Matt Doherty's hair began turning prematurely gray long before he took the basketball coaching job at his alma mater during the summer of 2000. Good thing, considering what Doherty experienced last season at North Carolina.
After being named national Coach of the Year by the Associated Press in 2000-01, Doherty found himself defending the same emotional style he had been praised for after succeeding Bill Guthridge.
That would happen anywhere when your team crashes from 26-7 to 8-20, but particularly at a school that holds the record for the most victories in NCAA history. As a result, there isn't a coach in the country under more pressure than Doherty this season.
Yet he is far from the only coach who is trying to re-create the past. Several prominent programs, including former national champions Michigan and Arkansas, are in the midst of rebuilding and face an even more daunting road than the Tar Heels.
"People want to see progress more than anything," Doherty said last week from Chapel Hill. "That might not come in wins and losses [because] our schedule is so tough. But you'll see it on the floor, the talent level and the level of effort."
After a 3-0 start at home, the Tar Heels stunned No. 2 Kansas, 67-56, last night in the semifinals of the Preseason NIT at New York's Madison Square Garden. After starting 0-2 last season and going on to set a school record for most defeats, North Carolina has experienced heightened expectations for a team that is the youngest in the country.
North Carolina is starting three freshmen for the first time in school history. But the play of Rashad McCants, Sean May and Raymond Felton has given the Tar Heels and their fans the feeling that the turnaround will be quick.
"Expectations are kind of funny," Doherty said. "No one gave us a vote for any Top 25 teams. We win [by 30 against Penn State in the season opener] and a lot of people want to anoint that we've arrived."
Many believed Massachusetts had arrived when the program made it to the national semifinals in 1996 before losing to eventual national champion Kentucky. But the Minutemen virtually disappeared from the national spotlight when coach John Calipari left a few months later for the NBA.
Calipari's successor, Bruiser Flint, kept the success going for a couple of years before the Minutemen dropped under .500 in 1998-99. After two more mediocre seasons, Flint was fired and Steve Lappas was hired from Villanova.
"The way it seems to have become, if you don't make the [NCAA] tournament, you have to rebuild," Lappas said. "If you win 17 or 18 games and not make the tournament, that doesn't mean your program has fallen."
Lappas, whose team started 0-2 before beating Chaminade yesterday in the seventh-place game of the Maui Invitational, is hoping to improve on last season's 13-16 record.
"Obviously, recruiting is important," said Lappas, who is using six new players this season. "You have to bring in kids who have to improve. Usually if you have a very good team, you're going to have all-conference players. They go hand-in-hand."
Rebuilding becomes even more difficult if a team is facing sanctions from the NCAA. That is the case with Michigan and Arkansas.
The Wolverines recently announced they will forfeit 113 victories, return more than $400,000 in NCAA tournament revenue and remove the banners associated with championship teams whose players were paid more than $600,000 by Michigan booster and convicted gambler Ed Martin.
The mess created when Martin allegedly paid four prominent former Wolverines, including Chris Webber, is now being cleaned up by coach Tommy Amaker. The former Duke player and assistant, who came to Michigan after coaching Seton Hall, was part of a committee that also recently proposed a two-year NCAA probation.
"I feel for our players," said Amaker, whose team finished 11-18 in his first season in Ann Arbor and is 0-3 this season, the school's worst start since 1970-71. "You feel a little bit of everything. ... I'm confident in our leadership and the decisions that we've made that these are the right things to do."
Of all the sanctions proposed, taking down the banners at Crisler Arena - marking the 1992 and 1993 Final Fours, the 1997 National Invitation Tournament title and the 1998 Big Ten tournament title - might have been the most difficult.
"As a former player and coach, you recognize the significance of hanging a banner," said Amaker, who worked under Mike Krzyzewski when Duke won back-to-back NCAA titles in 1991 and 1992. "You recognize that it signals success, winning and pride."
The reactions by his current players were encouraging. None of them transferred, and all his recruits plan on sticking with the Wolverines. But Amaker said he understands he could lose prospective players if the university's self-imposed penalties are increased by the NCAA.
Team captain LaVell Blanchard summed up the feeling of many Michigan players who were brought up on the Fab Five teams that starred Webber and Jalen Rose.
"I am a Michigan man," Blanchard said. "I have been here my whole life. You cannot run away from your home, and this is the home I have been raised in, the home I have been nurtured in and the home that has really embraced me."
Asked how the team would motivate itself if it were ineligible for the NCAA tournament, freshman guard Lester Abraham said: "You play for pride. As long as we're winning, we're going to have fans coming in."
The NCAA letter of inquiry arrived in Fayetteville, Ark., last week, a signal that the Razorbacks will likely be subjected to an investigation for the second time in five years.
There was more suspicion than tangible evidence the first time, but former coach Nolan Richardson's program was penalized with a loss of scholarships and the ability to recruit junior-college players, the staple of Richardson's best teams.
Richardson, who left Arkansas after 16 years before the end of last season, recently accused the NCAA of "holding us hostage for 16 months." Because the alleged infractions under Richardson took place in the past five years, the Razorbacks could be subject to the NCAA death penalty - the suspension of the basketball program. A hearing is scheduled for next month.
A month after Richardson's noisy departure, Stan Heath arrived from Kent University, where his first season as a head coach produced a 30-6 record and an unexpected trip to the Elite Eight. Now, Heath has to build for the future while trying to outrun the past.
Not that Heath will ignore Richardson's success, which included a national championship in 1994 and a second-place finish in 1995. The Razorbacks went to the NCAA tournament in four of the next five seasons before going 14-15 last season.
"There's a separation that as coaches we have to bridge," Heath said shortly before the NCAA's letter of inquiry arrived. "That's what we're working on right now. It is a little bit harder, it is a delicate balance, but if we want to have a good team, we have to make that happen."
This season's team is expected to finish in the middle of the pack in the Southeastern Conference, but Heath recently signed what is expected to be a Top 10 recruiting class. How hard the Razorbacks are hit by the NCAA will affect how quickly Heath can rebuild.
"We have to have momentum. It's important for our team to be a competitive team, a team that's going to play hard," said Heath, whose team is 1-1. "And then it's important to have a good recruiting class so the future gets established in order to see the visions of an elite program unfolding. "
Heath inherited an experienced team at Kent after Gary Waters left for Rutgers; this year, he will start a pair of freshmen in the backcourt, players recruited by Richardson. Heath, though, said he wants this year's Arkansas team to be just as big a surprise by the end of the season.
"When you read the magazines and you ask people, no one really expects much from us," said Heath. "They just think we're missing so many pieces and that it's just going to take time. We don't have that attitude. We're saying we're going to work hard and we're going to earn whatever we can get."
The biggest difference is in the attention Arkansas receives.
"Everything is magnified," Heath said. "The good thing about being at a place like Arkansas is maybe when you're fighting some battles to get back where you want to get, if you land a couple of major players, they can made difference in your program. You do have that opportunity a lot faster at a place like this.
"But you can landslide just as fast."