ANN ARBOR, MI – There are many constants when it comes to Roy Williams, things that just aren’t going to change no matter how much some people want them to, including his players.
Among them is that whenever his basketball team lays an egg, the North Carolina coach stretches out his arms and welcomes the arrows. Sometimes, he even encourages them.
On Wednesday night at Crisler Center, Williams fired his own after the Tar Heels lost 84-67 to Michigan. But instead of arrows, the Hall of Fame coach launched a few cruise missiles and they were squarely targeted inward. At himself.
Williams was obviously protecting his players, the ones whom he lit up at the intermission after a 28-14 Wolverines run closed out the first half, and after the game, which included that Michigan run turning into an extremely unbecoming 60-28 stretch. The scoreboard read 71-49 with 9:29 remaining at that point. The game was over and the head coach was seething.
“I’ve got no positive things,” Williams said after the game. “If you want some positive things you better go out and find somebody on the street, because I’ve got no positives from me, no positives from my team.”
Then, he personalized it even more.
“I’ve coached for 31 years, right now my coaching sucks.”
His players, however, know it’s still on them. Part of the affinity they have for Williams is that he does those things. But they wish they could pull back his words like an errant pass that becomes a turnover or a bad shot that becomes a miss leading to an opponents’ fast-break dunk.
You know, the kinds of things that happened a lot Wednesday.
“He’s going to do that, he’s done that every year when something like this happens,” said senior guard Kenny Williams. “When we don’t play well, he puts it on himself. It’s who he is, he’s not going to blame us. But, it’s us. There’s no other way around it.
“I want to go in there and stop him and tell him, ‘Coach, it’s not you, it’s us.’”
The younger Williams, the one from Midlothian, VA, who remains in a season-long shooting slump, is right. This was on the players.
It was an exercise in futility on every level.
The Tar Heels had problems all night defending Michigan’s many dribblers and shooters. Screens were a weapon against Carolina’s defense. On the other side of the ball, movement, shot selection, a lack of patience, and just an ill-infested effort in every way.
But the most troubling element to what went wrong, and the players are adamant this is squarely on them, is that they just weren’t tough enough. Not physically and not mentally. That also happens to be the most fixable issue this team has, too.
Like any problem, however, it begins with recognition, and perhaps that began not long after the final horn sounded.
“We just need to be a little bit more locked in to what we’re doing,” senior forward Cam Johnson said. “Sometimes, you can play with all the toughness in the world, but if you don’t have your brain screwed on you’re not going to get anything accomplished.”
The head coach with three national championships has had similar postgame rants before, and usually ended up getting desired results. He knows what he’s doing, and that likely was the case after this loss.
He took every arrow there was, but Williams’ players had his back. They know it was their fault, so now they also know they’re the ones who have to fix it.
