WEST LAFAYETTE, IN – Roy Williams’ postgame press conferences after his team’s final game each season are usually gut-wrenching because one can easily feel the man’s pain.

He hates to lose, but he hates to lose the final game with a group each season because it means they are done, that campaign is over, their quest has ended, and the seniors will never don Carolina blue again.

His presser was different following UNC’s 85-62 loss to Wisconsin on Friday night at Mackey Arena, though not by a lot. Instead of sitting 15-20 feet away from the media nestled atop a dais on a stage adorned by NCAA stuff literally everywhere, Williams did his thing on zoom.

He choked up a few times talking about his team and how lucky he is to coach basketball for a living, and anyone who doubts his sincerity hasn’t been paying a lick of attention over the last 18 years. The lump in his throat is real. The red eyes are real. The watery eyes are real, and when we’re all gathered in person, tears usually appear. Maybe he teared up, though it’s hard to tell on zoom.

Williams will sit back in a few days and exhale. We all will.

This was a rough season, and that’s without even getting into wins, losses, dunks, jumpers, chest bumps, turnovers, forced shots, and all. The COVID year of college basketball was the mother of all grinders. It took so much out of anyone whose lives were intertwined within it.

Many on the outside looking in really don’t have a grasp of what these players, coaches, and team personnel went through just to get to the finish line. Fans’ emotions swayed like children on a teeter totter with the wins, all 18 of them, and the losses, all 11 of them. But behind the scenes, it was a struggle from day-to-day, especially when you consider this was one of the youngest UNC teams ever.

This wasn’t a good time to usher in a bunch of new guys with a small upper class to boot.

Bubbles, quarantines, limited socialization, games in front of no fans, and the thing that may have gotten to the Hall of Fame coach late Friday night more than anything else: The kids never once this season ran out of the tunnel at the Smith Center before the pomp, spirit, energy, and spectacle that comes with playing in the Dean Dome.

Andrew Platek and Garrison Brooks didn’t get one minute of that in their final go-round as Tar Heels. The seven freshmen on the roster have never experienced it. Let that sink in for a moment.

“I'm so proud of them as young people,” Williams said, occasionally offering a hint of emotion in his voice and face. “This was a hard year. A lot of the stuff you remember from your freshman year in college, none of my freshmen have any memories of anything like that.

“You've heard me say before they went to class for six days and that's it. They haven't had the college experience that a normal student has had. They haven't had the college experience of home football weekends and how the pageantry and college football and everything is so much fun.

“They haven't had the experience of running out of that tunnel with 21,750 people going crazy. We had Tyler Hansbrough and Bobby Frasor – may have been somebody else; I think we had three players here today. But Tyler told me one time he'd do anything to run out of that tunnel again.

“I'm so proud of our kids for going through this and it wasn't nearly as much fun as it's been in the past. I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the fact that we had seven freshmen in our top 10 or 11 players. And 11 players, I guess, seven freshmen.”

Shots don’t always go through the cylinder, rebounds don’t always fall into the hands of the guys you root for, and sometimes the other team is just better on a given night.

Wisconsin was much better than North Carolina on Friday night, and there were several occassions this season in which the Tar Heels just didn’t have it. They weren’t vintage by any stretch, they were head-scratching at times, they frustrated their massive legion of fans more than what has been the norm over the last 60 years, and they didn’t win enough by Carolina’s standards.

But they got to the finish line. They gave everyone with a rooting interest something to look forward to twice a week over the last four months of this otherwise-miserable year.

Williams’ emotion Friday night, even on zoom, was apparent. He wanted to win one more time, he wanted to coach this group in practice one more time, but the ride came to an end.

In some ways, shew! In some ways, he can think about other things, watch The Masters in a few weeks, and begin looking toward his future, which regardless of who chooses to leave or stay, next season should be better.

And hopefully we will have moved on from the restrictions that made this such an arduous winter.

“I started the season when I was 70 years old,” Williams said, dialing up his classic sense of humor. “I feel like I'm 103 right now.”

We all do in some ways, but that’s okay. They made it to the finish line, ‘Ol Roy choked up, and UNC basketball is still alive and well.