had. I worried about a lot of things, but that was not one of them.”

Does he still think this season’s success will be measured by how the Tar Heels do against Duke?:

“I hope that we’re measured by each other every year. It’s a wonderful rivalry. … I enjoy being part of it. I think it’s a great measuring stick. Coach Smith set a bar for everybody and Mike has done the same kind of thing over there.”

What North Carolina needs to do to beat Duke:

“If we make a bunch, and I mean a bunch, of shots. A bunch of 3s, a bunch of dunks. … You’re not going to beat Duke in a 50-, 60-point game, because they’re going to score a heckuva lot more than that. You’ve got to score and you have to play defense and do those things, but you better be willing to score. The games that we’ve beat Duke, we’ve been able to put the ball in the basket. … That’s the only way I think you can beat Duke.”

On BYU’s Jimmer Fredette and whether he recruited him at all:

“The Jimmer’s something else. I enjoy watching those highlights. Didn’t know anything in the world about it. I guess that says what a poor guy I am. … We played him, I think his freshman year … out in Las Vegas. Man, he’s fun to watch. He could very well be [the national Player of the Year].”

Listen to Roy Williams on The Dan Patrick Show here

That’s sad because this could have been one of the more physically impressive and dominating teams in recent memory. Davis, the architect of the early 2000′s Miami Hurricances teams that sent just about every starter to the NFL, had something going at UNC and this was looking like the year that it was all going to come together on the field. What players did off the field derailed those aspirations. Now the Tar Heels are 0-2 and even money to beat Rutgers – as opposed to looking like ACC favorites this season. No one seems to know everything that happened, but it’s truly a sad state of affairs in a departure from something that really could have been great.

North Carolina head football coach Butch Davis joined Joe Rose on WQAM in Miami to discuss how he prepares week-to-week with so many players out and so much uncertainty about the program, the impressive performance the very short-handed Tar Heels put together against LSU, how much responsibility he personally takes for the current state of the program and the ACC’s performance so far this season.

On how he prepares week-to-week with so much uncertainty with his roster:

“We had to make a decision going into the LSU game, pretty much that the guys that were cleared at the start of the season would be the guys we would prepare to play the remainder of the season. Then we took the approach that that guys who were cleared to play or came off suspension would be plugged in as needed. We’ve had five guys now that have been reinstated. Each week, if we get a couple guys back, we get a couple guys back. If we don’t then we have to play without them.”

On how responsible he feels for the situation at UNC:

“Obviously, when you are the head coach, you take on an awful lot of responsibility and you shoulder the responsibility that you are in charge of and things that can be fixed. I think from a big picture standpoint, we’ve done a lot of good things here at Carolina. Kids are graduating. We’ve had two bowl games with two consecutive winning seasons. There is a lot more right at Carolina than there is wrong.”

On how UNC was able to come back and have a chance against LSU:

“You have to give a lot of credit to the kids and the assistant coaches. They did a hell of a job preparing to and believing they could win the game. When you said it was without half the guys, I wish it was just half the guys. We were playing pretty much with a lot of young, inexperienced guys on defense. The biggest toll that that game took was the fact that all the sudden the guys that were starting on defense really depleted the special teams. I probably didn’t do a good enough job preparing the rest of the kids to play on special teams. Our kids did great, stayed focused, each week try to get better with what we have on defense.”

On if he knew it was going to be this bad:

“If you can believe this, I’ve actually had worse summers. As the review and the investigation by the NCAA started to unfold, you could tell that it was going to take some time and they were going to have to talk to a lot of guys and try to clarify. As you saw in the paper yesterday, we got a couple guys back. One of them is going to have to pay $450 in what the NCAA deemed as improper benefits. Another guy is going to have to pay, I think $500. Some of the guys you are going to find out when this comes out are going to have to repay acts for less than that as an extra benefit. It’s been painfully slow just trying to get the clarification. It’s like the Chinese water torture, just one drip at a time.”

On if his experience rebuilding the Miami program helps him now with UNC:

“Clearly. Absolutely, Joe. When I referenced that, it’s not just the NCAA sanctions, there were some unfortunate, tragic things that happened… There’s been some years where some of those things were significantly more tragic and tougher to deal with than some of these things. Some of these things you would be remiss to put them in the same light.”

And on the ACC’s disappointing performance to-date:

“I wish I could tell you that I spend time looking at other teams, but I haven’t had time. We are so focused on trying to fix the issues that we’ve got with our football team right now and try to right the ship and get back on track and win some games and we are just going to have to take it one game at a time and let everyone else fend for themselves.”

