With the UNC football team enjoying a bye week this past weekend, other fall sports teams took center stage and experienced different results.
UNC men’s basketball coach Roy Williams says his team’s hard work in practice paid off last Friday night against Belmont Abbey.
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“Well we’re much more gifted naturally than that team was and we’ve been working pretty doggone hard in practice. We’ve been getting after them a little bit and I thought in the first couple minutes we weren’t really in to it defensively and then we were really good defensively,” Coach Williams says.
Although Coach Williams was pleased with his team’s 112-34 win, he did see some room for improvement.
“We look like a Model-T Ford out there compared to how I want them to run. That’s the reason I took those guys out, we had Nate (Britt) and Joel (James) out there and they looked like pedestrians that’s one of the reasons I jumped on them out there. We need to run harder, we need to get out big guys running more. It’s no where near where I want it to be but I think we’re going to get there,” Coach Williams says.
Sophomore forward Isaiah Hicks says the Tar Heels keep the atmosphere light in the locker room.
“(The team) is always together in the locker room playing games like ping-pong. And then you have Joel (James) and Kennedy (Meeks) who are big goof-balls who keep the team laughing and together,” Hicks says.
Ping-pong is one of the team’s favorite ways to stay loose in the locker room but even in ping-pong the Tar Heels keep it competitive
“Marcus…J.P….we have tiers so tier one would be Marcus (Paige), J.P. (Tokoto) and Hoots (Coach Eric Hoots), that’s it,” Hicks says.
UNC volleyball head coach Joe Sagula was once again impressed by his team’s effort following a 3-0 victory over Virginia Tech Sunday.
“We got a lot of weapons and were able to use them all tonight,” Coach Sagula says.
UNC sophomore tennis player Brayden Schnur captured the USTA/ITA National Indoor Collegiate Championships Sunday with a 7-5, 7-6 win over Vanderbilt’s Gonzales Austin.
But not all Tar Heel athletes tasted success over the weekend.
The UNC women’s soccer team lost 2-0 to Virginia in the ACC Tournament semi-finals Friday night
The men’s soccer team lasted only two days longer as they fell 1-0 to Louisville in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals on Sunday. Following the loss, senior forward Andy Craven says he realizes the regular season is over and that there are things to address before NCAA tournament play begins,
“If anything it was a good indication of where we need to be and what we need to work towards and to know that we haven’t arrived and we haven’t peaked yet. As many goals we’ve scored it doesn’t matter, it’s playoffs now. It’s important to maintain the good stuff we’ve done in the season and minimize the bad stuff,” Craven says.
Although not every Tar Heel was victorious over the weekend, the ultimate prize of a national championship is still within reach.
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