NC Paper: Doherty hungry to regain success

[Water Pony]

Article published Feb 11, 2007
Star, Wilmington, NC

Doherty hungry to regain success

Dallas | A humbled and still hungry Matt Doherty offers a blunt assessment of his time at the "mountaintop," his term for his three seasons as coach at North Carolina.

"I had my butt handed to me," Doherty said. "I hit rock bottom."
Doherty has gone from the mountaintop to the Hilltop, the nickname locals use for SMU, a basketball backwater compared to Doherty's old job at a marquee program.

Doherty, who coached last season at Florida Atlantic, continues to adjust to life at a mid-major at SMU, where he had a strong start but lost seven of his first nine Conference USA games.

Some of his SMU practices have been held in the gym of a church because of scheduling conflicts with the volleyball and women's basketball programs, a problem he never had in Chapel Hill.

The days of sold-out gyms and sit-downs with Dickie V. are over - and that's just fine by Doherty, who said he has more balance in his life now.
"You do miss the sounds and you do miss the packed arena on a big game," Doherty said.

Doherty insists he is not looking for the next job, that he is comfortable with a five-year contract that reportedly pays as much as $600,000 per season. Athletic director Steve Orsini said SMU has "all the resources to keep the top people in the country here."

But Doherty said the same thing at Florida Atlantic, where athletic director Craig Angelos offered him a five-year contract before the 2005-06 season. Doherty asked for seven years - and then left after one.

Less exposure, less money, less everything - that's the price Doherty said he must pay for flubbing the North Carolina job. Doherty, who won a national championship as a Tar Heel, broke into coaching with Notre Dame in 1999-2000. He took over North Carolina the next season and earned The Associated Press Coach of the Year award for going 26-7 and winning a share of the regular-season ACC title.

North Carolina missed the NCAA field the next two years, and Doherty resigned under pressure in April 2003.

The main reason North Carolina forced him out, Doherty believes, is the availability of Roy Williams. The former North Carolina assistant had declined to leave Kansas the first time the Tar Heels called, leading to Doherty's hire.

"I wasn't the chosen one," Doherty said. "I wasn't the one they wanted from the beginning."

His public penance was cushy - two years of TV work. By 2005, however, Doherty was ready to coach again. He ended up at Florida Atlantic, a school that didn't have a basketball team until 1988.

When Orsini offered to triple his salary, Doherty left for SMU. He has become the face of the program, visiting every fraternity to drum up student support.

The school has responded by building a basketball facility and shoehorning a fancy four-sided scoreboard into the 50-year-old rafters of Moody Coliseum. But the slick videoboard might be the second-glitziest addition to the SMU basketball scene.

"When we found out he was our coach, we were star-struck at first," guard Jon Killen said. "When someone has played with great players and coached great players and had success, you have no choice but to listen."
The question now is whether Doherty will listen if or when bigger programs come calling.

"He has a burning in his heart, a desire to show other people that he does belong among the elite coaches," Angelos said. "That is why he will be successful. He will do whatever it takes."