Roy Williams recently was at the dais for his press conference with the Tar Heels getting ready to play Arkansas on Saturday in the third round of the West Regional of the NCAA Tournament here in Jacksonville, FL.
*Williams was asked about his big guys shooting too many turnaround jumpers, to which he replied that Kennedy Meeks doesn't need to shoot those shots, but he doesn't mind Joel James' left-handed jump hook when he turns to his left. The coach also said it's more a part of Brice Johnson's game, but he's rather Johnson get closer to the basket and would rather he dunk than anything else.
*Turnovers were a big topic Friday in the locker room with the players and with Williams. The Tar Heels committed 17 that lead to 29 Harvard points on Thursday night. That is the most points allowed off of miscues by the Heels this season. Arkansas led the SEC in steals at nearly 8 per game, so taking care of the ball versus the Razorbacks on Saturday has been a major point of emphasis.
" Well, there's no question, if we turn it over at the same rate we did last night, we won't have anybody left at the end of the game, including the head coach, because we're going to fight somebody, and that usually means our players," Williams said. "If we turned it over 17 times last night in, gosh, I think I saw a 60-something possession game, it's going to be more than 60 possessions tomorrow, so we understand that. That's -- 50 percent of our practice discussion out there on the court was not turning the basketball over. I don't mind some turnovers."
*Williams said his team looked almost like they were in "a panic" late in the game versus Harvard, so he told them a story about the 1981-82 team that "blew out" James Madison 52-50. It appeared to help. But the coach recognized his team was relieved getting the victory given how it played. What about him, though, does he still feel badly about the way the Heels played and is he feeling good about Saturday's game?
"No, because I've seen Arkansas play," Williams said. "They're scary. They really are. And some of the clubs this year, we played Louisville at Louisville in the last ten minutes of regulation. And in the overtime, their frenetic pace and the aggressiveness really hurt us, so we've got to make sure that doesn't happen. But to your question, we had a pretty doggone good attention span this morning in practice."
*A columnist for the Jacksonville paper asked Williams about a piece in Sports Illustrated written by a UNC alum that was pretty hard hitting and suggests that UNC has lost its way, can't really be regarded as the public Ivy it long professed to be. Williams response:
"Well, we've been going through this, I call it stuff. I used to say junk and people didn't necessarily like that, so I'll stick with the stuff. We've been going through this for three years, seems like a lifetime. Carolina has not lost its way. There are things in college athletics that people may think don't fit together. I happen to think they do fit together. I think that you can have a great academic institution and have a great athletic program. That doesn't mean that it's impossible to make mistakes. I said our University, we had some mistakes. I'm very proud of my degree. My son and daughter went there. I'm very proud of the degree they have. I have a five-year-old and a three-year-old grandson, and I hope like crazy they go to school there and I'll be extremely proud of their degree. Some people's attitudes or ideas are out in Never-Never Land and think everything in the world is perfect. I don't happen to think everything in the world is perfect, but you can make really, really positive things if you really want to. I walked by a building over here, and there was a building, I wondered, did they run out of money or something? What happened? They had a mistake, concrete didn't work, part of it fell in, so now it's all up in trials and everything. That doesn't mean that building things have gone to crap. You just have things that are mistakes that you can't do over. It's not like golf. I love to play golf. I don't take Mulligans, okay, but you can't do that. But no, I disagree. I don't think Carolina has lost its way. Carolina had some mistakes. We've made so many changes, it's unbelievable, on our campus. Right now, if I decided I wanted to go to the Chart House tonight for dinner, I've got to get the approval of 12 committees and the disciples of the Lord before I can go. And that's okay. But, no, I disagree, I don't think Carolina has lost its way. I think our degree, our educational institution is one of the most fantastic places in the world."
*Williams was asked about his big guys shooting too many turnaround jumpers, to which he replied that Kennedy Meeks doesn't need to shoot those shots, but he doesn't mind Joel James' left-handed jump hook when he turns to his left. The coach also said it's more a part of Brice Johnson's game, but he's rather Johnson get closer to the basket and would rather he dunk than anything else.
*Turnovers were a big topic Friday in the locker room with the players and with Williams. The Tar Heels committed 17 that lead to 29 Harvard points on Thursday night. That is the most points allowed off of miscues by the Heels this season. Arkansas led the SEC in steals at nearly 8 per game, so taking care of the ball versus the Razorbacks on Saturday has been a major point of emphasis.
" Well, there's no question, if we turn it over at the same rate we did last night, we won't have anybody left at the end of the game, including the head coach, because we're going to fight somebody, and that usually means our players," Williams said. "If we turned it over 17 times last night in, gosh, I think I saw a 60-something possession game, it's going to be more than 60 possessions tomorrow, so we understand that. That's -- 50 percent of our practice discussion out there on the court was not turning the basketball over. I don't mind some turnovers."
*Williams said his team looked almost like they were in "a panic" late in the game versus Harvard, so he told them a story about the 1981-82 team that "blew out" James Madison 52-50. It appeared to help. But the coach recognized his team was relieved getting the victory given how it played. What about him, though, does he still feel badly about the way the Heels played and is he feeling good about Saturday's game?
"No, because I've seen Arkansas play," Williams said. "They're scary. They really are. And some of the clubs this year, we played Louisville at Louisville in the last ten minutes of regulation. And in the overtime, their frenetic pace and the aggressiveness really hurt us, so we've got to make sure that doesn't happen. But to your question, we had a pretty doggone good attention span this morning in practice."
*A columnist for the Jacksonville paper asked Williams about a piece in Sports Illustrated written by a UNC alum that was pretty hard hitting and suggests that UNC has lost its way, can't really be regarded as the public Ivy it long professed to be. Williams response:
"Well, we've been going through this, I call it stuff. I used to say junk and people didn't necessarily like that, so I'll stick with the stuff. We've been going through this for three years, seems like a lifetime. Carolina has not lost its way. There are things in college athletics that people may think don't fit together. I happen to think they do fit together. I think that you can have a great academic institution and have a great athletic program. That doesn't mean that it's impossible to make mistakes. I said our University, we had some mistakes. I'm very proud of my degree. My son and daughter went there. I'm very proud of the degree they have. I have a five-year-old and a three-year-old grandson, and I hope like crazy they go to school there and I'll be extremely proud of their degree. Some people's attitudes or ideas are out in Never-Never Land and think everything in the world is perfect. I don't happen to think everything in the world is perfect, but you can make really, really positive things if you really want to. I walked by a building over here, and there was a building, I wondered, did they run out of money or something? What happened? They had a mistake, concrete didn't work, part of it fell in, so now it's all up in trials and everything. That doesn't mean that building things have gone to crap. You just have things that are mistakes that you can't do over. It's not like golf. I love to play golf. I don't take Mulligans, okay, but you can't do that. But no, I disagree. I don't think Carolina has lost its way. Carolina had some mistakes. We've made so many changes, it's unbelievable, on our campus. Right now, if I decided I wanted to go to the Chart House tonight for dinner, I've got to get the approval of 12 committees and the disciples of the Lord before I can go. And that's okay. But, no, I disagree, I don't think Carolina has lost its way. I think our degree, our educational institution is one of the most fantastic places in the world."
