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Men's Basketball
- Title:
- Head Coach
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“This is the best job in all of basketball. I hope I can carry on the tradition, not only of winning but of excellence off the court.”
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After graduation, Doherty worked on Wall Street, was an assistant to Roy Williams at Kansas for seven successful seasons, recruiting some of the finest players in Jayhawk history, and was head coach at the University of Notre Dame. His Fighting Irish team won 22 games and reached the finals of the NIT.
Then Carolina came calling.
“The tradition that’s been created from Frank McGuire to Coach Smith to Coach Guthridge is second to none,” said Doherty. “This is the best job in all of basketball. I hope I can carry on the tradition, not only of winning but of excellence off the court.”
Doherty enters his third season as head coach of the Tar Heels. Last year’s team struggled to an 8-20 record, but the team battled to the end, nearly knocking off Duke in the ACC Tournament.
In 2000-01, Doherty led the Tar Heels to 26 wins, a No. 1 national ranking late in the regular season, a 13-3 league record and share of the ACC regular-season championship, a berth in the ACC Tournament finals and an NCAA Tournament berth.
Doherty became the first coach in ACC history to win the regular-season title in his first year in the conference. He also became first person in ACC history to play and coach for No. 1 ranked teams at the same school.
For his efforts, the 1984 UNC graduate was named the National Coach of the Year by The Associated Press and the district coach of the year by the United States Basketball Writers Association. For the second consecutive season, Doherty coached the conference’s player of the year. Guard Joseph Forte was Co-ACC Player of the Year and a consensus first-team All-America. Notre Dame forward Troy Murphy earned Big East Player of the Year honors in 1999-2000 while playing for Doherty.
Forte and Murphy were both selected in the first round of the 2001 NBA draft. Two other players Doherty has coached, Carolina center Brendan Haywood and Kansas center Eric Chenowith, also were selected in the first and second rounds, respectively.
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“Coach Doherty’s really got so many things he wants to do, but he’s going to accomplish all of his goals,” Murphy told the (Raleigh) News & Observer just before the 2001 Draft. “That’s the kind of person he is. He’s that good of a person. I loved playing for Coach Doherty. He got us fired up for everything we did, whether it was practice or games. It was a great year.”
“Without a doubt he’s proven he was the right coach,” said Brendan Haywood. “He’s brought a lot of fire and passion to this program.”
Doherty’s first UNC team won 11 straight games to open ACC play and 18 straight games overall. That was the sixth-longest win streak in Carolina history and the longest since 1985-86. Carolina tied for the regular-season ACC title, the Tar Heels’ first since 1994-95. The Tar Heels posted an 8-3 road record with wins at NCAA Tournament qualifiers Duke, Maryland, Georgia Tech, UCLA and Wake Forest.
“It’s proving that you must be yourself and utilize your personality as a strength,” said ESPN/ABC’s Dick Vitale. “And that’s what Doherty has done by working up the crowd into a frenzy with his emotional style. I have never seen the Dean Dome as alive and rocking as it was versus Wake Forest. Sam Cassell once labeled the Carolina crowd as ‘wine and cheese’ bunch. Sorry, Sammy, but you haven’t been to Chapel Hill recently.”
Doherty was named the 17th head basketball coach in school history on July 11, 2000. Doherty played at Carolina from 1980-84 and was head coach at Notre Dame for one season.
“As a coach, Matt has the total package,” says Dean Smith. “He can coach, he can teach the game to others, he represents the University the right way, is task-oriented, not time-oriented, and is obviously a much more thorough recruiter than I ever was. That’s a real positive.”
Doherty is the second former Tar Heel player to be named head coach of the Tar Heels. Monk McDonald, who played at UNC from 1921-24, led Carolina to a 20-5 record in 1925 in his only season as head coach.
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“As a player, Matt was the consummate coach on the floor, always thinking one step ahead of the game,” says former NBA All-Star and Carolina teammate Brad Daugherty. “I know in my case as a younger teammate of his, I would look to Matt for advice even more than Michael (Jordan) and Sam (Perkins) because he knew everyone’s position on the floor. He always played hard and strategically. Matt brings a no-nonsense style of basketball to Carolina. The youth and enthusiasm he brings to the program are dynamite.”
The 22 wins by the Irish in 1999-2000 were the most the program has enjoyed since posting a 21-9 mark in 1988-89. Notre Dame’s 8-8 finish in BIG EAST Conference regular-season play marked the first season in the Irish’s five-year membership in the league the team had not posted a losing record.
“Coach Doherty has brought a lot of emotion,” Murphy said. “We go out there and no matter who we’re playing, we believe we can win. That definitely comes from Coach Doherty. He’s always behind us. He’s the ultimate players’ coach. He’s our leader.”
