Where does a last-place basketball team go from here?
The Tar Heels are not mathematically out of the post-season, but after suffering their fifth-straight loss against Virginia, they are dead last in a 15-team conference.
What odds could you have gotten in Vegas before the season that Carolina’s proud basketball program would be 10-15 and 3-11 in the ACC after 25 games? Maybe a thousand to one?
This is clearly uncharted waters for Roy Williams, who in 31 years of college coaching has had 29 NCAA tournament teams, with one going to the NIT and the other on probation from the prior coaching staff.
But Ol’ Roy is catching it big time for a wide variety of reasons, most recently that his team played terrible defense on the last possession against Virginia, which got a wide-open 3-pointer and drained it to win the game. No one has forgotten squandering a 13-point lead to Duke at home in the last four minutes and losing in overtime. You name it: missing 17 free throws; not being able to get the ball inbounds; not managing the game with timeouts instead of saving them; allowing Coach K to hug him after the brutal defeat.
“The way Krzyzewski has blown by Roy on some of his losses, why do that?” one alumnus shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, we still owe Duke one from the Hansborough elbow!”
Saddled with the weakest roster he has ever had, Williams caught flack for calling his team the “least gifted” of his career, when he recruited them all and had other ways of saying it without appearing to throw his players under the bus. For example, “We’ve had more gifted teams, but we’ve also had teams that played harder and smarter, and that’s my job to get them to play that way.”
Carolina has at least seven games left, and the Heels will win one or two they’re not expected to win. And if Brandon Robinson comes back full strength, they are the team nobody will want to play in the ACC tournament. But, with the post-season gone, Roy can only challenge his returning guys to still work hard, have a productive summer and come back next October to compete for one of four starting positions that will be open.
I love our coach and i believe they will bounce back next year. However, I agree with all of the above, especially the part about hugging K after that duke loss. I don’t understand this at all. The blow by’s and disrespect K shows him is inexcusable. K is fine when he wins but not so much when he loses. Yet, it seems Roy sucks up to him. He gave him a plaque before a home back when K win his 1,000 game. Really?? I don’t recall any other team recognizing him for that, much less what is suppose to be their most hated rival. We often hear how much Roy hates NC State but we don’t hear the same about Duke. I don’t want to see them hugging after a game. I want to see the Roy that challenged him during that game in the NCAA tournament Over in Winston Salem in 2000 when Roy was still at Kansas. It’s like K has Roy on a string as a puppet. I do appreciate the fact that Roy is gracious in victory and defeat. He’s not like K in that regard. However he’s becoming more like him with his language and a more consistent use of profanity. That was one of the things that separated Dean from K. Roy has often said he has always sought to make Coach Smith proud, and asks himself often what would Coach Smith do. That would be a good thing to do before these press conferences, and before he goes on his radio show. I never heard Coach Smith use the type of language he has been using and I never saw him hug head coach of his biggest rival either.
Roy’s teams can’t play defense.
I love our coach and i believe they will bounce back next year. However, I agree with all of the above, especially the part about hugging K after that duke loss. I don’t understand this at all. The blow by’s and disrespect K shows him is inexcusable. K is fine when he wins but not so much when he loses. Yet, it seems Roy sucks up to him. He gave him a plaque before a home back when K win his 1,000 game. Really?? I don’t recall any other team recognizing him for that, much less what is suppose to be their most hated rival. We often hear how much Roy hates NC State but we don’t hear the same about Duke. I don’t want to see them hugging after a game. I want to see the Roy that challenged him during that game in the NCAA tournament Over in Winston Salem in 2000 when Roy was still at Kansas. It’s like K has Roy on a string as a puppet. I do appreciate the fact that Roy is gracious in victory and defeat. He’s not like K in that regard. However he’s becoming more like him with his language and a more consistent use of profanity. That was one of the things that separated Dean from K. Roy has often said he has always sought to make Coach Smith proud, and asks himself often what would Coach Smith do. That would be a good thing to do before these press conferences, and before he goes on his radio show. I never heard Coach Smith use the type of language he has been using and I never saw him hug head coach of his biggest rival either.
Your season is over with. Have fun from here on out. Run a zone,play your bench,stop playing so uptight!