North Carolina Coach Roy Williams met with the media following his team’s 94-78 victory over UCLA on Friday in the third-place game of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational.
UNC improved to 6-1 on the season with the victory.
Here is most of what Williams had to say:
Opening statement…
The difference tonight, I thought we were so much more effective defensively. Our intensity was so much more effective because we raised it quite a bit of levels. I think we got after them after the first 10 or 12 minutes of the game and I thought defensively we were much, much better. We shared the ball a lot more, we didn’t turn it over as much. Last night we had 14 turnovers in the first half, 17 in the game and today we had 21 assists and 6 turnovers – 21 assists on 31 baskets.
I told Cam and Luke at half they were really, really good players, I had confidence to keep putting them out there – last night they stunk it up and the first half they stunk it up tonight. And I said, ‘I’m just being very straightforward. I’m putting you back out there so I must have confidence in you, so what are you worried about? At the end of the game, win or lose, we’re going to get some food, get on an airplane and go back to North Carolina and we’re going to play again.' I thought Cam early (in the half) was really something, but Luke made some big time shots for us, too…
“First half, they had six more rebounds than we did, second half we had six more rebounds than they did. We got big play off our bench. BRob (Brandon Robinson) was so much better defensively, he gave us I think 14 minutes. Nassir (Little) was so much better in the second half. I screamed at him in the first half, probably louder and longer and with more energy then he’s probably been screamed at in his life because he was just standing there watching what was going on, but I thought he gave us a huge lift in the second half, as well.”
On how he can get Little more involved…
“He’s got to do it. I can tell him to do it, but still, he’s got to understand the game and don’t settle for 3-point shots. I asked him during the timeout after the dunk, ‘Now, don’t you think a dunk is more effective for you than your 3-point shot, so quit living and dying on the jump shot.’ But, he’s really a talented, athletic youngster who’s eventually one of these days going to be a big-time basketball player.”
On how everything was better in the second half…
“The other thing, I mentioned BRob and Nassir off the bench, Leaky was really something, too, with the foul trouble Coby had. When we realized we weren’t going to have Seventh and practiced here on Wednesday, Leaky was terrible. My gosh, it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever seen. And he played a little bit in the game last night. But, I thought he was huge for us when Coby got in all the foul trouble, and how about his block when the guy beat him down the lane? He’s as athletic as you can be.
“Two assists, zero turnovers, he managed the game a lot better than he did, but he just needs to some more time in game situations.”
On being so early in the season but how big this was and what they got out of it…
“I think it was a big game for us because we’ve got probably three teams that could be in the top five or six in the next three or four weeks. We’ve got Michigan, Gonzaga, Kentucky coming up in the next five games… It wouldn’t have been nice to leave here with two losses, but I’ve done that before and it’s been alright.”
On the message he conveyed to the players…
“The things that we always talk about, we didn’t cure the world, we didn’t cure cancer tonight, we just played better. Taking care of the basketball: You cant be soft, you can’t turn it over because you’re afraid, you’ve got to do a better job of boxing out, the guys that can shoot – that have great reputations – should make some. We talk about those kinds of things all the time.
“I just think the whole thing last night is they were so much more aggressive than we were (and) tonight we were more aggressive than we were last night for sure. We’ll still talk about our defense, still talk about guarding the dribble and we’re still going to talk about playing offense without turning it over and getting better movement.”
On issues guarding the dribble…
“At halftime they had 17 free throws and we had seven, so in the second half they only had nine free throws and we shot 21, so that’s the way I like to play more than anything.”
On handling Nassir Little and how he deals with the hype on social media these days as opposed to 10 years ago…
“It’s probably harder, but I don’t ever get on social media, so everybody out there is probably (asking) why ahs he got him on the bench and I couldn’t care less. Frankly, my dear, if you remember that great line in the movie. It’s probably harder, especially if somebody gave a crap about what people were saying on social media.
“As long as Nassir understands I don’t care about the rest of them, either, and Nassir’s been fantastic. I went after him as hard as I can go after him in the first half because he was fricken standing there, but he did pretty well after that. As long as the kids understand.
“And think about it, and I don’t like to make comparisons, some guys that play great in those two games all of a sudden just go through the stratosphere. And the next time you see a guy play defense on one play in one of those games y’all let me know.
“I’m serious. Go back and watch any tape and you let me know one play in those games when guys sprinted back on defense and guarded somebody and you’ll find something that is really a rarity. They just let guys go up and down the court and dunk. And if you let my boy go up and down and dunk, he can do that as well as anybody."