The Irish defeated five ranked teams and got off to a quick start with a 59-57 win at Ohio State in the first round of the Preseason NIT. The fourth-ranked Buckeyes played in the previous NCAA Final Four. The Irish also posted a pair of wins over defending national champion Connecticut and defeated nationally-ranked St. John’s and Seton Hall. The 22 wins for Doherty also marked the most ever by a first-year head coach at Notre Dame.
“He took care of every single aspect of coaching,” Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun told the Winston-Salem Journal. “I don’t think what he did at Notre Dame was a miracle, but the feeling of playing Notre Dame was more difficult because of Matt Doherty sitting in that seat. He came into a tough basketball league and he wasn’t intimidated at all.”
DOHERTY AS A PLAYER
Doherty played at Carolina under Dean Smith, the winningest coach in Division I history. The Tar Heels compiled a 117-21 record in Doherty’s four seasons, a winning percentage of .848. He played in the 1981 NCAA championship game loss to Indiana, and started at small forward a year later as Carolina beat Georgetown to win the NCAA title. As a senior in 1984, Doherty tri-captained a team that swept through the ACC regular season with a 14-0 record and was ranked No. 1 in the country in the final polls. He started on two of Carolina’s greatest teams ever — the 1982 squad that won the national title and featured James Worthy, Sam Perkins, Michael Jordan and Jimmy Black and the 1984 team that finished the season ranked No. 1 by the Associated Press and included Jordan, Perkins, Brad Daugherty and Kenny Smith.
“Matt played small forward, but today it would be called point forward because he was a great passer and unselfish player,” says Coach Smith. “He was a very smart player and had great savvy. He was a tremendous passer and smart defender. He was a streaky shooter, but had some big games shooting the ball. He was always thinking pass first, especially playing with Perkins and our other post players, he knew to get the ball inside first. Matt knew the game and knew the only statistic that was important was how many games we won. He played hard and played starters minutes for four seasons.”
He became just the second player in ACC history (North Carolina’s Walter Davis was the first) to accumulate 1,000 points, 400 rebounds and 400 assists in a career. He averaged 9.0 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game and finished his career with 1,165 points, 448 rebounds and 446 assists in 129 games played. He played in all 101 games over his last three seasons.
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“Matt had an excellent playing career at Carolina,” said Guthridge. “It was obvious during his playing days he could be a very good coach if he chose that profession. He was a smart player, had a great feel for the game and knew how it should be played. He was a competitive, hard-nosed team player.”
Freshman Season (1980-81) — The Tar Heels finished 29-8, won the ACC Tournament, finished ranked sixth nationally (both polls) and advanced to the NCAA title game against Indiana. Doherty averaged 6.0 points, 3.0 rebounds and had 67 assists in 28 games as a reserve forward. He missed nine games at midseason due to a fractured left thumb, the only games he would miss in his collegiate career.
Sophomore Season (1981-82) — The Tar Heels were 32-2, won the ACC Tournament and regular-season titles, finished ranked first in both polls and won the NCAA championship by defeating Georgetown (he had four points, three rebounds, one assist in that game). Doherty averaged 9.3 points, 3.0 rebounds, had 105 assists and led the team in free-throw percentage with a .772 mark (71 of 92). That team began the season ranked number one in the polls and Doherty appeared (along with Coach Smith, Perkins, Worthy and Black) on the cover of the Sports Illustrated preseason college basketball issue. He hit three free throws in the final 28 seconds of North Carolina’s 47-45 triumph over Virginia in the ACC Tournament title game. He shared UNC scoring honors with 16 points in the NCAA regional semifinal win over Alabama.
Junior Season (1982-83) — The Tar Heels finished 28-8, won the ACC regular-season title, finished ranked eighth in both polls and advanced to the NCAA East Regional final. Doherty averaged 10.5 points and 3.8 rebounds, led the team in assists with 150 and was named the team’s most outstanding defensive player. He scored a career-high 28 points in the 1983 ACC Tournament quarterfinal versus Clemson.
Senior Season (1983-84) — The Tar Heels finished 28-3, won the ACC regular-season title, finished ranked first in both polls and advanced to the NCAA East Regional semifinals. Doherty averaged 9.8 points and 4.0 rebounds and again led the team in assists with 124. He was a first-team selection on the All-ACC Tournament team (after earning second-team honors each of the two previous seasons) after hitting 17 of 25 field goals. He tri-captained the team with Perkins and Cecil Exum and received the Jim Tatum Award which is given to the UNC student-athlete with the most outstanding achievement in his/her sport and constructive participation in the community.
