University of North Carolina Athletics
Brownlow: Summer Notebook
June 24, 2010 | Men's Basketball
June 24, 2010
By Lauren Brownlow
It didn't take long before Coach Williams addressed the biggest story of the off-season: the transfer of the Wear twins. As a coach who estimated he has had 2-3 Division-I transfers in 22 years, he was shocked.
"I would say that I would be willing to match our record of kids leaving our program against anybody's. It's something that I've taken a great deal of pride in," Williams said. "It hurts because we lost two kids that were going to be very important to our program. I had also decided not to recruit a big man in the class behind them because I didn't want to over-recruit. So we lost two guys out of that class and we didn't have anybody behind them, so I haven't dealt with it very well personally or for or program, either one."
Alabama transfer Justin Knox will come in and fill some of that void, and Carolina was fortunate to be able to grab an experienced player from a major conference so late in the game. "He's a wonderful kid. He has experience. He has size. He's played in big arenas in big games. We have a tremendous need. He has an opportunity to be extremely important, not just be a guy standing over there clapping," Williams said. He added that while he and his staff couldn't work him out in person, they studied a lot of tape and called a lot of SEC coaches for input on Knox's game.
Being as competitive as he is, he has and will continue to reflect on what went wrong last season. His previous worst record as a coach was 19-12, so 17 was beyond anything he could have imagined. He mentioned factors like injuries, the schedule (Carolina played three of the four No. 1 seeds last season) and chemistry. He reiterated that what worked for 21 years didn't work last year, but that doesn't mean he's going to scrap everything. "Technically we're going to change some things, and I'm probably going to be a little meaner," Williams said.
The NIT run is something he and this team can build on for the future, but it wasn't necessarily satisfying. "Roy Williams is not going to say, `God, we were great in the NIT.' But I do believe that our kids had more positive feelings. ... Each individual player was able to gain something. But we're not going to raise a banner because we played in the NIT and made it all the way to the finals."
He mentioned John Henson as someone specifically who benefited from the NIT, and said the rising sophomore continues to dedicate himself in the weight room. He's up from 183 pounds to 208.
Will Graves will have work ahead of him as well. An injury last summer meant gaining weight back that he had lost, and Williams has warned the rising senior that can't happen again after his recent ankle surgery. "I told him that if he's 240, he's not going to start a single game," Williams said.
He has high hopes for Graves a leader, but he wants him to back up his words with his actions. "He says the right things, but if you're going to talk, you've got to back it up. That's the thing that still remains to be seen about Will."
The incoming freshmen have been hyped a great deal, most notably the No. 1 player in the class, Harrison Barnes. Williams had high praise for him, including paying him the ultimate compliment. "He is the high school version of Tyler (Hansbrough) in some way because he's the most focused high school player I've ever recruited, the most disciplined high school player I've ever recruited."
But he was quick to emphasize that Barnes is not the only member of that class that he needs to play well. "Harrison got the biggest reputation by far, but I think that Reggie (Bullock) and Kendall (Marshall) are going to be able to do some things, and we're going to need them to."
The trio teamed up with John Henson and Tyler Zeller in the recent basketball camp game that pitted the current players against the alumni. He compared that hard-fought game to a not-so-hard-fought game during his first year at Carolina, when he called them on the carpet after they confessed they didn't play hard enough in a beating from the alumni.
He was encouraged that he has not heard that kind of talk about his current team (he is not allowed to watch the game). "My wife watched the game. She's not a great scout by any means, but it was vicious out there. That competitiveness that we have now that we didn't have at that point in the summer of '03 is something that we need," Williams said.
