University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: A Do It Yourself Project
November 19, 2005 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 19, 2005
By Adam Lucas
Carolina had played just 44 seconds of their 2005-06 basketball season, and already nervous eyes turned toward the Tar Heel bench.
It had not been a pleasant 44 seconds. It had consisted mostly of the young Heels careening down the floor and firing the ball at inopportune speeds and inopportune locations. Shooting was thought to be one of the weaknesses of this squad; as of yet, however, no one could tell, because Carolina couldn't hold onto the ball long enough to hoist a shot.
Understand that Roy Williams is a coach who treasures the basketball. He abhors carelessness on offense. So looking over at the bench, you expected him to be giving one of his familiar gestures of frustration--maybe slamming his hand on the bench, maybe pounding his hands together in that forceful clap that occasionally made his hands bleed during his first year as the head Tar Heel.
So there's the coach. Yep, he's standing up. Here it comes. And...
He smiled.
Things are going to be a little different this year, folks.
"Coach is a little more lenient as far as us making mistakes because he knows we're inexperienced," Reyshawn Terry said. "He's a little more cautious about how he criticizes the guys for making mistakes."
Williams coaxed an 83-80 victory out of his team Saturday night, and it's only by the grace of a friendly Smith Center rim that Carolina and Gardner-Webb aren't still playing.
"It's called the shooter's touch," David Noel said with a smile of his around-the-rim-and-through game-winning three-pointer.
At the pregame shootaround Saturday afternoon, Williams made a point to his team: "I'm not going to call a timeout if you get us in trouble," he told them. "If you get us in trouble, you get us out of it."
With four freshmen playing major minutes, with the Tar Heels committing 10 turnovers in the first 8 minutes, with the ball and a chance for a game-winner, this is how many timeouts Roy Williams used of his allotted five: zero.
Gardner-Webb was burning through their stoppages at the rate of about one every four minutes. Every time the Tar Heels deployed a different defense it seemed to lead to another Bulldog timeout, until they finally were down to just one remaining with 18:40 left in the game.
Meanwhile, there sat Williams, smiling, with a pocketful of timeouts.
Sound like any other former Carolina coaches you remember?
But this year was supposed to be different. Williams said throughout last year that he felt no need to call timeouts because he had an experienced team and thought they could play through any rough spots. Most of that experience is now in Spain and Atlanta and Charlotte and Minneapolis. And still he let his team play through it.
"I think that's pretty interesting," Danny Green said. "It helps a team work through things themselves. It's better to let a team play through it...I think it helps us in the long run to be self-reliant and work through things rather than panicking."
Don't misunderstand. Williams wasn't sitting over there thinking about his disappointing summer on the golf course. He'll excuse occasional errors of commission in the season's initial games as this team learns its way. He won't excuse errors of omission.
That's why, with 13:57 left in the second half, he pulled a five-for-five hockey-like substitution, yanking Wes Miller, Green, Quentin Thomas, Byron Sanders, and Noel for five fresh players. Gardner-Webb had just steamrolled through a possession that featured four offensive rebounds, a couple of which seemed to be bouncing free. Williams perceived, for one of the first times all night, that his team was tentative. And soon that team found itself on the bench, receiving a tongue-lashing Noel said was one of the strongest he's ever seen from his head coach.
"He wanted us to go after the loose ball harder and be strong," Miller said. "Coach Williams always says there's no excuse to not have effort out there. He wanted us to go hard after the ball."
As it turned out, the punitive substitution was productive. The five new Heels stretched the lead to a luxurious 64-58 before the Bulldogs tried a possession of zone and regained control of the tempo.
The final minutes weren't particularly artistic. When Carolina needed points, they ran plays for Tyler Hansbrough, who proved to have a knack for wriggling his way through traffic and finding the basket. Noel might have sulked--after all, he's a senior, this is supposed to be his team, and here he was setting screens for a freshman. Instead he waited for the right situation, called for the ball, and made the winner.
Green--whose back-to-back first half three-pointers were a key momentum changer--looked relaxed after the game, sitting back in the tan leather chairs in the players' lounge. He was moments from going to check his cell phone messages, where he expected the first one to be from his father. But first he had a chance to reflect on what had just happened--and what's about to happen over the next four months.
"I think they're all going to be like this," he said. "Hopefully they all turn out with a win. I hope it's going to be interesting. It's going to be fun. But..."
Yes?
"I think some games Coach will have to call some timeouts."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.
