University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Williams Toughens Preseason Conditioning
September 14, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
The mood was relatively jovial when the 2015-16 Tar Heels assembled two weeks ago for the annual 12-minute run. The event is a conditioning exercise, but it's not the most strenuous portion of the team's fall conditioning, which officially begins this afternoon.
There was some lighthearted banter, the usual joking about who would “win” the run by being the first to complete the required six and a half laps of the track in the allotted 12 minutes.
Then Roy Williams made an announcement.
“We're making it tougher,” he told the team just before the start of the run. “You don't have to do six and a half laps. This year, you have to do seven.”
“It definitely caught a few people by surprise,” said Brice Johnson. “We had prepared for six and a half laps, and when he told us seven, we were like, 'Wow.' It went dead silent.”
The Tar Heels should get used to it. The adjustment to the 12-minute run is just the first tweak Williams is making in an effort to change Carolina's struggles at closing out games last year. The reasoning is obvious as soon as you walk in the door in the Smith Center locker room.
Above the white board at the front of the room is a newly hung poster. The headline: “Finish.” Below are listed the eight games the Tar Heels lost a second-half lead last year, along with the deficit the opponent overcame, and the painful outcome: a large red capital “L" for each game.
“Are we tough enough to finish?” Williams says. “That's the thought process in making the conditioning changes. We have to be tougher. I'm hoping it drives us to finish games better.”
There's precedent for the switch. This season, Williams will use many of the same components he put in place when he designed the conditioning program for the 1982 squad as an assistant to Dean Smith. This fall's conditioning will include more 200-meter sprints because of the head coach's belief that the distance is one of the toughest in running, since it requires an all-out dash at a longer distance.
Williams made similar changes for the 2010-11 team after the 2009-10 squad suffered multiple injuries. The results: after an early loss to Texas, the Tar Heels did not lose the rest of the season in games decided by three points or fewer, reeling off seven straight wins in that scenario.
“It's a very difficult conditioning program,” Williams says. “That 2011 season, we won some dogfights, and we made some big plays at the end to win games. We need to finish games better this season.”
Senior Marcus Paige can almost recite all of last year's blown leads by memory. Without glancing at the poster, he ticks off the opponent and margin of all eight defeats nearly flawlessly.
“It's a maturity and taking the next step,” he says. “It's understanding that when you step on the court, you're winning that game and there's no other option. David Noel and some of the other 2009 guys have talked to us about it. When they walked on the floor, they knew it was their game and we were winning that game. We don't need to have this mentality of, 'Gee, I hope we play well.' We need to walk on the court knowing we're going to win the game.”
Preseason conditioning will continue three times per week over the next two weeks, and will also include the annual Carolina mile. Practice officially begins on Friday, Oct. 2. Late Night with Roy Williams will be held at the Smith Center on Oct. 23.
