University of North Carolina Athletics
CAROLINA: Closure
April 20, 2016 | Men's Basketball
NOTE: This article originally appeared in the April 19 issue of CAROLINA, the official magazine of UNC Athletics and the Rams Club.
by Turner Walston
CHAPEL HILL—Eight days after his team fell three points shy of a national championship, Roy Williams held a postseason press conference in the Bowles Room of the Dean E. Smith Center. The day brought an opportunity for Williams to address the media, removed from the immediate aftermath of the heartbreaking loss.
He was asked if he'd recovered from the national championship-winning shot by Villanova's Kris Jenkins. “You can ask me the day before I die, because I'm sure that I won't be recovered then,” Williams said. “I don't think you ever get over it.”
On the recruiting trail, the Tar Heel head coach heard people saying that the game was the greatest championship game ever. “I said, 'No, I thought 2005, 2009 was a lot better,'” he said, referring to Carolina's wins over Illinois and Michigan State, respectively.
Perhaps unlike many, many Tar Heel fans, Williams said he himself never experienced the emotional high, and then low, of Marcus Paige's game-tying triple and Jenkins' winner 4.7 game-seconds later. “I didn't have to. I reacted immediately when [Marcus] made the shot, 'My gosh, what a tough shot,' and I started coaching. I never really got that high, because I knew we still had to defend.”
The improbability of the next 4.7 seconds of game time, particularly coming as they did on the heels of Paige's incredible clutch shot, inspired Williams to do some historical research. He asked athletic communications director Steve Kirschner to compare Jenkins' make to that of Walter Davis, who sent the 1974 home game with Duke into overtime with a shot of his own. “Walter was a little farther to the right, but it was almost the same distance,” Williams said. “It was a much better shot than I wanted to give up.”
Williams' admission that this game will continue to haunt him has much to do with his love for this particular Tar heel team. “I made the decision when we got to the Final Four that the only dominating theme in my thought was for those kids to win a national championship. It wasn't for Roy Williams to win a national championship. It was those kids . . . it didn't happen. It just didn't happen, but you have to congratulate them. They made a big-time play.”
TAKEAWAYS
♦ Roy Williams is not retiring anytime soon. The Tar Heel head coach thought he'd put that matter to bed when he addressed it late in the regular season, but the national sportswriters had to ask that question for themselves. Williams hit the road recruiting on the Thursday after the national championship game. “I saw three kids on Thursday and one on Friday,” he said. Recruiting shortly after the 2005 and 2009 wins helped secure players like Ty Lawson and Harrison Barnes, respectively. “If I want to go out after winning something, I'm dang sure going to go out after losing.”
♦ Williams absolved Isaiah Hicks of blame for missing a defensive assignment on Kris Jenkins' game-winning shot. At a team meeting two days after the game, Williams disagreed with the junior forward's self-assessment. “He took too much responsibility. That shot was against North Carolina's team,” Williams said. “Isaiah, it was not his man, but he was willing to take that responsibility.”
♦ Expect some Tar Heel underclassmen to make themselves eligible for the NBA Draft and attend the NBA Combine but not yet hire an agent. New NBA rules allow players to participate in the combine and one team workout and still maintain NCAA eligibility by pulling out of the Draft ten days after the combine. That date in 2016 is May 25. The NBA Draft is June 23. “If you're a good college player, why would you not?” Williams said.
♦ It's a hypothetical for another month, but Williams believe the Tar Heels will be a good team if everybody comes back. “We have some guys who took a step forward this year,” he said. “We have three freshmen that are not going to be Brice and Marcus and Joel, but over time they've got a chance to be very good players.”
