AJ: Williams' Exasperation Fully Justified
CHAPEL HILL – It isn't exactly a leisurely gesture when Roy Williams leans back in his chair during a basketball game.
He’s not exhaling, watching birds, listening to music, soaking in a nice breeze with a glass of lemonade in his hand or appreciating an arromatic garden.
He’s exasperated.
Mad, angry, ticked off, furious, bewildered, and maybe even stumped also apply, as Williams was all of those things for most of his team’s 75-61 victory over Elon on Wednesday night at the Smith Center.
Ol’ Roy wasn’t happy, and he had plenty of reason to carry that disposition.
What’s particularly noteworthy is that this wasn’t something that generated steam throughout the course of the contest. The Hall of Fame coach, known as much for hoarding timeouts like a squirrel stocks up on acorns as winning lots of ganmes, sprung up two minutes into the game and called for a timeout. It was granted 2:09 after the opening tipoff. That’s 129 seconds.
“Earliest one in my history,” a clearly annoyed Williams said after the game. “We were stupid. The first day of practice this summer we ran regular secondary break and the guy in the corner comes up to set a rear screen. We've done that every day, and the guy forgets to do it. So then we did something else that was sort of silly and I just wanted to scream so I'd feel like I was getting something done.”
Also add two turnovers, one an offensive foul by Armando Bacot when he didn’t have the ball, and an air balled 3-point attempt by Leaky Black and Williams had seen enough before many of UNC’s typically late-arriving crowd settled in.
“We were playing bad, so it didn’t shock me too much,” junior forward Garrison Brooks said.
Perhaps a minor victory for the Heels is that it wasn’t the earliest timeout of Williams’ career. That distinction goes to the 2013 team, which fell behind 7-0 to Duke on Senior Day, and 2:04 into that one, Williams called timeout to insert his starters into the game.
The Tar Heels lost that afternoon, 69-53, but didn’t suffer the same fate Wednesday, in part, because Elon was the opponent. But it didn’t much change Williams’ demeanor throughout the night.
He stood with his arms folded, often near the end of the bench like he usually does, he blistered a few players when they came off the floor – torching his team during a few timeouts – and also spent much of the night leaning back in his chair.
The rest of the staff sat as they normally do, so it was easy to read Williams’ frustration. He stood out.
His team is 4-0 but it hasn’t been a pretty 4-0 certainly by UNC’s standards, but the truth is the Tar Heels haven’t been impressive yet by a lot of standards.
Williams noted after the season-opening win over Notre Dame his team needed to get a lot better and couldn’t rely on 34 points from Cole Anthony against decent teams to reach their goals. He wasn’t thrilled during the postgame in Wilmington and didn’t even have an opening statement last Friday after a pedestrian performance. He spoke more during Wednesday's presser and actually didn't appear as mad as he was last Friday despite his team struggling against an Elon squad it beat by 49 points on the road 53 weeks ago.
A reporter asked Williams if he was angrier last Friday, given the postgame presser tone Wednesday wasn’t as edgy.
Uh uh.
“No, I'm more pissed tonight to be honest with you,” he replied. “We were not good.”
No, they weren’t, and the Heels haven’t really been good this season save for a few stretches.
Now they head to the Bahamas next week where they open the Battle For Atlantis versus Alabama and then play either Iowa State or Michigan. Gonzaga, Seton Hall and Oregon are on the other side of the bracket.
So unless there's a dramatic shift in performance by the Heels, there's a chance Williams will spend much of his time in the tropics leaning back in his chair.