Chansky’s Notebook: A Big Blue Night

For Roy Williams, another big fix looks to be in order.

During his frustration-filled press conference following Carolina’s embarrassing loss at Michigan, Williams said, “I’ve been coaching for 31 years, and right now my coaching sucks.”

If you root for good sports teams, sometimes they play like they will never lose another game. And occasionally they play like they can never win again. To quote one local report from courtside, “It was a 17-point victory that felt like almost 40.”

However, history shows that Williams’ Tar Heels have recovered from similar losses in their best seasons. For example:

In 2012, when ranked No. 3 in the country, Carolina lost at unranked Florida State 90-57. That team reached the Elite Eight, and if not for injuries to John Henson and Kendall Marshall might have won the national championship.

In 2017 — the year of UNC’s last NCAA title — the Tar Heels lost at unranked Georgia Tech by 12 points and at unranked Miami by 15 in games that weren’t as close as their final scores might have indicated. So after his team lost an early 10-point lead and found it almost impossible to score from a set offense against the wily Wolverines’ defense and looked like a team that had never been coached in the second half, Williams was justifiably out of his mind.

Carolina got very little in transition and from 13 offensive rebounds; and on defense generally failed to either fight through or switch off effectively against Big Blue ball screens and pick-and-roll plays. Once Michigan opened up a double-digit lead in the first few minutes of the second half, you knew there was no comeback coming this time. Ol’ Roy seemed to know it too.

When asked late in the Ann Arbor night what went wrong, Williams said after substituting wildly, trying to find any combination that did something right, “If I knew, I would have fixed it by now.”

We’ve heard him say that before. Go to work, Coach, there may be another big fix in your future — and ours.

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