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University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: The Right Runs
March 28, 2009 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
March 28, 2009
By Adam Lucas
MEMPHIS--Before he addresses his team at halftime, Roy Williams always meets with his assistant coaches in a smaller room near the main locker room.
Friday, that meeting was mostly cheery tinged with just a touch of foreboding (in the coaching business, foreboding is essentially the default emotion). Carolina held a 53-42 lead, but Gonzaga had made a push at the end of the first half, trimming a 17-point deficit to just eleven points.
"The first five minutes of the second half are going to be big," one of the Tar Heel assistants said.
"They are," Williams said. "But I can't tell the team that. If they don't go well, I don't want the players to panic."
He needn't have worried. In a game of runs, the Tar Heels had the two biggest ones: the first straight out of the halftime locker room and the second after a--yes, it's true--Williams timeout.
The spurt to begin the second half was more predictable.
"We didn't want to have a letdown like we did against LSU," said Bobby Frasor, thinking back to when the Tigers began the second half with an 8-0 that eventually gave them the lead in last weekend's second-round game. "That was in the back of our mind. We knew we couldn't let them get back in the game."
They didn't. Baskets from Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson and Deon Thompson quickly pushed the Tar Heel lead back to 17 points and forced a Gonzaga timeout. Three minutes later, after Wayne Ellington converted on a 4-on-1 fast break to create a 21-point bulge, Mark Few had to burn another timeout--his second in the first five minutes of the half.
The Bulldogs had one run left. Helped by some questionable Tar Heel shot selection and a couple of turnovers, Gonzaga needed less than three minutes to creep back within 11 points.
This is typically the point in the game when Williams wants his veteran club to "play through it." At least, that's been his strategy for most of his career at Carolina. In the last two games, however, he's called two early second-half timeouts that have had very positive results--one that sparked the LSU victory and another on Friday with 12:27 left and a 68-57 lead.
"I told them the game is North Carolina against Gonzaga," Williams said. "It's not how many points you can make or what you can do individually. It's us. So I got after them a little bit about playing five guys against their five guys. We had to make more intelligent decisions."
Sure, OK, but a timeout with an 11-point lead and no obvious trauma was still a little stunning. Is Williams turning into Pete Gillen right before our eyes?
"It's been shocking to me, also," Frasor said. "But it's worked to our advantage both times."
"He called it to get us back into focus," said Danny Green. "It helped. We were turning the ball over and not getting the stops we needed. It was a smart timeout."
Green paused for just a second. "Of course, I think everything he does is smart."
It certainly looked smart when Carolina came out of the timeout and took off on a 12-0 run, including a three-pointer for Frasor on a set play directly out of the stoppage and then another three-pointer for the senior in transition on the next possession.
The Tar Heels essentially cruised in the rest of the way, putting this group of seniors in a regional final for the third time in their four seasons.
"It's a very calm, relaxed locker room," said Williams, who has helped nurture that serenity by seeming extremely relaxed himself--including walking around wearing a hat featuring a giant duck after he served as honorary duckmaster at the Peabody Hotel this weekend.
His Tar Heels have played three NCAA tournament games and three different players have led the team in scoring. Lately, they've taken to grading everything--including Lawson's toe--on a scale of 10, with 10 being the best.
"That one?" Green said after the 21-point victory. "We were probably an 8 in that one. I can't give us a 9."
There's still some time left for improvement.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
