So, How Is Williams Handling The Struggles?

CHAPEL HILL – Roy Williams keeps every practice plan he’s ever put together in 32 years as a head coach because he will occasionally find a scenario where referencing something he once did comes in handy in times of need.

Williams learned this from his mentor, Dean Smith, as details were always vitally improtant to the legendary Smith and have been to Williams during his Hall of Fame career.

Yet, there are no plans or notes Williams can draw from to help him deal with the downward spiral his current team is enduring. The Tar Heels are 8-10 overall, including 1-6 in the ACC, and have lost five consecutive games. In addition, they’re ACC losing streak is now at six games, dating back to a loss at Virginia in early December, making it the most consecutive league losses ever for the fabled program.

Williams has started seven different lineups including four different point guards, as injuries have ravaged the team. He said following Wednesday’s double-overtime loss at Virginia Tech four of the top seven players he expected would comprise the rotation are out with injuries, indicating just how depleted the Tar Heels are.

Seven different players have now combined to miss 57 games due to injury thus far this season: Anthony Harris (knee injury) 13 games; Jeremiah Francis (knee injury) eight games; Cole Anthony (knee injury) nine games; Robinson (ankle, neck) five games; Andrew Platek (ankle) two games; Leaky Black (turf toe) one game; Sterling Manley (knee) 18 games.

Freshman forward Armando Bacot has missed almost all of two games with different injuries, the latter a sprained ankle that limitted his effectiveness for about a month.

Anthony, a projected lottery pick in next summer’s NBA draft, averaged 19.1 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists before injuring his knee nine games into the season. UNC was 6-3 with him, including wins over Oregon, which has spent most of the season ranked in the top 10, Notre Dame and Alabama. Since Anthony’s injury, the Heels are just 2-7 and have not yet won in the year 2020.

In fact, Carolina, typically one of the highest scoring teams in the nation, has passed the 8o-point mark just twice, and both times lost.

Williams is 69 years old, has failed to win 20 games just twice in his 31-year career before this season, and both times his clubs won 19 games in his first season at Kansas and first at UNC. And, Clemson finally won in Chapel Hill, ending an 0-for-59 mark against the Tar Heels on their campus with a win two weeks ago, a afternoon UNC blew a 10-point lead with 1:55 left in regulation.

So, during Friday’s press conference at the Smith Center, THI asked Williams how he’s handing the struggles and what he references to help him work through this. The following is Williams’ response, which lasted more than three minutes:

“I’m not handling it very well, I can tell you that. I keep telling them, in life, you’re going to get hit and things aren’t going to go smoothly and you’ve got to keep going. I’m old fashioned, I’m corny, but I believe people who play athletics enjoy the victories but also handle the losses and bounce back and keep coming and keep coming and keep coming. I think that prepares you for life and that doesn’t mean somebody else that doesn’t believe in that, it doesn’t mean they’re wrong, but I strongly believe that.

“And I talked to them after the game the other night, there’s a lot of things in life you don’t feel like it’s fair, it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work but you can’t just go belly up. So, if I talk to them about that, I’ve got to do the same thing. There’s no question that the lows in coaching are so much lower than the highs are high. It’s unbelievable.

“And some of you guys have heard, coach (Dean) Smith told me his only worry about me was just how I handle the losses as an assistant because he said it’s a lot more difficult as a head coach and he was right again. But, it doesn’t do any good to make excuses, it doesn’t do any good to give reasons and there’s a difference between excuses and reasons. What you have to do is at 3 o’clock today, I’m going to go back on the court and I’m going to try and coach to the best of my ability.

“And there will never be a day that I will cheat those kids, that’s the way you’ve got to live your life. You’ve just got to keep going, keep going and, in practice, you’ve got to get enthused about it, you’ve got to go out there and think you can get better.”

Williams has often said Smith worried about him because he took losing so hard when he was an assistant under Smith in the late 1970s and most of the 1980s. Williams has acknowledged he’s mellowed on his players some in recent years, but has does he still take the losses as hard as he did when he was a younger coach or do the losses still really drive him?

“A little bit of both, we’re getting very philosophic here before a game,” Williams said, laughing a little. “I do believe, as I said, the losses are so much more higher and hurt more than the wins make you feel better. The wins, as soon as you win the game you jump around in the locker room and say, ‘who do we have next? Can you get me that scouting report? Can you get me that tape?’ They just don’t last long enough.

“But I think I’ve said this before, I’ve got more mellow in one way because I used to coach out of fear. I made them afraid of me and how much we were going to have to run at the end of practice and it worked. And, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to get them to care as much as I did and have that personal pride and do that more and try to coach through that way more.”

Williams picked up the 879th victory of his career with a win over Yale on Dec. 30, typing him with Smith on the all-time wins list. But the Tar Heels have not won in the 25 days since, but with struggling Miami visiting Saturday afternoon, perhaps that will change.

*Jacob Turner contributed to this report.