Listen to Butch Davis on Davis on WQAM with Joe Rose.

Hawkins says he is not an agent, but the NCAA has no problem labeling him as one.  The NCAA claims that Hawkins has also contacted sports agents about their interest in UNC players and arranged trips for players to meet with agents.  According to sources, some UNC players told NCAA investigators that Hawkins, in fact, arranged for them to meet with at least two agents, Peter Schaffer of All Pro Sports & Entertainment and Kevin Conner of Universal Sports Management in Atlanta.  The parallel there is that Hawkins is great friends with former UNC star, Willie Parker, and other multiple NFL players that are represented by either Schaffer or Connor, but Hawkins continues to vehemently deny any involvement with the agents.  The bigger issue with the NCAA is that Hawkins was arrested last year in Georgia on felony charges of trafficking cocaine and misdemeanor charges of marijuana.  For all the NCAA knows, he could be taking these athletes to parties and giving them drugs, but that isn’t what Green was suspended for.  All he did was sell his jersey one time, something the school does tens of thousands of times, so what’s wrong with that?  Only in America…

Chris Hawkins joined WQXI in Atlanta to talk about whether he can explain who he is because the NCAA is claiming that he isn’t who he says he is, whether he has ever gotten in contact with a player and put them in contact with an agent, and whether he is going to be a part of UGA’s NCAA appeals process.

Whether he has had some angry people reach out to him via Facebook:

“Yeah I get a lot of Facebook messages, a lot of Facebook threats.  There has been a lot of heat coming my way over something, the jersey and what happened to AJ Green.  Just have been taking it all in.”

Whether he can explain who he is because the NCAA is claiming that he isn’t who he says he is:

“The NCAA thinks that I am an agent, which I am not.  I am not an agent.  I have never worked for an agent, never been paid by one.  I am simply just a kid.  Just like everybody else, I like AJ’s game.  I like how he plays the game.  I like football, so I played the game myself and I just wanted his jersey.  I talked to him about it and bought the jersey from him and didn’t think that much of it until he started to get investigated over the Miami trip.  I don’t think he has even been to Miami but I guess once they investigated him on the Miami trip.  See I have got a 305 number, as you could see now I have got a 305 number so I think they kind of thought that I had something to do with the whole Miami trip going on down there and they kind of went at him hard for that and I guess he let them know how he knew me and what he did.  I think he was totally honest with them.  I talked to him, totally honest, and I told him that I bought the jersey from him and all of that.  To be honest, I think he probably should have talked to some people before he went about doing that.  I think they kind of, I guess maybe told him that he could pay the money back.  I don’t think he was really expecting to get hit for 4 games.”

Whether he has ever gotten in contact with a player and put them in contact with an agent:

“No, I have never done that.  The whole AJ Green thing was totally different.  I collect, I have got a lot of jerseys in the basement.  I put them on the walls.  If I like players and I like someone I will get their stuff and I’ll get in and put my stuff and just hang it on the wall.  The AJ Green thing was more bragging.  I think he is going to be a great player.  I think he is going to be a great player at the next level.”

Whether he has talked to the NCAA about who he is:

“Yeah I spoke with the NCAA numerous times.  The whole thing with the AJ Green thing they tried to put it out that I wouldn’t contact them on it.  I went out to the University of North Carolina and spoke with the NCAA on behalf of the whole UNC guys.  I played at UNC, I had a relationship with those guys and they try to make it seem those guys are coming to me for advice and hanging out with me that I was standing with agents.  All it was is the guys they really look up me over there at Carolina, they look up to me a lot.  They knew that  I was around the game and that I knew a lot about it.  I work with my friend, Willie Parker, who is a professional athlete, and did a little with agentsand sutff like that.  I am more like a manager to him.  I knew a lot about the game and I knew a lot about the agent game because I have been through that.  The whole AJ Green thing I think it was totally different.  The NCAA contacted me on it and put a report out there saying that I wouldn’t talk to them.  I spoke with the NCAA guy, I think his name is Chance Miller.  When he called me from the University of Georgia he was with the University of Georgia’s lawyer, at the time when he called me I was busy.  I was doing something.  I told them that I would call them back and we set up a time to call back and when he gave me an extension, he gave me an extension to call back on, I called back the extension 5 times and it was the wrong extension.  It didn’t work.  Once he talked to me he called me the next day and I was like, ‘You, you gave me the wrong extension number.’  And he was like, ‘Yeah, yeah.  My fault, my fault.’  It went from there and he set up another time, I think it was like a Monday at 3 o’clock or something like that.  He gave me another time for a conference call and that time I was busy.  I don’t work for the NCAA.  I don’t work for those guys.  I’ll speak to them when I can if I am available but I just don’t drop everything I do.  I try my best to help those guys out.”

