Williams wants to keep playing

By: Lenox Rawlings | Winston-Salem Journal
Published: March 11, 2010

GREENSBORO --

North Carolina lost its 16th game last night, but Coach Roy Williams wants to keep playing.

Georgia Tech rallied past the Tar Heels 62-58 in the ACC Tournament's first round, ending Williams' 20-year streak of winning at least one NCAA Tournament game, a Division I record.

Wayward Carolina shooting, illustrated by the 2-for-16 fiasco from 3-point range, didn't end Williams' hopes of sliding off the NIT bubble into the 32-team field.

"If somebody's going to invite me to play, I want to go play — period, the end," Williams said. "Are we worthy enough to be invited? That, I don't know. Those people that get to make those decisions, maybe they won't even invite us."

The Tar Heels, 16-16 with only four wins since Jan. 10, will learn their NIT fate Sunday night, after the NCAA finishes picking its 65-team field. Williams' first Kansas team was on probation and ineligible, and the others went to the NCAA Tournament.

Last night, for the first time, Williams walked into a tournament locker room uncertain whether his team would finish with a winning record.

"You know," he said, "if you've ever coached and you feel like you've given your team everything you can and yet it still doesn't work out, what are you supposed to say? I mean, that's what's hard. It's the most inadequate feeling I think any coach can ever have.

"I've got good kids. I've got kids that I enjoy. I've got kids that I trust. I've got kids that are good students. I've got kids that are good people. I just didn't do as good a job with this club this year as I needed to do. I couldn't get the right buttons pushed. I didn't know what those buttons were. It's the most inadequate I've ever felt as a coach."

For the two-time coach of a national champion, there's always the chance that next year will be like old times.

"It better be," said Williams, 59. "I can't live through another one like this."