Head coach Roy Williams refused to bail the Tar Heels out with a timeout when NC State mounted a 19-0 run in the first half. (Todd Melet)

He won’t be, but Roy Williams should be ACC Coach of the Year.

Like most post-season awards, coach of the year is based on what you do against prognostications. For that reason, all pre-season teams should be abolished and media predictions not start until about halfway through the season.

For example, Roy Williams’ team was picked to finish second in the ACC and the Tar Heels are unlikely to get that high. Roy won’t win coach of the year, and the award is likely a toss-up between Virginia’s Tony Bennett or Clemson’s Brad Brownell, since both have been exceeding expectations.

But when you look at a team’s progress through the season, Williams has done the best job. His traditional double-post offense proved ineffective with three freshmen trying to replace Meeks, Hicks and Bradley in the middle. So Roy went to his small lineup, basically three big guards and forward Luke Maye playing with point guard Joel Berry.

After skidding to 5-5 in the ACC, the Tar Heels look like a different team, for several reasons you can throw back on Ol’ Roy. Not only is it the small lineup for most of the minutes, the Tar Heels have morphed into an offense rarely seen here before milk-the-clock time. They attack the boards, spread the court and use the multi-talented Theo Pinson at both point guard to get Berry off the ball and drive it himself or in the pivot where the best athlete hits cutters with sharp passes and also goes to the hole.

These are not easy changes to make for a successfully stubborn coach who, like Dean Smith, lives on getting the ball inside first and pounding the boards with size. The Tar Heels only throw it into the post occasionally and show those different sets to spread the court to set up driving lanes and open looks.

Where Carolina has never been known as an outside shooting team and has had many stone-cold games in which it had to win in different ways, like offensive rebounding, this has become one of the freest-shooting units in UNC history.

It happened again Saturday night in Louisville, where the Tar Heels won their fifth straight by, without hesitation, taking the first open look. All five starters were in double figures, and all five hit at least one trey with the dynamic Berry canning five.

When they can hold a double-digit lead for most of the game before Maye got hot to help put their twenty-first victory on ice, well, that’s both good playing and good coaching.