Tuesday night served as a glaring reminder to any who may have thought UNC’s 64-year-old Hall of Fame coach had lost his edge. Folks, the fire still burns.
Somehow, Roy Williams was given a technical foul for yelling at one of his own players, freshman Theo Pinson. Contrary to what some may have thought, Ol’ Roy wasn’t arguing the foul call. Not at all, even though the whistle was questionable at best. But nope, Ol’ Roy was trying to signal to Pinson to call a timeout – the officials were giving him the cold shoulder.
Roy Williams tosses his jacket in disgust (Todd Melet)
And the classic case of miscommunication at its finest ended ugly. Ol’ Roy turned into Mean Ol’ Roy in a flash, throwing off his jacket and giving the officials an earful. I, for one, couldn’t help but wonder if Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim was somewhere taking notes on how to best pull off a jacket in a fury. If not, he should have been. Based on Tuesday night, Mean Ol’ Roy could teach a class on “Jacket Tossing 101.”
But the more profound takeaway wasn’t the mere fact of Ol’ Roy’s first technical in three years, it was the response. The fans exploded. In a split second, a sleepy Smith Center turned into a raucous beehive of activity, thunderously supporting their coach and team. Sights and sounds like Tuesday night are generally reserved for Duke games.
The Tar Heels themselves, seemingly spurred on by Ol’ Roy and the fans, also lifted their levels, speeding away from the Tribe of William & Mary and putting the game to bed.
Marcus Paige, though, voiced his displeasure that it would even need to come to that – that it took a freak episode to get the crowd and the team fired up and fully engaged. I have to agree with the junior point guard. Why isn’t that passion consistently there, especially from the players?
Ol’ Roy assured the media it wasn’t his intention to “go off” on the referees and induce a technical, but you could sense it brewing from the start of the second half. He made a statement, even if not a planned one.
As Paige put it, his coach was furious with the so-called “dummy defense” the Heels were playing. “Dummy defense,” Paige explained, was akin to lining up with no defensive players on the floor and letting an opponent run its full offensive sets. Yikes!
On the cusp of ACC action and a brutal slate of high-caliber opponents, it’s concerning that the Tar Heels still suffer from lapses in concentration, focus and intensity. And it’s blatantly clear Ol’ Roy isn’t satisfied.
He’s thrown down the gauntlet to his team and will likely continue to bubble over on the sidelines, if needed, as the season progresses. But alas, the Carolina skipper can’t play a single possession for the Tar Heels.
Yes, the fire still burns for Ol’ Roy.
But the bigger question as we turn the calendar to 2015…will the fire burn for his players?
You can follow Matt on Twitter @moakes3
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