So would you want to make Roy Williams mad? Uh, neither would we. And last year’s 20-17 record by North Carolina, which included a 5-11 ACC record, left the longtime coach looking for a way to spark this group.
“I just didn’t like the toughness we had,” Williams said.
His answer – go back to the fall of 1981.
Now, that was a different team and different time. UNC won the 1982 national title with James Worthy, Sam Perkins and freshman Michael Jordan, a collection of a talent a bit different than the current Heels.
But Carolina had brutal workouts in preseason, which Williams supervised as a young assistant, and he is going back to that same script. Williams had his team, three times a week for four weeks before practice start, run 220-yard sprints, followed by 90 second rests, 12 times.
“It’s run, run, run, run,” Williams said.
It doesn’t necessarily replicate basketball, but it designed to make the team “tougher,” Williams said. “Everybody’s pampered so dadgum much,” Williams said.
But Williams isn’t expecting this team to be like ’82 in other ways. He never thought that team could fail to win the national title, at least until the dramatic final minute of the title win over Georgetown.
This year, he said, “I’m just hoping we find a way to get on the bus with this club.”
Williams also expressed frustration that he couldn’t get last year’s team to follow through on instructions, and was particularly miffed that in UNC’s last game he had to explain a concept they had covered at the start of the season. While he acknowledged that, as coach, it’s his responsibility to be clear with the players, he also said he’d have less patience for that this season.
“If I say you have got to do something, and I keep saying it and keep saying it, it’s not me,” Williams said.
