Roy Williams is hurting because of North Carolina's troubled basketball season, and his role in it as coach.
He knows that the students, alumni and fans who follow the program are hurting as well. And he feels responsibility to explain to them why so much has gone wrong one season after UNC won the NCAA Tournament title.
"I think I have, but some people don't want to listen," Williams said. "I can't control that, but it's a fan base that cares greatly. It's a fan base that some are realistic, some are not.
"It's a fan base that has their own expectations, some good, some not. I deal in the reality of what we have. And do I feel responsible for the lack of success? You're darn right.
"And it's something … it bothers me. There's no question about that, but it's still something that I'm going to go see if I can cure something this afternoon (in practice)."
UNC will carry a 16-15 record into Thursday's ACC Tournament first-round game against Georgia Tech. A 5-11 ACC record got UNC a No. 10 seed, the lowest that it has ever been seeded for an ACC Tournament.
Williams told his players that they must change the way that they are playing for UNC to have any chance of advancing in the tournament. He said that his request did not come in response to last Saturday's 82-50 loss at Duke, but in response to mistakes and breakdowns that have been repeated since October's first practice.
Williams cited an example. In his system, the second player back defending a break should find the opponent's second man coming down the floor and box him out to keep him from the basket, while a teammate defends the player with the ball.
In practice two weeks ago, one of UNC's walk-on players did not find the second opponent down the floor. During the next game two days later, the mistake was made in the first half by the regular players. Williams told his players in a timeout that the point had been discussed only 48 hours earlier in practice.
The problem happened again in the second half.
"That's enough," Williams said. "I'm not saying they've got to grow to 6-11 from 6-1 or they've got to start shooting left-handed instead of right-handed, but if I'm screaming at a guy to get back in defensive balance and I said that on Oct. 15, that's long enough."
Williams does not consider the source of UNC's problems to be poor attitudes by his players. He believes that concentration and commitment to learn the system are responsible for the repeated mistakes.
Williams said that he has never been tempted to say that this season is destined to be bad and nothing can be done to save it, and wait for the final game.
"I get emotional. I get sad. I get frustrated. I get ticked off," Williams said. "And then I go back to work. That's just the way I am.
"There's sometimes that I've felt like … I can't describe it. It's not a good feeling. The staff, they've all seen me about as low as you can possibly be. But we're going to go out there today and I'm going to practice like it was Oct. 15. And (the players) need to choose to come along with me.
"That's just the way I'm made up, or whatever. But to sit back and say, ‘Well, this is just a bad year, let's get through it,' I can't do that.
"I really can't."
bcole@wsjournal.com
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