University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati
Exclusive Excerpt: NCAA Preparation
October 23, 2017 | Men's Basketball
Redemption excerpt details how Carolina recovered from ACC Tournament loss to Duke.
The official 2017 Carolina championship book, Redemption, is available now at bookstores everywhere or at your favorite online outlet. Join Adam Lucas, Steve Kirschner and Matt Bowers tonight at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh to get your signed copy and talk Tar Heel basketball.
Today's excerpt details the aftermath of Carolina's loss to Duke in the ACC Tournament, and how the Tar Heels used it as fuel for the NCAA Tournament.
"I was mad," Roy Williams said frankly.
He's talking about the locker room scene in Brooklyn's Barclays Center after Carolina's 93–83 ACC Tournament semifinal loss to Duke. One day earlier, the Tar Heels had exorcised some regular-season demons with a 78–53 thrashing of Miami. The game was a clinical dissection of a Hurricanes team that had dismantled Carolina in Coral Gables while UNC was reeling from Theo Pinson's second injury.
Just a week removed from beating Duke in the Smith Center, it looked like the Tar Heels were set up to beat the Blue Devils again, win the season series, and move on to play for the ACC Tournament title for the third straight year.
Instead, Carolina squandered a 49–42 halftime lead, saw Mike Krzyzewski's team blitz them by 17 points in the second half, and were left to listen to rampant national speculation that perhaps the loss had cost them a number-one regional seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
Fans moaned about Duke's 37 free-throw attempts and about major foul trouble for Joel Berry. Williams didn't want to hear about it. As soon as his team reached the locker room, he blistered them—not for the loss, but for the way they had played in the loss.
"I didn't think we played as hard as Duke did or as intelligently as Duke did," Williams said. "I think we were still feeling good about beating them in the Smith Center. I was not going to accept that kind of play. I was not going to accept that Duke got down on the floor for a loose ball better than we did, that we didn't guard them. Because I thought not only did they do everything better than we did, but they wanted it more than us. That really ticked me off."
He made it clear to his team that he was ticked off, then he stormed out of the locker room. Most of the players sat silently.
Williams stormed into the coaches' locker room. A minute passed. Then he walked back into the players' locker room, this time with a new message. This one was no less passionate, but it had a different tone. Outside, in the hallways and in the stands and on the playing floor of the Barclays Center, the ACC Tournament continued. Williams wanted to refocus his team on what was next for them.
"I had to tell them it was a bump in the road," Williams said. "It was a bump in the road I did not appreciate, but it doesn't mean our season stopped. If we play that way, our season will be over. But look at what we've done in the past. We've won national championships at North Carolina twice when we lost in the ACC semifinals. I wanted to chew their butts out, tell them how disappointed and mad I was, but also give them that apple in front of them. We could still do what we wanted to do."
The next day, the Tar Heels started moving toward what they still wanted to achieve. While Duke and Notre Dame stayed in Brooklyn to play for the ACC Tournament title on Saturday night, the Tar Heels left Saturday morning to return home, the players wearing the suits they had probably packed with the intention of wearing to the championship game. By the time they arrived home, there were approximately 30 hours remaining before the NCAA Tournament brackets would be announced. Williams had plenty to accomplish with his team before he could feel comfortable entering NCAA play.
His work began in the film room in the Smith Center locker room. The entire locker-room complex had been renovated over the summer through the generosity of Rams Club donors. The Tar Heels now watched film in a plush theater, with comfortable seats for every player and a huge projection screen.
That gave them a clear view of exactly what their head coach wanted them to see. Berry had earned his fourth foul against Duke with 15:04 left in the game. At that point, Carolina had an eight-point advantage. Berry complicated the foul issues by showing frustration on the bench, and Williams let him sit there until 4:58 remained and Duke had built a seven-point lead.
At the Barclays Center, during the flow of the game, Berry had been insistent that he was the victim of bad calls by the officiating crew. Back at the Smith Center, though, he fell victim to one of Williams's very favorite sayings: "The eye in the sky don't lie."
That's why the Carolina coach ran the film back and forth multiple times in front of the team. Berry was especially miffed about his third foul, a reach-in against Duke point guard Frank Jackson less than two minutes into the second half.
Williams cued up the video. There was Berry, reaching across Jackson's body.
"You can't have two fouls and make a silly reach foul," Williams said. "I went back and forth in slow motion and told him, 'You did foul. Don't come running over to me and say you didn't touch him. You did foul. There it is.' I ran it back and forth ten times to show him. So don't give me those excuses and blame it on the officials. You made the mistake."
But the team meeting wasn't just about Berry. Williams took a black marker and walked to the white board in the film room. On the board, he wrote seven features he believed made the 2017 Tar Heels successful. Then he highlighted four of them, which he believed the Tar Heels had done especially poorly in Brooklyn: guarding the ball defensively, boxing out and rebounding, running both ways, and talking to each other. The message stayed on the board throughout the postseason and lingered into the summer, a reminder of the success the Tar Heels achieved with a focus on the details.
