CHAPEL HILL – Roy Williams was a helpless man Wednesday night.

After trying everything in his power to will his basketball team to a remotely effective level, North Carolina’s coach turned to his beleaguered bench and pleaded for a short moment before scanning the players in uniform, pausing and turning to the court as Ohio State scored another basket.

Williams then sat down and watched. He had no answers.

The Hall of Fame coach had already subbed five reserves for the regulars on the court. But that was only a temporary deal, so Williams put the regulars back in and it was the subs he lectured.

Four of them sat there looking up at their coach: Three legacies and a grad transfer from a school in the Big South Conference.

Williams has been a master for three decades using the bench as a clear motivator. Take an ill-advised shot, have a seat. Don’t box out, have a seat. Fail to bust back in transition defense, have a seat.

Only that whenever Williams has used that tool in the past it’s because he could. Take out a burger boy, or close to it, and replace him with a burger boy, or close to it. His options Wednesday night, and all season, have included some buns but not much meat.

He has no answers, and the coach wore it on his sleeve following the Tar Heels’ 74-49 loss.

"I've never felt so sorry as I feel right now,” he said.

Sorry is one of his ways of expressing anger or utter bewilderment. His body language during the game, however, suggests at some point he moved past being ticked off and was inching closer to recognizing a reality difficult for this proud program’s far reach to accept.

Williams doesn’t stand and talk a lot to his staff while the game is actually going on, but he spent a healthy minute in a second-half exchange Wednesday night, mainly with associate head coach Steve Robinson.

It’s probable Williams was hoping his friend and confidant had a suggestion, anything, and maybe the alarm clock would go off and the coach would see Tar Heels running up and down the floor, dunking, defending and rebounding in typically Tar Heelian ways.

Yet, Robinson and the rest of the assistants saw what Williams did and they had nothing either. But they certainly have the same questions so many others do after witnessing this historic blowlout:

*The 25-point margin is the worst at home for UNC since Williams returned as the head coach 16 years ago.

*The 17 made field goals (in 62 attempts) is the lowest total ever for Carolina in the Dean Dome.

*The Heels were outrebounded 48-32, and it was 14-5 when freshman forward Armando Bacot went down with an ankle injury.

*Ten points in the paint.

And when Ohio State’s C.J. Walker drained a 3-pointer with 4:36 left extending the Buckeyes’ lead to 20 points, Carolina’s fans started fleeing the building as if someone had pulled a fire alarm.

“I looked up in the stands and saw people leaving with four, five, six minutes left in the game and I didn't blame them,” Williams said.

The loss of Bacot is significant and changes the team some, but there have been pretty big neon warning signs flashing like something on the Vegas strip for the better part of a month now indicating this is just a different UNC team.

It’s only eight games into the season and this is just one loss. And it's not the first time Carolina has laid a couple of eggs (Michigan last week in the Bahamas) in less than a week’s time early in a season, but those other UNC teams had the parts. Usually plenty of them.

Williams said twice after the game he has no answers. Eight games into the season, it’s not unfair to wonder if he’s right.