SMU announces Doherty as basketball coach (Photo by John Schreiber, The Daily Campus)

Incoming Athletic Director Steve Orsini and President R. Gerald Turner announced Monday afternoon that SMU has hired former North Carolina standout and coach Matt Doherty to replace Jimmy Tubbs as head men’s basketball coach.

Doherty accepted a five-year deal reportedly worth as much as $600,000 annually to leave Florida Atlantic University, where he has been the coach since 2005.

The 2001 Associated Press Coach of the Year brings with him 16 years of coaching experience, eight NCAA tournament berths and a strong sense of excitement about the future of SMU basketball.

“I want to put a system in place to put in a program that you all will be excited about. With the commitment we have here, why can’t we be a top 25 team?” Doherty said.

“Matt was a winner as a student athlete, a national champion, a winner as a coach and a winner as a person,” Orsini said of Doherty, who will be considered Orsini’s first hire despite the fact that Orsini does not officially start at SMU until June 1.

“We asked ourselves who will be the best candidate to get the biggest spark going,” Orsini said.

Doherty, along with assistants James Stafford and Malcolm Farmer, will begin immediately. Doherty said top assistant Rex Walters will join his staff at SMU only if he is not offered the head coach position at FAU, which sources say he likely will.

Doherty met with the team prior to the press conference and seems to have made a good impression, joking with sophomore guard Derrick Roberts that if he didn’t clap for him he would not start. Several other players said they were pleased with the hire.

“He sounds good, looks good — we’re ready to get going,” said sophomore guard Jon Killen.

Doherty has an impressive basketball pedigree. He started as a sophomore alongside Michael Jordan and James Worthy on the 1982 UNC team that won the national title.

He began his coaching career with three years at Davidson College before becoming an assistant for Roy Williams at the University of Kansas. In Doherty’s six years at Kansas, the Jayhawks made the NCAA tournament every season.

Doherty’s first head coaching job was at the University of Notre Dame. He coached there only one season, leading the Irish to their first 20-win season in 10 years before being tapped to become head coach at North Carolina.

In Doherty’s first season at UNC, he led the Tar Heels to the final four and earned the 2001 A.P. Coach of the Year Award. The situation at Chapel Hill soured quickly though, and in the 2001-2002 season the Tar Heels went only 8-20. The next season they recovered enough to make the NIT, but Doherty was pressured to resign, doing so in April of 2003.

A reputation as a task-master followed Doherty into semi-retirement, and he spent two years working on leadership skills and working as an analyst for CSTV and ESPN. Doherty says the time off helped reshape his coaching style.

“Maybe I wasn’t a born leader,” Doherty said. “I’m not perfect, but I’m a lot better than I was in 1999.”

Doherty also addressed rumors that his tenure on the Hilltop, like his other head coaching stops, will be short.

“I look at this as a destination point,” he said. “I never coached a day in one job with an eye on another job.”

Added Orsini: “He’s committed to us, and he knows we’re committed to him.”

Those commitments include the planned $12 million basketball practice facility, for which Orsini hopes to have construction underway this summer, and the support of Orsini and President Turner in building a winning program.

“I’m a salesman,” Doherty said. “But you can only sell something you believe in, and I believe in SMU.”