It was July 2000 and college basketball's most prestigious program was at a crossroads. North Carolina head coach Bill Guthridge had retired and his supposed hand-picked successor, Roy Wiliams, had chosen to remain at Kansas. The very building blocks that had long been staples of the Carolina Basketball Family -- loyalty and consistency -- were threatened in a way that could tear the program apart. Then a former UNC player-turned-coach, Matt Doherty, was tapped to take over the reins and lead Carolina into the next century.

True Blue: Matt Doherty Returns to Carolina Basketball tells the story of the most remarkable 10 months in the history of college basketball's most storied franchise and its young, energetic new leader. Granted unique access, author David DeWitt followed the coaches and players as they prepared for a season during which the eyes of the sporting world would be upon them. A former small college coach, DeWitt not only takes you inside the locker rooms and huddles, but he tells the story of a team and its members with the knowing eye of someone who has been there. The result is an intimate experience of a college basketball season.

No program operates in a cauldron of pressure like North Carolina, due to the burden of expectations accumulated after more than 30 seasons of unprecedented success. Up against the weight of history, the members of the Carolina basketball program strive to live up to those who created the legacy of excellence -- coaches and players such as Dean Smith, Michael Jordan, Larry Brown, Vince Carter, James Worthy, Kenny Smith, and Antawn Jamison -- while at the same time trying to live up to their own lofty goals of ACC and NCAA titles.

At the center of it all is a driven Matt Doherty, a coach who has already written himself into the history of Carolina basketball as a player, but who passionately wants to add glorious chapters as its coach. They say a coach's first season contains ten years' worth of pressure, glory, frsutration, victory, and anguish. The 2000-01 season -- one that saw the Tar Heels climb from nowhere to No. 1 in the nation -- was such a year.

True Blue takes you inside the Carolina program like no book ever has, revealing the stories you never knew and the people you thought you did.