UNC Basketball Prepares For Tough Stretch

Roy Williams and the Tar Heels are finally ready to put the past few weeks of poor play behind them after a 85-64 win against Pittsburgh.

The Tar Heels broke out of their shooting slump, hitting nearly 60 percent of their shots overall and more than half of their three pointers.

“We lost two in a row, both of them on the road to very good teams,” Williams said. “You try not to go up to the top of the building and push our guys off because it is college basketball, it’s going to have an ebb and a flow or peaks and valleys, whichever you want to call it.”

Unfortunately the team won’t have time to rest on its laurels as Duke comes to town Wednesday night, followed by a stretch of tough competition.

“It was a good day for us, we needed to have that,” Williams said. “We have three games in seven days and six games in 15 days so it’s that time of year when you better be playing well or you’re going to get beat.”

Four of the team’s final six regular-season games come against ranked opponents, with the two unranked teams being NC State and a resurgent Syracuse.

So far the Tar Heels have managed to stay atop the league, at 10-2 they lead Miami by one game, but Williams said concentration was key this time of year.

“What you have to do is play the best you can on that particular day and then refocus on your next team,” he said. “We put in a lot of time and effort and concentration on Pittsburgh and now we’ve got to change it over to Duke and it’s a big, big game and immediately after that we’ll have to change to Miami.”

One thing Williams said wouldn’t be changing is his lineups.

After playing Kenny Williams, Luke Maye and Joel James significantly fewer minutes against Pittsburgh, some speculated that the head coach was shortening his bench for the final stretch, but Williams said he expects them to play their regular minutes moving forward.