North Carolina coach Roy Williams doesn\u2019t buy that this season has been a \u201cwild ride\u201d or that there were any moments of panic for the Heels, but there were significant turning points that led to Carolina\u2019s stunning regular-season title.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s been that wild of a ride with the exception of Larry Drew and the Georgia Tech game,\u201d he said. \u201cThose were things that were very emotional for our entire game. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cThose were the two landmarks. And if I were to add another one I\u2019d say the first game at Virginia. Things were about as ugly there as they could be.\u201d<\/p>\n
That win in Charlottesville was significant. Carolina used a 20-7 second-half run to win, 62-56, over a Cavaliers team that is stingy when it comes to surrendering points.<\/p>\n
That win showed Williams that his team had an impressive level of toughness. But two games later, at Georgia Tech, the Tar Heels fell 78-58 in one of the most puzzling outcomes of Williams\u2019 tenure in Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n
Kendall Marshall moved into the starting lineup after that.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those first four games I was really pleased with our point guard play,\u201d Williams said. \u201cKendall was doing some nice things, Larry [Drew] was doing some nice things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then suddenly, Drew\u2019s father called Williams to say the son was leaving school immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cLarry\u2019s deal really shocked us,\u201d Williams said. \u201cWe realized we have to pull together even more.\u201d<\/p>\n
One real challenge for Carolina now is depth. Since last season, the Heels have had the Wear twins transfer, Will Graves drop off the team, Drew transfer in midseason and then Reggie Bullock go down for the year with an injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a question mark for us. So we want to get some effective things done in practice this week,\u201d Williams said. \u201cWe may have to use more timeouts than I have ever used.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut our whole focus is going to be on that first game. If you don\u2019t play well the first game, all that planning doesn\u2019t do you any good.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the way, Williams has no plans to use his walk-ons more, even though they inspired the team with a strong start in Saturday\u2019s Duke win. He said the \u201csix walk-ons are wonderful kids\u201d but are not in position to assume the roles of the eight scholarship players.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got eight players that are going to play the minutes and that is what it is going to have to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Carolina coach Roy Williams doesn\u2019t buy that this season has been a \u201cwild ride\u201d or that there were any moments of panic for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,1,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-stories","category-uncategorized","category-north-carolina-tar-heels","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-1-id","wpcat-80-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1234,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions\/1234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}