The No. 5 North Carolina Tar Heels crushed the No. 11 Miami Hurricanes, 96-71, in college basketball action on Saturday at Dean Smith Center. On most days, a decisive win over a top-15 team would rate as a headline development. However, the main topic in Roy Williams’ postgame press conference was a set of remarks made by a television commentator before the game.
During the CBS pregame show, analyst Doug Gottlieb suggested that Williams would retire after the season, and then be replaced as head coach by former Tar Heels star Hubert Davis.
In the postgame press conference, Williams was irate over Gottlieb’s comments:
Full text of that Roy Williams postgame “addendum” (read: rant) about Doug Gottlieb pic.twitter.com/ccTjZpzzoZ
— David Gardner (@byDavidGardner) February 20, 2016
Gottlieb then responded on Twitter, saying he was not “reporting” anything in the pregame and simply speculating about Williams’ future, citing the 65-year-old’s recent health issues:
There was no “report” on Roy. Simply stating his knees,vertigo,NCAA stuff make people think this could be his last year #UNC — Doug Gottlieb (@GottliebShow) February 20, 2016
Bad journalism is misquoting me to Roy, making it into a “report of him retiring”
— Doug Gottlieb (@GottliebShow) February 20, 2016
The possibility of future NCAA punishments against the Tar Heels — which might make North Carolina ineligible for the 2017 NCAA Tournament — also looms in the background as another reason why Gottlieb said what he said. Nevertheless, his comments — which did contain a speculative quality — possessed a level of precision regarding North Carolina’s succession plan if Williams does step down. If Williams was upset with Gottlieb, it’s easy to understand why.
If you’re curious about the incident Williams referred to above — involving Gottlieb’s “daggum pants” — here you go:
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.