"Coach challenged us," said Kennedy Meeks. "Once he wrote that on the board, all of us took a look at it and realized how important the rest of the season was. We didn't want to lose again. I think that was always in the back of everyone's minds."
"These are the major goals we always talk about," Williams told his team. "Focus on these four."
Today's excerpt details the aftermath of Carolina's loss to Duke in the ACC Tournament, and how the Tar Heels used it as fuel for the NCAA Tournament.
"I was mad," Roy Williams said frankly.
He's talking about the locker room scene in Brooklyn's Barclays Center after Carolina's 93–83 ACC Tournament semifinal loss to Duke. One day earlier, the Tar Heels had exorcised some regular-season demons with a 78–53 thrashing of Miami. The game was a clinical dissection of a Hurricanes team that had dismantled Carolina in Coral Gables while UNC was reeling from Theo Pinson's second injury.
Just a week removed from beating Duke in the Smith Center, it looked like the Tar Heels were set up to beat the Blue Devils again, win the season series, and move on to play for the ACC Tournament title for the third straight year.
Instead, Carolina squandered a 49–42 halftime lead, saw Mike Krzyzewski's team blitz them by 17 points in the second half, and were left to listen to rampant national speculation that perhaps the loss had cost them a number-one regional seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
Fans moaned about Duke's 37 free-throw attempts and about major foul trouble for Joel Berry. Williams didn't want to hear about it. As soon as his team reached the locker room, he blistered them—not for the loss, but for the way they had played in the loss.
"I didn't think we played as hard as Duke did or as intelligently as Duke did," Williams said. "I think we were still feeling good about beating them in the Smith Center. I was not going to accept that kind of play. I was not going to accept that Duke got down on the floor for a loose ball better than we did, that we didn't guard them. Because I thought not only did they do everything better than we did, but they wanted it more than us. That really ticked me off."
He made it clear to his team that he was ticked off, then he stormed out of the locker room. Most of the players sat silently.
Williams stormed into the coaches' locker room. A minute passed. Then he walked back into the players' locker room, this time with a new message. This one was no less passionate, but it had a different tone. Outside, in the hallways and in the stands and on the playing floor of the Barclays Center, the ACC Tournament continued. Williams wanted to refocus his team on what was next for them.
"I had to tell them it was a bump in the road," Williams said. "It was a bump in the road I did not appreciate, but it doesn't mean our season stopped. If we play that way, our season will be over. But look at what we've done in the past. We've won national championships at North Carolina twice when we lost in the ACC semifinals. I wanted to chew their butts out, tell them how disappointed and mad I was, but also give them that apple in front of them. We could still do what we wanted to do."
The next day, the Tar Heels started moving toward what they still wanted to achieve. While Duke and Notre Dame stayed in Brooklyn to play for the ACC Tournament title on Saturday night, the Tar Heels left Saturday morning to return home, the players wearing the suits they had probably packed with the intention of wearing to the championship game. By the time they arrived home, there were approximately 30 hours remaining before the NCAA Tournament brackets would be announced. Williams had plenty to accomplish with his team before he could feel comfortable entering NCAA play.
His work began in the film room in the Smith Center locker room. The entire locker-room complex had been renovated over the summer through the generosity of Rams Club donors. The Tar Heels now watched film in a plush theater, with comfortable seats for every player and a huge projection screen.
That gave them a clear view of exactly what their head coach wanted them to see. Berry had earned his fourth foul against Duke with 15:04 left in the game. At that point, Carolina had an eight-point advantage. Berry complicated the foul issues by showing frustration on the bench, and Williams let him sit there until 4:58 remained and Duke had built a seven-point lead.
At the Barclays Center, during the flow of the game, Berry had been insistent that he was the victim of bad calls by the officiating crew. Back at the Smith Center, though, he fell victim to one of Williams's very favorite sayings: "The eye in the sky don't lie."
That's why the Carolina coach ran the film back and forth multiple times in front of the team. Berry was especially miffed about his third foul, a reach-in against Duke point guard Frank Jackson less than two minutes into the second half.
Williams cued up the video. There was Berry, reaching across Jackson's body.
"You can't have two fouls and make a silly reach foul," Williams said. "I went back and forth in slow motion and told him, 'You did foul. Don't come running over to me and say you didn't touch him. You did foul. There it is.' I ran it back and forth ten times to show him. So don't give me those excuses and blame it on the officials. You made the mistake."
But the team meeting wasn't just about Berry. Williams took a black marker and walked to the white board in the film room. On the board, he wrote seven features he believed made the 2017 Tar Heels successful. Then he highlighted four of them, which he believed the Tar Heels had done especially poorly in Brooklyn: guarding the ball defensively, boxing out and rebounding, running both ways, and talking to each other. The message stayed on the board throughout the postseason and lingered into the summer, a reminder of the success the Tar Heels achieved with a focus on the details.
"Coach challenged us," said Kennedy Meeks. "Once he wrote that on the board, all of us took a look at it and realized how important the rest of the season was. We didn't want to lose again. I think that was always in the back of everyone's minds."
"These are the major goals we always talk about," Williams told his team. "Focus on these four."
Players Mentioned
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