Roy Williams Discusses 2019-20 Season At Media Day

Tar Heel head coach Roy Williams spoke with reporters on Wednesday afternoon in the Smith Center as part of UNC's annual preseason media day. Below are highlights of Williams's comments.

On Kendall Marshall's hiring as Director of Recruiting
"I didn't know that was the title of the job. What we're trying to do is get somebody that will be aware of social media and things that we can use in recruiting and be aware of putting out more things for prospects. The real director of recruiting is Steve Robinson, Hubert Davis and Brad Frederick because they're the guys that are out on the road. Nobody ever asked me what I wanted the title to be so they put that and it's okay."

On Kendall Marshall's connection with point guards
"I think for us, having two of the five most intelligent players I've been lucky enough to coach are on my staff right now and that's Kendall and Sean [May]. Sean is without a doubt the most intelligent big guy I ever coached, he could play every position on the floor and from the first day that Kendall stepped foot here on our team he was just extremely intelligent. I shouldn't even say it like that, when he came and played pick up with our guys, maybe after his sophomore year of high school, we were at the football game – I've never told this but David Noel came over to me and said 'who is that little guard?' I said 'Kendall Marshall.' He said 'Coach he's really good. We were coming down the court and he's telling me go to do this and I'm thinking "who the crap are you?" So I did what he said and he threw me the ball and I laid it up.'

"So even before he got here. I think Kendall is the best I've ever had at pitching the ball ahead, the best I've ever had at time and score, the best I've ever had at realizing how many fouls are on the big guys on the other team. He was a true quarterback and he was a true coach on the floor. I think he's going to eventually be a fantastic coach and I think he eventually will be a fantastic recruiter but he's not able to do that yet."

On what makes Christian Keeling and Justin Pierce good fits as graduate transfers
"Need. We needed some more guys. I think that we needed more people on the perimeter. We didn't have as much need up front. Christian gives you a little bit of scoring, he's got a tremendous flair and a very gregarious personality – he's Theo Pinson Jr. I think that the job they did with him at Charleston Southern… he's been coached very well; he understands how to play. He's never met a shot he doesn't like so far, but we'll see how that goes as we go down.

"Justin played for Tony Shaver at William & Mary and they were making a coaching change and he was looking for some other place. I think his quality he has that will be more beneficial right now to us than anything is his rebounding, I think he averaged over eight rebounds per game for them last year. He's a sneaky kind of rebounder that goes in and gets his hands on a lot of balls but it was a tremendous need for a couple more players on the perimeter."

On Christian Keeling's rebounding
"He's such a big time athlete and playing at a smaller level he's just a lot more athletic than a lot of the guys he was playing against and I think it will be hard for him to have those kind of numbers for us. But I do want him to go rebound the basketball and same thing with Justin. Last year at times I thought our team was really good when Kenny [Williams] and Cam Johnson and those guys got to the board and helped us rebound."

On recruiting graduate transfers
"I talked to their coaches. Barclay [Radebaugh] down at Charleston Southern played for Eddie Fogler at South Carolina so there was that friendship there in me knowing him. Rick Duckett was one of our managers here and is a coach there so that's another source of information I had on Christian. And Tony Shaver and Jonathan Holmes were at William & Mary, so that was more than anything. It was not me just picking out a kid and saying 'okay now let's find out about him.' I talked to all of those guys before we really made the offer."

On California SB 206
"I've never been one to say yes, I'm for paying players, but I've always thought – some of you have heard me say the same thing, when Peyton Manning was at Tennessee the first football game, I'll miss the numbers now, I did have it, they sold like 50,000 jerseys at $76 a jersey and Peyton Manning didn't get one cent and that's not right. So I've always had that feeling, it's been the biggest feeling.

"But guys are so much better off today than they were 10 years ago, and hopefully we'll keep moving and make it a lot better for the student-athletes. When Sean May was playing for me we had a prospect in and we took him out to eat with the prospect and we had to take that money out of his meal money and when Sean was going to go home he had to pay for it. We didn't have the cost of attendance thing that we have now that's made it much more student-athlete friendly. So I'm hopeful that we'll keep making moves but I've been trying to worry about if we're going to stop somebody from scoring every time they want to and I haven't read that law except that we're in the United States of America and there are a lot of things going on that I think are a little wacko but it takes a while to change things."

On Cole Anthony versus Coby White
"He's a different point guard. Coby was more of a scoring point guard, which I'm okay with. I like point guards that do something great and I thought Coby did that great. Cole is more of a quarterback back there that's trying to get other people the ball. Coby had a belief that he could make every shot and he made a bunch of them. I loved what he was doing and I wanted him to be so much more aggressive because I thought with Luke [Maye], and Kenny and Cam we had some perimeter shooters but I loved the way Coby always attacked. With Cole we don't have those types of shooters. I think he's got a chance that he'll find some guys for easier shots but I love both of them. I would have loved to have both of them together. I'd be sat over there leaning back in my lawn chair if I had both of them together.

