Roy Williams Presser Transcript
North Carolina Coach Roy Williams met with the media following the Tar Heels’ 92-89 loss to Texas on Thursday in the semifinals of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational at Orleans Arena.
Here is most of what Williams had to say:
Opening statement…
“They’re enjoying their time in the locker room more than we have and they deserve it. I think that they were much more aggressive the first half – the whole game they were much more aggressive than we were. We got started making 3-point shots and everybody thought it was going to be easy.
“In the first half, we shot four free throws, we shot four they shot nine. We started taking 3-point shots, didn’t get the ball inside, and then we weren’t very aggressive against their press. We worked on it for two days how to attack and get it down the court. Threw the ball out of bounds a couple of times. Just the whole story in the first half was their aggressiveness (and) our turning the basketball over.
“Second half, I thought our guys competed much harder. We had three turnovers in the second half after turning it over 14 times in the first half. But you can’t let somebody shoot 63 percent in the second half. They’d been struggling shooting the basketball, so we cured the problems they had there. They were 11-24 from the 3-point line, 5-8 in the second half. They’d been shooting in the low 30s or something like that.
“Bottom line is Texas played much better than we did, played much more aggressive than we did. Points off turnovers, 31-19, that’s something we can’t have. Fast break points, North Carolina has two points on fast breaks, and we can’t play like that. They played better than we did, they coached better than I did and I’ve got to do a better job of getting my guys ready for a full-court frenzy type of game. I didn’t get us ready."
On Texas’ guards getting into the paint using the dribble…
“Same thing we’ve talked about forever, you’ve got to be able to slide your feet and stay in front of the basketball. We wanted to stay home on a couple of shooters but didn’t do a very good job of that. One of the guys we wanted to stay home on was 2-4 from the 3-point line, including one big one in the corner. We even went zone, and we haven’t practice zone five minutes, but just tried to do something to do something to figure out a way to stop them because we couldn’t stop the dribble penetration.
“Matt Coleman, he penetrated and probed, penetrated and probed. Kerwin Roach, look at that, 12-15, 32 points, seven assists, 3-3 from the 3-point line.
“The biggest problem for us when we were trying to come back is, during one timeout, I said, ‘If you have to take five extra seconds to get a great shot do that.’ And the next three shots we took were terrible shots. Coby took a bad shot right in front of our bench, but how in the dickens can I say something to him? I said, ‘I need you to do it the right way every time.’
“He was sensational for us and he was our offense with some of the other guys really struggling.”
On how Coby did managing the game…
“We realize it wasn’t the greatest matchup playing Texas, who does a nice job of getting you out of rhythm and everything. We had two freshmen point guards, but they’ve got to play. We think they’re both going to be really good players for us. But in the first half, we turned it over three times after they missed a free throw and they were still able to pick us up in the press all three times. So more experience and all that stuff would be great, but I think he’s going to be a fantastic guard. He’s got to get better at keeping the ball in front of him and managing the game is part of it, too. "
On that Coby hit 33 against a quality opponent as a freshman in his sixth game…
“Harrison (Barnes) hit 40, Tyler Hansbrough had 40, but it was fantastic, you’d like a point guard to go 7-10 from the 3-point line every game would be something else, but defensively, he’s got to get a little bit better there. But he was our team tonight.”
On Nassir Little struggling a bit and what Williams is working on with him the most…
“Just to understand the game a little bit more, defend a little bit more, get to the boards a little bit more. Coach Davis told him one time, ‘Nassir, you’ve got guys smaller than me guarding you and you’re shooting jump shots. Drive the ball to the basket.’
“It’s part of the learning process as well. He’s 1-5 from 3-point line, zero assists, two turnovers. He’s another one I think it is going to be an outstanding player. Sometimes guys get all of those awards in those games, it’s a great burden on them as well. He’s top five in the country after the all-star games, before that he wasn’t that much. In the all-star games they don’t ever guard anybody anyway.
“I’ve had a couple of players that took that as a great burden ad it was hard for them for a long time. But, Nassir’s getting better and wants to do that and we need to see a way to figure out how to use his athleticism more. But a better way to say it is (he’s) got to guard the ball better and see the big picture defensively. And on the offensive end, the one time we had Cam in the post and Nassir on the wing and we made three passes and both were still standing there. So you’ve got to get involved and help each other out, whether it’s Cam going up and setting a rear screen for Nassir or Nassir setting a down screen for Cam. But it’s part of the learning process.
“I still really love all three of our freshmen. And Leaky had a lot of pressure on him coming in there as well. Seventh has been good for us, but Leaky is eventually going to be a point guard, so he got some experience for it.”
On what happened to Seventh Woods…
“The last single play of practice on Tuesday, Brandan Huffman set a screen on him, Luke Maye did call it out, so it wasn’t blind or that Seventh didn’t hear him and he ran his head into Brandan’s elbow, upper arm, shoulder, dropped his head and they were pretty sure it was a concussion and it passed all the tests for a concussion.”