ACC Conference Call: Williams on Walton, Syracuse & More
North Carolina Coach Roy Williams met with the media during the ACC’s weekly video conference late Monday morning to field several questions about his team and to get his thoughts on the recent trend of early enrollees in college basketball.
Above is the video from Williams’ Q&A session, and below are a few notes and quotes from Williams’ short interview:
*UNC currently sits at 7-4 overall and 2-2 in ACC play. The Tar Heels are on a two-game winning streak after starting 0-2 in conference play, beating Notre Dame at home thanks to a Leaky Black jumper with under 10 seconds remaining before narrowly escaping Miami, thanks to an Andrew Platek driving baseline jumper with 3.6 seconds remaining.
Now, after Carolina’s game against Clemson last Saturday was postponed due to a COVID outbreak within the Tigers’ program, UNC prepares to face Syracuse on Tuesday night in Chapel Hill, a game that was originally scheduled to be played on Jan. 2.
The Orange come to Chapel Hill sitting at 7-2 and 1-1 in ACC play. Coming with them will be Coach Jim Boeheim’s fabled 2-3 zone, something many players on this Carolina roster have yet to experience.
So, what challenges does Williams think his team, and the six freshmen in particular, will face against Syracuse’s defense?
“You can't make the borderline passes, you can't make the soft, casual, careless passes or anything like that,” Williams said. “So, for freshmen, it's like hitting you in the mouth and I do believe that it'll be a challenge for us. We can try to simulate it in practice, but we don't do a very good job because it's not who we are, not what we do.
“And Jimmy’s always been adamant about enjoying it and liking it and he should because it causes other people a lot of trouble. And for us, particularly with starting two freshmen all the time, I think every game this year we’ve started two freshmen at the guard spot. So, it's been difficult for us to get ready for it.”
*With UNC’s game against Clemson last Saturday getting postponed just over 24 hours before tipoff, the Heels didn’t have much warning before they had to scratch their plans and prepare for Syracuse on Tuesday instead.
Where was the team when it heard the news and how did they end up spending their Saturday?
“Well, it was crazy because we're going over Clemson’s scouting report on Friday and we’re walking out to the court to do a little Clemson walkthrough and then, all of a sudden, the message comes through,” Williams said. “And so, we sort of tried to scramble and stop working on Clemson walkthrough for sure and just tried to do some things to make our own team a little bit better and (we) did the same thing on Saturday and Sunday’s practices as well.”
*Freshman guard Kerwin Walton has started in the last three games for UNC after coming off the bench and seeing limited minutes early in the season.
In his three starts going back to the loss at Georgia Tech on Dec. 30, Walton is averaging 11.3 points and 3.6 assists in 23.6 minutes per game. He’s also putting the ball in the basket at a high clip, shooting 55 percent from the floor and 52.6 percent from three in his three starts.
With his offensive game being so good in recent weeks, Williams is now working to improve Walton's production and vocality on the defensive end of the floor.
“We're doing everything we can to get him to be more verbal, more vocal on the defensive end of the floor, and he is getting better defensively,” Williams said. “But to be a good defensive player, you have to be very aggressive, very vocal, talk, do all those things and that's just not his nature.
“But, at the same time, it has to be there or there's times that you can't be in the game. So, he's working on it and he is getting better at it but, as a coach, you always want that to be at a faster pace.”
*COVID-19 has brought countless changes to college athletics over the past 10 or so months and we’re continuing to see those changes today.
One new trend we’re seeing in college basketball this season that we’re also seeing in college football is high school recruits enrolling early in college, mainly because of high school seasons being cancelled across the country.
What does Williams think about this trend and have he and his staff been in contact with any of their recruits or commits about doing so?
“I think what they're doing, in my own mind, thinking what I would be thinking about is being so disappointed that I'm not going to have a high school basketball season, I would be more likely to do it, to leave where I could go play basketball,” Williams said. “I personally would never have the idea myself of leaving my high school team that I've played with forever, all the way through grade school or whatever, leave my buddies to go do that, but I'm not the typical prospect out there now.
“You can't play in high school and, if you really love to play basketball and want to see how your game’s coming along and you have big-time dreams about it, kids want to go play. I've got no problem with that. I don't think we've had any discussions with somebody coming in the middle of the year or anything like that.”