Final Four Spotlight: Roy Williams' recruiting blueprint works wonders

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Roy Williams is two wins away from joining the Mount Rushmore of college basketball coaches. Entering his ninth Final Four as a coach - four at Kansas, five at North Carolina - Williams is one of the giants of the sport. He can join John Wooden, Adolph Rupp, Mike Krzyzewski, Bob Knight and Jim Calhoun as a three-time title winner if he cuts down the nets on Monday night.

Williams' recruiting philosophy, laid down during his first year on campus, has played a critical role in the Tar Heels' second-straight Final Four appearance.

Williams took over a North Carolina program that had gone just 27-36 in its previous two seasons.

“We were full of dysfunction, a bunch of kids with egos. He came in and said this is what it is. You either are with it, or not. It is on you,” Jackie Manuel, a junior on Williams’ first team in Chapel Hill, said. “He came in with a plan and a strategy of what he was going to do and how he was going to do it.”

It is that exact plan that catapulted the Tar Heels from a 19-11 campaign in his first season to a national title the following year.

“Coach Williams has a blueprint and he is a really smart coach, a smart person and a genius because he didn’t try to make up a blueprint," Manuel said. "He took a blueprint and tweaked it a little bit with his personality and went from there. That is the genius about him; he just said that this is what works and I am going to make some adjustments. The blueprint has not changed; the foundation is still there that Coach (Dean) Smith made.”

Though North Carolina has only landed one five-star prospect in the past three recruiting cycles, those recruiting struggles have not translated to the hardwood.

“It was never about one individual player. Everybody is trying to make it about one player, a top five guy. College basketball has never been about that," Manuel said. "It has been about the team, a group of guys that can work together. That is what the blueprint is. You know they are going to get talented players but you also want talented players that fit who you are, what you’re philosophy is and what you stand for. Coach Williams gets the players that fit what he does.”

Despite missing out on a number of recent prospects to Duke, Kansas and Kentucky, the Tar Heels have made more trips to the Final Four than any of those programs since Williams arrived in Chapel Hill. It is due to Williams’ ability to connect with high school prospects that translates later on to wins on the court.

“How genuine (Williams) is, in a face-to-face situation, it is almost overwhelming,” Wes Miller, another contributor on the Tar Heels' 2005 national championship team, said. “Whether it was when I had watched him with other prospects, playing for him, or even now, he is so genuine, so honest. I think that is a difference-maker in recruiting. That’s what makes him unique. You get the sense about him that, with the things that he says, he has a conviction about him and he is going to follow through on things.”

It was that initial blueprint that has paved the way for Williams' success in Chapel Hill.

“You have to be organized and have some kind of direction when you come to a new program or it is going to be dysfunctional," Manuel said. "Here is the plan and everybody on the staff knew the plan.”