University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Time Savers
February 25, 2012 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Feb. 25, 2012
By Adam Lucas
CHARLOTTESVILLE--Save your postage. Hold your calls. Conserve your emails.
Timeout philosophy is one of the most hotly debated strategical questions in the world of Carolina basketball. Should the Tar Heels call them more often? Do timeouts actually stop a run (not in many cases, as with both meetings with NC State this year, when the Wolfpack futilely tried to diffuse second-half Carolina runs with timeouts)? Will Roy Williams ever stop saving his timeouts?
No. And games like Saturday are exactly why.
He's got history on his side. Williams learned his end-game strategy watching Dean Smith, who had the unique ability to make the final two minutes on the game clock last a half-hour. Countless Smith-era spouses in the world of Tar Heel fans played the, "I'll be right there, there's only a minute left," card, only to stay transfixed in front of the television for 20 more minutes, watching Carolina's legendary coach substitute and foul and substitute and stop the clock and, eventually--inevitably--win.
So you can ask Williams to call more early timeouts. You can plead with him to try and stop an opposing team's run--like, perhaps, when Virginia went on a 17-4 run over eight laborious first-half minutes. He's not going to do it. He's more likely to cover the Smith Center court in stickers or ask the ACC to try and squeeze in a few more commercials before tip-off than he is to burn multiple timeouts before the game's closing minutes.
"Coach Williams is always telling us he's going to have all his timeouts left when he dies," said John Henson, who played a terrific game in Charlottesville, including a key block on Jontel Evans with 5:16 remaining. "On a day like today, it really helped."
It was especially helpful in the final two minutes. Carolina's first possession in that span came with a 52-51 lead. On the previous trip down the court, the Tar Heels had struggled, eventually letting Harrison Barnes hoist a contested 18-footer that barely drew iron.
This time, as the Tar Heels set up on the far side of the court, away from the UNC bench, Williams tried to get Kendall Marshall's attention. He wanted to run a set play, but his point guard was not in an easily accessible spot.
Timeout, Carolina. 1:40 remaining and 16 seconds on the shot clock.
"You call those timeouts because it gives you a chance to come together, listen to each other, and eliminate mistakes," Reggie Bullock said.
Out of the timeout, Virginia went zone (Smith would have been proud). Barnes missed a three-pointer, but Henson tracked down the rebound. The Tar Heels melted 30 seconds more before Bullock missed a three-pointer.
Mike Scott missed a questionable three-pointer with under 50 seconds left, essentially putting Carolina back into a must-score spot, still with a 52-51 lead. That's when Tyler Zeller--who spent the game's final seconds with cotton stuffed in his right nostril after being swatted across the face--suddenly transformed into Antawn Jamison, giving a pump fake and swooping to the basket for a left-handed dunk that might have swayed a few ACC Player of the Year votes his way.
Carolina 54, Virginia 51. The Tar Heels had three timeouts left and had committed only three team fouls. Thirteen seconds left? Please. Williams could stretch this longer than the Academy Awards.
As the Tar Heels broke the huddle, the foul situation was the very last thing explained to every player. It was an ideal setup. Up three, with three fouls to give, Carolina could foul a couple of times before Virginia was able to get into the play they wanted to run.
As expected, Marshall hacked Evans near midcourt. That changed the play. Instead of in-bounding the ball 94 feet from the hoop, the Cavaliers were now at midcourt. They'd converted a three-pointer in a very similar situation just before halftime.
"Do I have any timeouts?" Williams asked assistant coach Steve Robinson. It was not a rhetorical question, but the answer, of course, was yes. In that moment, the Virginia students behind the Carolina bench were screaming and players were trying to identify their defensive assignment. Williams had a choice: he could try and explain how he wanted his team to play from 40 feet away from them, or he could simply call a timeout and do it face-to-face.
By now, you know what happened. Timeout, Carolina. 9.7 seconds remaining.
"I knew we still had fouls to give," said Zeller, "but I wasn't sure how many."
That's why you call the timeout. If Zeller, the Academic All-America of the Year, isn't sure, then you want to make absolutely certain everyone else on the floor is aware of the situation.
Sammy Zeglinski missed a good look at a three-pointer, but Barnes missed the front end of a one-and-one. Following a Virginia timeout with 2.7 seconds left, Marshall gave another foul near midcourt, making certain to make contact before Evans could go into a shooting motion.
Now there were 1.3 seconds remaining. The ball was at midcourt with Carolina holding a three-point lead. "No fouls!" Williams barked from the sideline. Then he thought better of it. Wanting to make certain the message was clear, he signaled for another timeout.
The Tar Heels briefly considered giving another foul--they still had one more to give before Virginia shot free throws--but ultimately decided to try and play 1.3 seconds of solid defense. Instead of trying to communicate that message across the court while his team also tried to line up to defend a play, Williams was able to calmly relay it in the relatively more serene environment of a huddle.
"If Coach is uncomfortable or he thinks one person doesn't know what he's doing, he's going to call that timeout," Zeller said.
Evans eventually got a decent look from beyond 30 feet, but his last-second heave bounced high off the backboard, and Carolina had escaped with its 25th victory of the season, marking the sixth time in the last eight seasons Williams's Tar Heels have won at least 25. They earned this one the old fashioned way, eventually stretching the final 13.3 seconds of clock time into nine minutes of actual time.
"Those last couple minutes, we did a great job of clock management," Marshall said. "Coach told us he's going to go to his grave having more timeouts than any coach. At the end, we were able to keep the team on the same page in every single possession at the end. Virginia ran out of timeouts and couldn't do that. Today, those timeouts might have won us the game."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of six books on Carolina basketball, including the official chronicle of the first 100 years of Tar Heel hoops, A Century of Excellence, which is available now. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter and Facebook.
