University of North Carolina Athletics
Pickeral: Quick Turnaround
January 20, 2014 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers
by Robbi Pickeral, GoHeels.com
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- North Carolina coach Roy Williams hasn't been shy about his dislike for Sunday night games; among other things, he says, those match-ups erase the possibility of a true day off for the players and aggravate the natural rhythm of the school week.
But Mondays? That's a different story.
"I'm hopeful Monday will be really good for us,'' he said.
Monday night Atlantic Coast Conference games may be new to ACC fans—the league was added to ESPN's "Big Monday" slate for the first time this season—but Williams got used to the early week showdowns when he coached in the Big 12.
The only drawback: "It's a little bit difficult [of a] turnaround if you play Saturday-Monday,'' he said.
That will be the case all three times the Tar Heels play on Monday during the league season - beginning this coming Monday, when their game at Virginia will tip off about 53 hours after the conclusion of Saturday's home match-up against Boston College.
Back at Kansas, Williams said he always pushed to make sure teams should never have to play both games on the road in Saturday-Monday situations. UNC won't this season, either; its Feb. 17 Monday game at Florida State will be preceded by a Saturday home game vs. Pittsburgh, and its March 3 Monday night game vs. Notre Dame will follow a Saturday game at Virginia Tech.
But there are still challenges.
"I don't really pay attention to what days of the week games are on,'' said sophomore center Joel James, who wasn't even aware last week that the Tar Heels had any Monday games on their schedule. "The challenge ... is when you play very closely scheduled games, no matter the day of the week, like when you have a game on Tuesday and then you play again Thursday.
"There's not a lot of time to prepare, not a lot of time for your body to recover from what you just did. So I would say that's the biggest thing to deal with ... is just recuperating from it and, if you lost that previous game, trying to get over that mentally, and set your mind for the game coming up."
UNC does have experience with those situations, though, because while Saturday-Monday league games might be new, tight turnarounds are not.
Last season—not counting tournaments—the Tar Heels played two games in three days twice. They beat Gardner-Webb on Nov. 9 and notched a win over Florida Atlantic on Nov. 11; then followed a home loss to Miami on a Thursday in January with a win at Florida State the following Saturday.
And they were even more successful in 2011-12, going 7-0 in non-tournament stretches with similarly tight turnarounds.
"Coach takes a good look at the schedule, he realizes when our legs might be gone and stuff like that,'' sophomore guard J.P. Tokoto said. "So he knows how to give us time to [recuperate] while still getting good work in.
"Some guys might like playing on certain days better than others, but I don't mind playing on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...."
For Williams, any game day is better than Sunday.
"If we play more Monday night games instead of more Sunday's, I'll like that," he said.