Whether he is going to be a part of UGA’s NCAA appeals process:

“No, I don’t know if I am a part of it.  Nobody has contacted me.  I would do anything that I could do to try to help out…”

How often he has spoken to AJ Green and when the last time he spoke with him was:

“We really never contacted each other like that.  I might have talked to him maybe about 4 times, you know?  and I never talked to him about…”

Whether he was talking to AJ Green about his game and that he is a fan:

“That was it.  Basically I know a couple of people that he knows.  I know a couple of girls he knows and the only thing that I have ever talked to him about was, after I got the jersey, I didn’t talk to him about anything about football.”

Chris Hawkins joined Mayhem in the AM on 790 The Zone in Atlanta

Coach Davis has stockpiled some great talent on the defensive side of the ball, but it could be the play of QB T.J. Yates that decides if the Heels are going to have an excellent season.  Yates will return for his senior year to lead an offense that ranked ninety-nine out of one-hundred twenty in total offense from a year ago.  The Tar Heels need to find a group of wide receivers to fill the void left by Hakeem Nicks and Brandon Tate when they entered the ’09 Draft.  The difference between an ACC championship and another bowl game named for an automotive repair chain will be largely in how well the offense avoids the turnovers, lulls and missed opportunities that decide close games.

Butch Davis joined WQXI in Atlanta with David Pollack and Mike Bell to talk about what his thoughts are on the UNC defense this season, the anticipation of the UNC football fans that this could be the year that his Senior class puts it all together, and whether he thinks that the NCAA should get together with the NFL and come up with a solution to agents tampering with collegiate athletes.

What his thoughts are on the UNC defense this season:

“What people don’t realize that certainly a lot of these kids have built a reputation on the fact that they are now getting ready to be 4-year starters.  They were much maligned in 2007 and these are the same kids that played.  Everybody said. ‘You can’t stop anybody.  You can’t get them off the field.  How come we can’t make them punt?  How come we can’t stop them?’  Well they were all 17, 18, 19, freshman, redshirt freshman, you have got to start somewhere and our philosophy was we will get gifted athletes with speed and they want to be coached.  We will coach them into being a good defensive unit.  Last year they were 6^th in the nation.  Everett Withers, our defensive coordinator, does a phenomenal job.  Probably the best thing that he ever does is that he never allows them to feel satisfied.  He doesn’t allow like they have arrived they are the best that they are going to be.  We actually expect them to be better this year than they were last year because if they are not we are going to find somebody that is.”

On the anticipation of the UNC football fans that this could be the year that his Senior class puts it all together:

“Well it has got a chance to.  Anybody that has ever tried to rebuild a program and get things going it takes a long time.  You don’t walk in, we weren’t in a situation where you walk in and the cupboard is full, the locker room is full of first round draft choices.  You start from scratch and one of the instant realities of it was in 2007 we had 10 seniors on the football team and of those 10 seniors only four played in games, and in the 2^nd year in 2008 we only had like 12 or 13 and only like 6 of them.  So this has been a process and taken some time to build the depth, build the talent level, fill the locker room up with a lot of young, competitive guys that are challenging and pushing each other and we are still not where we need to be but we are headed in the right direction.”

On the notion that the wide receiving corps will get better:

“They will get better David.  I’ll be honest with you and this is where probably where the rubber meets the road with this football team is that we have got to build an offensive line.  Last year going into the season at best we were paper-thin with depth and we lost our starting left tackle in training camp, Carl Gaston blows out his knee.  Our starting left guard decides to graduate take his degree and not come back so all of a sudden you are behind the 8 ball in the first game we had a couple of guys to get hurt.  That is the biggest key to this football team is the stability of the offensive line, the consistency and the continuity of getting 5 guys that can play together every single week so that they know how this guy plays.  The know how to communicate on the line of scrimmage and if that will start to take place the rest of it is a little bit easier to rebuild at the skilled positions than it is at the offensive line.”

