Williams Has Surging Tar Heels Respecting BC
CHAPEL HILL – UNC basketball coach Roy Williams met with the media Friday at the Smith Center in advance of the Tar Heels’ game Saturday at Boston College. Tip time is noon at Conte Forum.
The Tar Heels enter having won five consecutive ACC games after losing the league opener at Georgia Tech on New Year’s Eve and stand at 17-3 overall. Boston College, on the other hand, is improved from a year ago but is still just 9-10 overall and 2-4 in the ACC.
Guarding against overconfidence is something that Williams must deal with, as it was integral in the team’s loss in Atlanta and why the Heels almost lost at BC a year ago.
Williams says he knows exactly what to do to keep his team from getting a bit overconfident given how they’ve played of late and the opponent they have coming up.
“I remind them of Atlanta,” Williams said. “I mean really, I say, ‘Guys, I don’t care what the crap happened up there, we’re as good as out last game, lets play this game.’
“Maybe somebody else is a lot smarter, but what I do is we do the best we can every day and try to prepare for that team, the best we can that day. And if it’s a game, we try to play the best we can and then the next day we try to do it again. It hasn’t been perfect by any means, but it’s stood the test of time.”
Senior forward Kennedy Meeks, who was also made available to the media Friday, said the Hall of Fame coach uses the loss to Tech as a regular and unpleasant reminder to keep the team from falling into that mentally destructive state again.
“He brings it up in practice, he brings it up in a game if we’re sloppy or we don’t have energy, he always says something like, ‘You guys are looking like you were in Atlanta, so pick it up.’ That wasn’t a good practice the day after.
“Needless to say, I think our main objective is to never feel like that again and prevent from saying things like that.”
That said, he has respect for the Eagles, which have beaten Syracuse, Auburn, N.C. State and Providence this season. BC isn’t as bad as some may think
“They’re not,” Williams said. “I was on the road recruiting last night and I had the tape of the Boston College-North Carolina State game, I watched the Boston College-Virginia game (Tuesday night), I watched that game, Boston College-Syracuse game, I watched that game. And so, two of the three games that I’ve watched they played well. One of them they made 15 3s.”s
Williams missed the end of last season’s game after collapsing in the second half and being taken to the locker room, where he remained for the rest of the contest. Assistant coach Steve Robinson ran the team in Williams’ absence. The head coach joked one of his goals Saturday is to just make it through the entire game.
“I’m going up there – first of all, I say this jokingly but truthfully – I’m going up there wanting to make the whole 40 minutes myself.”