There was a basketball game played in Chapel Hill last night. Unfortunately, someone had to win. Watching Roy Williams' coaching at the end of the game was reminiscent of the Time Cop. Just curious, did anyone else think that too?
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Was watching with a UNC friend. 15 seconds left and UNC is taking the ball up the court. My friend says "Hurry up!" I say "Relax, they have 3 time outs. Roy will set something up for a last shot." A few seconds later and the game is over.
I figured maybe Roy was trying to get his players to call a timeout since he couldn't do it. So I watched the replay and it looked like Roy was in fact trying to call a timeout with about 5 seconds left. Another replay of just Coach Williams shows that he was just complaining about no call for a foul. I understand not calling a timeout to take advantage of defense not being set, but Duke was ready for it and UNC had no idea what to do. Terrible choice I thought.
No doubt. I figured UNC would run it across and take one, giving them about 15s left. Their O was in absolute shambles the final four minutes and completely relied on FT's and fastbreak points instead of the O sets that maintained their lead for practically the entire game. Johnson put up a career first half and had to rely on put-backs and fast breaks in the second half. Paige was absolutely AWFUL. Puke definitely provides matchup issues across the board for UNC. Puke kept D pressure up and forced UNC into pressured and contested shots down the stretch. Poor leadership collectively by UNC. Nobody stepped up on the floor or sideline to take control late.
Roy has always been terrrrrrible with timeouts. Most of the time he explains it away as trying to let the team figure it out on their own, but his mismanagement of timeouts bites them at least once per season.
Look back at that 2007 game when they came into Cassell as #1. We go on a run in that first half, and a close back and forth game absolutely snowballs into a 20+ point blowout in our favor. I was stunned Roy didn't call a timeout to regroup the team and cool us off, but he just allowed the beatdown to continue. Of course, once UNC got their act together late, they made it a 2 possession game within the last minute or so, but it was too little too late. A strategic timeout in the middle of our run probably would have won them that game.
And that kind of timeout mismanagement from him happens every year. Thankfully for him, they usually have enough talent to win anyway, but if he has one weakness as a coach, this is definitely it.
He'll always say afterwards that he should have called a timeout but yet he never does and never will, and so they will continue to lose those types of games.
While this is all true and he should call timeouts in some of these situations it is his and Dean Smiths philosophy to push the ball and attack before the D is set. I don't know why people expect this to change? His initial reaction is to get the ball to his best player (who should know this, I knew it and I have never spoken to Roy Williams in my life.) and push. People forget all the times that Ray Felton took it straight up the court for the win, or Ty Lawson doing the same.
With that being said. Once he realized Berry had his thumb up his ass he should have taken a TO to draw up a play.
Right, and that philosophy should hold true, but with 17 seconds left UNC pushed the ball and didn't drive before the defense was set. Once that happened, there was ample time to recognize that there was no play drawn up and a time out should have been taken.
I wouldn't say that's his ONLY weakness. Every year his team's seem to under achieve with as much talent is on them he should be a championship contender every other year. Instead they always end the season with 5 or 6 really head scratching losses.
I think he's a great recruiter and developer of talent and yesterday didn't do anything to sway me any other way. You have mason plumlee with 4 fouls on the court with something like 13 minutes left and no backup option on the bench for duke.
What do you do? Attack from 3?! Which is hands down your teams weakness! No drive into the paint with your discernable size advantage and force fouls. Plumlee is eventually going to give up fouls and then you own the inside.
I'm so glad I'm not a unc fan that game would have driven me INSANE
I have said for years that Roy is one the most overrated CBB coaches in the country. He regularly has some of the best talent on his rosters and rarely can do anything with it. This year his team has performed fairly well, but last night he helped prove my point with his careless game management at the end. I kind of feel like he is too stuck in his old ways and isn't adapting to the game today.
My UNC buddy told me last night that he will be the reason that this team won't win a national title.
This assertion would be difficult to argue. It's hard to say someone can rarely do anything with talent when he has 2-tournament wins, 3 Final Fours, 6 Reg. Season ACC Champs with 13 years at UNC. He did well at KU too. Probably not rare, but maybe not as much as he should?
It really is hard to believe with that kind of resume you could make the argument it was underachieving, but man, that program annually brings in at worst a Top 5 recruiting class, and most of the time their entire starting lineup came in as a Top 5 player in their position from high school, with the backups only being Top 10. Really, only Kentucky has been able to recruit like them, and yet they really don't have as much to show for it as you'd expect.
I'll disagree with the recruiting aspect here. UNC's recruiting has fallen off over the last 5-6 yrs from what is once was. Are they still bringing in solid classes, yes. But ain't NOBODY, 'crootin like UK, other than Duke. MSU, UCLA, KU, Arizona to name a few, all recruit along the caliber of UNC as of late.
Per Rivals:
2012: UNC: 1- 5*, 2-4*/ Duke: 1-4*, 1-5*/ UK: 3-5*, 1-4* - UK #1 class, UNC #9, Duke unranked.
2013: UNC: 1-5*, 2-4*/Duke: 2-4*, 1-5*/ UK: 6-5*, (Yes 6-5*), 2-3* UK #1 class, Duke #5, UNC #13
2014: UNC: 2-5*, 1-4*/Duke: 3-5*, 1-4*/UK 3-5*, 1-4* - Duke #1 class, UK, #2 class, UNC #6
2015: UNC 1-3*, 1-4*/Duke: 4-5*, 1-3*/ UK: 3-5*, 4-4* - UK #1 class, Duke #2 class, UNC unranked (out of top 30)
Totals
UNC: 1- 3*, 8- 4*, 3- 5* = Avg. 4*
Duke: 1- 3*, 4- 4*, 9- 5* = Avg. 4.57*
UK: 2- 3*, 6- 4*, 15- 5*= Avg. 4.56*
Not to even mention the commits for '16...Duke and UK will easily be #1-2 again...