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Roy Williams becomes 5th men's college basketball coach to reach 900 wins

Roy Williams is one of the great coaches in basketball history, and now belongs to a club exclusive enough to say as much.

The North Carolina head coach notched the 900th win of his career on Saturday with a 78-70 upset win over No. 11 Florida State. Williams is the fifth men's college basketball coach to cross the threshold at the Division I level, joining Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim, Jim Calhoun and Bob Knight.

After the game, UNC presented Williams with a custom jersey to commemorate the accomplishment.

Williams said he appreciated the accomplishment after the game, but was quick to credit his players and assistant coaches.

From ESPN:

"It's neat, and I appreciate all the players that have ever been involved in those things," Williams said. "My assistant coaches, for 33 years, I felt like I've had the best coaching staff in the world and I believe that every day. But it was nice."

Williams is the fastest coach to reach 900 wins, having done it in his 1,161st game as a head coach. The next fastest: Krzyzewski with 1,183.

Between his time at UNC and Kansas, Williams is also the only coach in that group to get all his wins purely as a power conference coach (Krzyzewski and Knight both got their starts at Army, Calhoun started at Northeastern and Jim Boeheim took over Syracuse when it was still an independent).

An assistant under the legendary Dean Smith (879 wins) for 10 years, Williams got his start as a head coach at Kansas in 1988. After 15 seasons that still have him placed third on the Jayhawks' all-time wins list, Williams moved back to UNC to take over a program that had struggled under Matt Doherty. He led the Tar Heels to the national championship in his second year, and has since won two more titles in Chapel Hill.

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