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Ron Green Jr. wrote in 1981 for the Chapel Hill Newspaper: “Doherty is a vital element in the Tar Heel chemistry. He knows how to get the ball to his teammates when they can use it and he knows what to do with it when they give it back. Call it savvy, call it court-sense. That’s what Doherty has … What Doherty does to compensate for any quickness he might lack is outthink the opposition. He used to spend his summer days on playground courts, playing from sunup to sundown. It was there, as well as from his high school coach, that Doherty learned to play basketball.
“Rather than run up and down the court wondering about where his next jumper was coming from, Doherty studied the game. He watched the other players and he watched himself. A tidbit here, a tidbit there and Doherty was accumulating a storehouse of basketball sense.”
He finished among the Tar Heel career leaders in scoring, free-throw percentage (.761 on 309 of 406) and assists (third with 446 when he graduated, behind only Phil Ford and Black, and still ranked ninth). The Tar Heels were 48-8 (.857) in ACC play.
He was a member of the ACC All-Academic team as a senior and played on the 1983 United States Select team that competed internationally. Doherty was a sixth-round pick by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 1984 NBA draft as the 119th overall selection.
He graduated from UNC in 1984 with a degree in business administration and Dean’s List honors. He worked in New York City for more than three years as a bond salesman for Kidder Peabody & Co., Inc., then spent a year as an executive search consultant with Sockwell and Anderson in Charlotte, N.C. He served two seasons as a basketball analyst in 1987-88 and 1988-89 as color commentator for the Davidson basketball radio network and also working games at North Carolina, St. Francis (N.Y.) College and Charlotte area high schools.
He began his coaching career with an AAU team in Charlotte with former Tar Heel three-sport standout Charles Waddell. The AAU team included future UNC point guard Jeff McInnis. Doherty then spent three seasons (1989-90 through 1991-92) as an assistant coach at Davidson under head coach Bob McKillop, who coached him as a player at Holy Trinity High School in Hicksville, N.Y.
The high school seniors he helped recruit in his final season at Davidson finished 25-5, ended up unbeaten in league play and participated in the NIT as college seniors in 1996.
At Kansas — After three seasons at Davidson, Doherty moved on to the University of Kansas, where he spent seven years as an assistant to Roy Williams. Williams was an assistant coach under Dean Smith when Doherty played in Chapel Hill.
The Jayhawks advanced to the NCAA tournament in each of his seven seasons in Lawrence. During those seven years, Kansas played in the 1993 Final Four, advanced to the Final Eight in ‘96, the Sweet 16 in ‘94, ‘95 and ‘97 — and to the second round each of his last two years.
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“As a player, Matt was the consummate coach on the floor, always thinking one step ahead of the game.”
Brad Daugherty
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“I’m so pleased Matt is the head basketball coach at North Carolina because I love that program so, so much and know it’s in fantastic hands,” says Williams. “Matt is one of the most organized, intense and competitive coaches I have ever known, and those qualities will help keep the North Carolina basketball program where it is and where it should be, and that’s at the top of the basketball world. The greatest compliment I can give somebody is to say how much I love that basketball program, and along with that say I am so, so pleased that Matt Doherty is in charge. He is a Tar Heel and will continue that program at the high level of Coach Smith and Coach Guthridge.”
Kansas won five Big Eight/Big 12 Conference titles during his stay and compiled an overall 202-42 (.828) record, including a 15-7 mark in NCAA tournament play.
Doherty coordinated recruiting and scouting at Kansas and assisted in all day-to-day operations of the Jayhawk program. During his tenure, he played a key role in signing nine McDonald’s high school All-Americas, including Jacque Vaughn, Raef LaFrentz, Paul Pierce, Ryan Robertson, Lester Earl, Eric Chenowith, Kenny Gregory, Jeff Boschee and Nick Collison. Both Vaughn and LaFrentz (twice) earned Big Eight or Big 12 Conference player of the year honors; LaFrentz and Pierce earned consensus All-America honors in 1998 and Vaughn won first-team honors in 1997.
LaFrentz (Denver), Greg Ostertag (Utah), Pierce (Boston), Scot Pollard (Sacramento), Vaughn (Utah), Rex Walters (Miami) and Ryan Robertson (Sacramento) are among NBA players coached by Doherty.
Here’s a year-by-year look at what the Jayhawks accomplished in each of Doherty’s seven seasons on the staff:
Personal — Born Matthew Francis Doherty on Feb. 25, 1962, in East Meadow, N.Y., he and his wife, the former Kelly Propst of Concord, N.C., are parents of a son, Tucker, born June 17, 1997, and a daughter, Hattie Fitzgerald, born Sept. 13, 1999.
