Together again

Every night that North Carolina men's basketball coach Roy Williams tunes into ESPN's SportsCenter, he scours the ticker with one specific team in mind.

Through the years, it's changed — first it was Jacksonville State, then it was Wichita State, then Texas A&M. There was always one constant, though: the man at the helm of those programs, Mark Turgeon.

Turgeon may now be in charge of the Terps, one of North Carolina's ACC rivals, but Williams' tradition hasn't changed. And for the first time in his career, Williams will face off head to head with Turgeon, his former assistant at Kansas in the early 1990s, tomorrow at Comcast Center. He brings his No. 5 Tar Heels (19-3, 6-1 ACC) to College Park to face the Terps (13-8, 3-4) in a nationally televised game.

"I've wanted him to win every single game he's been involved with," Williams said earlier this week. "He was a great asset to me and he was a big part of the success that we had while we were together at Kansas. He's just a fantastic coach that is going to be difficult to coach against."

Their relationship began in 1989, when Williams took his first collegiate head coaching job with the Jayhawks after being an assistant under Dean Smith at North Carolina for a decade. Turgeon had already been in Lawrence for five years, his first four as a player and the fifth as a graduate assistant.

Williams took the reins from Larry Brown, who had just won a national championship before bolting for the NBA. The new coach decided to keep Turgeon around, allowing the young fireball to run the junior-varsity squad and serve as an assistant on the varsity team.

Turgeon coached under Williams for the next three years, helping the Jayhawks win back-to-back Big Eight Conference titles in 1991 and 1992.

"Mark was fantastic for me," Williams said. "He worked his tail off. … He took the suggestions that I made for what he should be doing each and every day in the office and ran with it, and I expanded his role every year."

Turgeon, though, decided to part ways in 1992 to become the top assistant for former Kansas assistant Jerry Green at Oregon. The two kept in close contact through the years, as Williams built a national powerhouse in Lawrence and Turgeon worked his way up the coaching ladder.

The two never occupied opposing sidelines during Turgeon's previous 13 years as a coach. On the eve of their first matchup, Turgeon has Williams to thank for finally getting the chance to do so in an ACC game.

"He has a lot to do with me being here," Turgeon said at his introductory press conference in May. "He said, ‘I'm on your side, no matter what you do.' But 25 times he said, ‘It's one of the top-10 jobs in the country, Mark, and you deserve one of these jobs. You'd be foolish not to take it.'"

With the push from his former mentor, Turgeon moved his family to College Park.

"He's one of the bright, young coaches that just does an phenomenal job," Williams said. "I thought it was a win-win for everybody."

It all lines up for a homecoming of sorts tomorrow when Turgeon's Terps square off against Williams' Tar Heels nearly 25 years after the two first met.

North Carolina, of course, holds an overwhelming advantage in terms of talent. The Tar Heels entered the season as the nation's preseason No. 1 team, led by a frontcourt trio of Harrison Barnes, John Henson and Tyler Zeller — all projected NBA first-round picks. They've lost just three times this season.

The Terps, meanwhile, are coming off their most emotional game of the season, a double-overtime, 90-86 loss at Miami on Wednesday night, and have lost four of their past five.

Still, Turgeon likely won't be intimidated, not even against the man who trained him.

"The only place I fear Coach Williams," Turgeon said in May, "is on the golf course."

Senior staff writer Jeremy Schneider contributed to this report.

ceckard@umdbk.com