Whether he thinks that the NCAA should get together with the NFL and come up with a solution to agents tampering with collegiate athletes:

“You know what?  I have read a lot of the comments that have been made around all of the other conferences and talking to head coaches and stuff.  The one thing is that I will say, I don’t think that there is any one single individual group that can eliminate or get rid of a particular problem.  I think that it is a cooperative effort.  I think that the NFL itself with Roger Goodell, the owners themselves, and the team and certainly the agents have to be a part of it.  They have got to police their own people.  They have got to try to call things that are unscrupulous, guys that are illegal, they have got to be able to rat guys out themselves, the NFL Players’ Association has got to get involved with it, the parents, the institutions, the coaches.  I mean it is going to take 6 or 7 people.  Obviously one of the things that is different is state legislations.  There are 37 states in the United States that has legislation that makes this stuff illegal, but yet there has not been one single prosecution.  Nobody has ever challenged it and actually charged somebody.  The first time somebody goes to jail for this, the first time that you cant represent people, you cant make a living and they cant make their mortgage you will get some changes.”

Butch Davis on 790 the Zone in Atlanta with Pollack and Bell

The Tar Heels enter the 2009-2010 season in most experts’ predictions as one of the top two teams in the powerful ACC Conference despite losing so much to the NBA.  Roy Williamsjoine 99.9 the Fan in Raleigh and talked about this upcoming season, the expectations, the loss of talent to the NBA and the returning players he has on the roster.

Asked what he needs to do to win the National Championship:

“Ty Lawson, Tyler Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington, those guys to come back to school. And then we still might not do it, because it changes so much every year.  We are excited, we enjoy the kids, and we got a great group of kids.  In seven practices, they have done a nice job.  They don’t know what which end of the court they are on; they think defense is that thing you build around your yard.  It’s a lot of that stuff going on.  Up front we have tremendous amount of depth, I feel very comfortable up there as long as everyone stays healthy.  In the back court we have less depth then I have ever had and less experience then I ever had.  We do need to be able to shoot the ball from the outside.  Those are two main question areas.”

Asked if was comfortable with year in and year out expectation of winning a national championship:

“I am comfortable with it, you know last year the expectations of  the best team ever, and going undefeated were unrealistic.  This year I am a little surprised the expectations since we lost four starters.  I am a fan like a lot of people, I get those magazines and I think I am right in they picked the top 25 players in each position.  So my math is good, five times five is 25, we had two guys and then you turn a couple of pages and we are picked 5^th in the country.  That’s a little unusual.

Asked about the depth of the frontcourt on this year’s team:

“Every coach talks about size, size, size, but every coach is more comfortable with guards.  With Ed Davis and Deon Thompson, they were there in crunch time last year.  Tyler Zeller got his feet wet.  The Wear twins are very fundamentally sound players.  John Henson is 6’10, 190lbs; we are trying to make him a perimeter player.  Those guys have some ability and with Davis and Deon, they have some experience, it’s a fun time thinking about what we can do up there.”

Listen to Roy Williams on 99.9 the Fan in Raleigh

On the ACC:

“Last year, there was a lot of nebulous teams.  Nobody had a real proven quarterback.  Now there’s probably 7 or 8 teams that returned their starting quarterback.  Clearly, if you’re going to be a dominant team, it all starts with good leadership and good performance at the quarterback position.  We’re fortunate that T.J. Yates is getting ready to start his 3rd year…There’s a lot of really good athletes in this league so I think it gives everybody a little bit of an optimism about this season.”

On Yates:

“I think he’s grown a great deal as a quarterback.  Early on he relied an awful lot on the supporting cast, Hakeen Nicks and lot of talented wide receivers to make plays for him, now he’s able to make plays on his own.  His pocket presence has really improved dramatically in the last year; I think you got a glimpse of some of the things he’s capable of doing in the bowl game against West Virginia.  He hooked and I think he threw 3 or 4 touchdowns and over 300 yards.  He really became a playmaker.  Now you’re starting to see some of that manifestation of some leadership and some maturity because he gained the confidence of being able to play well in big games.”

On his team’s biggest challenges this year:

“Well we’ve got two.  One of them is certainly replacing the five wide receivers that we lost; we’ve got some talented young kids.  They’re not going to have the experience and the game savvy of the guys that we lost, but they’ve got some skills and talent.  I think they’re going to surprise some people.  We’ve got to rebuild the right side of our offensive line; we lost our center, guard, right tackle and tight end.  Two of those guys got drafted, the other two graduated.  We’ve got some issues from that standpoint but we’ve got some kids waiting in the wings and this will be their opportunity.  I think we’re going to be a football team where if we can stay healthy, I think you’re going to see us get better every week.”

