April 4, 2005, 20 years ago today: In coach Roy Williams’ first trip to an NCAA championship game, North Carolina beats Illinois 75-70 at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis.The Tar Heels built a 13-point halftime lead and was up by 15 in the second half before the Fighting Illini fought back to tie the game down the stretch. But UNC forward Sean May was able to get Illinois’ stars on their heels (so to speak) foul trouble while scoring 26 points with 10 rebounds. May was named the NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. The Illinois was stymied in its quest for an NCAA record 38th win of the season. This remains the Illini’s only appearance in the title game.
Williams was in his second season with the Tar Heels after 15 years at Kansas. He had a great run with the Jayhawks, but he was Carolina through-and-through. Williams was a junior varsity player at UNC and graduated there in 1972. Then in 1978, he got a job as an assistant coach under the legendary Dean Smith. Williams got his first head coaching job at Kansas in 1988. When Smith retired suddenly right before preseason practice started in 1997, the timing wasn’t right for a Williams return, and Bill Guttridge was promoted.
North Carolina courted Williams in 2000 when Guttridge retired, but Williams had promised Kansas guard Nick Collison that he’d be there as coach during Collison’s entire four-year career at KU, and he kept his promise. Matt Doherty was hired at UNC, and his three-year tenure was entirely underwhelming by Tar Heels standards. This time North Carolina dispatched Dean Smith himself to convince Williams to come home. He wasn’t going to say no. After the 2005 crown, Williams would win two more championships at UNC before retiring four years ago.
There was another Boise Bracket in 2005, as the BSU Pavilion hosted NCAA Tournament first and second round games for the seventh time. One of the highlights of the week was Washington’s pregame warmups for its game against Montana. Standing 5-foot-9, Nate Robinson put on a dunking exhibition for the ages before the Huskies’ 88-77 win. (He’d go on to become the first three-time champion in the NBA’s Slam Dunk Contest.) UW and Arizona were the teams that survived out of Boise into the Sweet 16. The Wildcats made it to the Elite Eight and led Illinois by 15 points with four minutes to go before falling 90-89 in overtime.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