Listen to Butch Davis on 1010 XL in Jacksonville

But he’s a Carolina guy (SIGH.) and that makes him capable of discussing a large number of players in this year’s NBA draft, specifically Ty Lawson and Tyler Hansbrough, which is exactly what he did when he got on the horn with WRAL to talk about the TarHeels. Good times for a State fan. Lemme tell ya.

On mock drafts:

“Obviously people tell you about them. I had a couple of friends that would call me every two days and tell me something had changed, so that kind of got annoying. But I didn’t pay much attention to them. Only time will tell in June and once your name is called, that’s when you know.”

On having contact with Carolina guys in the draft:

“I’ve talked to Tyler [Hansbrough] a couple of times and actually just saw Tyler about an hour ago. But I haven’t spoken to the other guys just yet, I’m sure they’re probably still going on and working out. But Tyler was working out when I saw him in the gym so he could get ready.”

On Hansbrough being an average NBA player:

“You look at Tyler, I don’t think anyone thought he would accomplish what he accomplished in college — he’s probably been dealing with it his whole life. He’s looking forward to the challenge, it’s a new challenge for him.

On having Ty Lawson in Atlanta:

“Ty, I mean, Ty in Atlanta would be great. I think at the combine — it’s almost like football — guys work so hard for that combine and they might not test as well as they want to. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to judge a player by what they do on the field … I think Ty’s one of those guys, yeah, he’s short, but he’s extremely strong and he knows how to manage a team so I think he’d be great for anybody’s team.”

On Wayne Ellington’s improvement:

“Wayne can play! Obviously he can shoot the ball, and I’m sure a lot of scouts are impressed about that — he’s a competitor, he hit some huge shots for Carolina and I’m sure try to do that at the next level.”

Listen to Marvin Williams on WRAL

After North Carolina got away with playing a poor game against Villanova, many people got the feeling they would come out and run the running Spartans in to the ground.  They did that and a whole lot more; I’m not sure why they even played this one.  All I know is that NC has several players that are better off because they had this championship experience.  Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, Danny Green and Tyler Hansbrough all made the decision to return after last year’s semifinal loss to Kansas, and they have definitely grown since.  Sometimes, you can just beat a team emotionally, and yesterday the Spartans were thrown to the ground, stomped on, and then had the weight of a Magic Johnson fall on them ’cause they just couldn’t fight back.  It reminded me of Boston beating the Lakers in game 6 of last year’s NBA Finals.  North Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams joined Mike and Mike on ESPN Radio to discuss his pre-game speech, the difference between the wins in ’05 and ’09, what Hansbrough means to him, and why the kids came back.

On whether or not the kids returned simply to win it all:

“That’s not the reason the kids came back.  It was one of the reasons but it was not the biggest reason.  Tyler Hansbrough came back because he just loved college athletics, he didn’t care to do anything else.  Wayne Ellington, Danny Green and Ty Lawson were not satisfied with their position in the draft and that’s the reason that they chose to come back, by far.”

If what he said inspired the Heels’ great start:

“Well, that probably gives coaching too much credit ’cause I told the kids, ‘Hey, somebody’s gonna win tonight, why not let it be us?’  It was pretty simple and I did say, ‘Hey, let’s go play our butts off right from the start.’  And, I think we did that – our offensive execution was great, but the ball goes in the basket last night.  When it goes in, it all looks so much better.”

Roy Williams on the difference between ’05 and ’09, Tyler Hansbrough, and the full interview after the jump.

On the difference in celebrations between ’05 and ’09:

“In ’05, we won it on a Monday night, got back on Tuesday, Wednesday morning at 6am I went recruiting.  And, I’m gonna do that this Thursday morning, but Wednesday night I came back and Sean May and his dad called and they decided they were going to the NBA also.  I knew that Marvin, Raymond and Rashad were gonna go, at that point, we just had to go crazy and see how hard we could work because we weren’t gonna have anybody coming back on the next team.  That time we didn’t get a chance to celebrate till September 19th… we’re gonna enjoy the crap outta this one a little bit more, I can tell you.  It’s just fun and we never allowed ourselves to enjoy it.”

What Hansbrough’s return meant:

“He said something for college basketball, that if you don’t want to go, it’s okay to stay.  It’s okay to stay if you’re a kid, it’s okay to stay in college, and things can still work out for you.  He’s still gonna be a number one draft choice, he’s gonna go down as probably the most prolific player to ever play at the University of North Carolina – leading scorer, leading rebounder, and so many of those things.  I also think he’s a wonderful example for college kids because if he had fell on his face, every agent in America would have been running around with a smile on their face, trying to talk to kids and make sure they didn’t come back.”

Listen to Roy Williams on ESPN Radio with Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg

In this interview on Thursday with WIP, Brown is tremendous,talking mostly about the Final Four and how Jay Wright saved his life.  He also gives a great background story on John Calipari taking the Kentucky job.

On Jay Wright:

“Jay Wright saved my life.  Just allowing me to be around for two years.  You know Billy King and Mr. Snider gave me a chance to be with the Sixers when I was kind of out of basketball and that was really phenomenal.  Jay let me come to practices for two years, that was an unbelievable thing for me.  I enjoyed being around him and watching him coach.”

On Jay Wright’s style:

“Jay says some things to his players that if I ever said to a pro, the guy would cry, ask to be traded, or want to fight. The way Jay’s kids look at it is, “coach really cares, he wants to make me better.” He has a unique way…The bottom line is you knew the difference between coaching and criticism. Those kids know that the guy cares. Whatever he says, they listen to the message and not the tone and that’s really significant.”

On the UNC-Villanova game:

“The best teams don’t always win, especially when you play in these big venues because the shot background isn’t always the best…Sometimes it bodes well for the team that’s not quite as good. The whole thing for me, if Villanova can stay out of foul trouble with their bigs, they have a great chance of winning. They don’t have depth and size. That worries me because Hansbrough has a way of getting to the free throw line…They can’t afford to get their big people in foul trouble and that’s their main concern.”

Who he’s rooting for in the game:

“I’m not telling anybody.”

Larry Brown on John Calipari (whom he calls like a son to him) taking the Kentucky job and the full interview after the jump.

On Calipari leaving Memphis for Kentucky:

“I told him all along he was going to get killed. They’re just going to be hurt because of the standard he set at Memphis. It wasn’t about taking the Kentucky job, it was about leaving Memphis…He just did too good of a job and people are all upset that he’s leaving and he’s got to get over that. He’s just got to be proud of what he was able to accomplish and understand that this is a dream job for anybody. Anybody in our profession that can fault him for going from Memphis to Kentucky is just not being real and I think the fact that he did such a wonderful job is what upsets so many people.”

On the idea that Calipari left for more money:

“He was making more money at Memphis, I know that. They offered him more money before the season was over and he turned it down because he said “people are struggling all over right now, I don’t need that.” But he could have made more money if he stayed at Memphis than going to Kentucky, and it never was about money. The fact that Kentucky might be as good as basketball job as there is, and it’s the chance for Cal to finally compete on the level with the North Carolinas, the Dukes, the UCLAs, the Indianas. It’s a dream job. You’ve got to understand that.”

Listen to Larry Brown on WIP in Philadelphia with Howard Eskin

The Tar Heels struggled under Bill Guthridge and Matt Doherty and that is pretty much the only time Coach Smith made himself heard.  He called his protege Roy Willams and told him he needed to get the Tar Heels back in the right direction.  There was no way Roy Williams could say no to Dean Smith.  The Tar Heels are obviously back on the right path and a perennial Final Four team again under the leadership of Roy Williams.

Dean Smith, now 78, joined ESPN Radio Philadelphia to talk about the upcoming match-up between UNC and Villanova on Saturday.

On Ty Lawson’s importance to UNC

“We thought he wasn’t gonna be able to play and then the 2nd game he played and he probably played better than he has this entire month. I think we really need him. We have some good young people that have come along and they all have to be able to handle the ball nowadays, particularly in this situation.”

His all-time 5 UNC players:

“Of course that’s nothing I can ever begin to say. Obviously Jordan comes to mind for anybody that talks about Carolina. We’ve had some many great ones and I better stop there.”

Any idea about how good Jordan would be?

“Obviously no. We were happy to have him but we thought it would take a while. Just shows we don’t know what we were talking about. He got better every year he played and that means right away from freshman, sophomore, junior and then went pro. We encouraged him to…and then, he got better every year he was in the professional ranks.”

Listen to Dean Smith on ESPN Radio Philadelphia with Mike Missanelli