"But they're different. Cole is good defensively and I've said this to him and said it publicly, in high school I think he was the best defensive rebounding guard I think I've ever seen and we're going to need him to go rebound the defensive board for us too. Still, different players, it was fun watching them play on the team USA under-19 team when they were backcourt mates. It was fun watching that team."

On Cole Anthony's athleticism
"He's very athletic as a point guard. Raymond Felton was athletic; Kendall Marshall was not but he used his brain more than anybody I've had to coach. Cole is right up there, one of the athletic guys. Sometimes he looks like he's 6'5" sometimes he doesn't but I like the way he plays."

On the new players meshing with veterans
"Well I think it's been driven mostly by B-Rob [Brandon Robinson] and Garrison [Brooks]. They accepted them so quickly. It's never been 'these are the old guys and these are the new guys.' It's never been that from the first day of practice. Plus, I think some of the other things we did with the former players here, it's always our current team versus the former players and I think going through that in the summer really does help them. Cole and Armando are very good teammates and they've accepted them from the very first day. I can't remember talking to any team about 'these guys are on our team too, let's put our arms around them.' I don't think I've ever had that conversation but this one has been very easy."

On team leaders emerging
"It's still in progress but I think [Brandon Robinson and Garrison Brooks] are the veterans they understand things. Those are the two guys I'm asking questions, 'okay what do you think about this?' and everybody else understands that and I think the younger guys respect the fact that they've been here. I'll go back again, last year Coby was one of our leaders because it's a natural part of being a point guard and Cole will do that. Cole won the 12-minute run, Cole did the best job in the 33 conditioning program, so he's sort of gathered their respect by working and that's been something that's pretty neat."

On whether he is looking to certain players to become leaders
"Not really. I think it does happen naturally. Again, that point guard spot is a leadership position so that person ends up having it and Cole understands. I say something to Cole, I correct him and he'll just not his head and change. So I think that part is going to help the team as well. But Garrison and Brandon Robinson have not only been here the longest, because Sterling [Manley], [Brandon Huffman] and Andrew [Platek] have been here as long as Garrison but Garrison has had more time on the court so there's a respect for you. When you're a defensive player of the year your teammates respect that, too."

On recent point guards
"Coby was easier in one way because his natural inclination to play was to push the pace and yes that's the way we like to play. Then I had to get him to understand that sometimes it's not you're shot that's the best shot. In high school when he shot it I thought it was the best shot so we had to convince that. That was a very natural thing with him too. As you say they are different. I enjoy it. It's a level of excitement having that kind of guy that can make everybody else better and I do think Coby's ability to attack the basket made Cam, Kenny and Luke more open for outside shots because he would attack the basket so hard and push the pace so hard and I think that that's what I'm hoping that Cole will do as well."

On going to a two-big lineup
"I'd like to play two big guys, I'm more comfortable doing that. How far did the [three-point] line go back this year? A couple of inches? My own personal opinion is that the shooting percentages will go down a little bit but that doesn't bother me because I want to throw the sucker inside anyway. I'd like to play two big guys and Garrison gives you the freedom of knowing he played the four and the five last year and we've tried to get him better at shooting a facing jump shot. He's worked on it; he's worked on it with coach [Hubert] Davis. You've got [Huffman] and Armando, Sterling is not playing, Walker [Miller] is playing… I'd like to play two guys."

On the learning curve with new players
"It's not much that different from other years. You know last year we had Leaky [Black] and Coby and Nassir [Little] that we thought were going to be in our top six or seven. This year we've got Cole and Christian and Justin and Armando so we've got four of those guys that we think are going to be in our top six or seven so it's pretty similar there. The good thing you have is – and evidently it's the reason I do it, it's good we have four practices for an hour-and-a-half once a week in the summer. That's more or less to get them used to the pace. Now we start teaching and doing a lot more. A lot of the summer is evaluating, determining what we have – who is Christian Keeling? Who is Justin Pierce? How is Cole Anthony going to make the adjustment? Now it's something we do every year. Some teams really pick it up quickly. Coby was really quick, Coby understood what I wanted him to do and I think Cole so far has shown that he's the same way."

On perimeter shooting
"We lost not only a lot of perimeter production, we lost our top-five scorers. We've got to figure out how to score. I've talked to them – we don't have Kenny, we don't have Cam, we don't have Luke. It's like Rick [Pitino]'s old story they're not going to come walking in the door. So we've got to have guys who make shots. The first five minutes of practice is shooting form. If you're intelligent you'll really concentrate in those five minutes because you'll really help yourself. If you're intelligent you'll understand we talk every day about good shot and bad shot and that can help us. At the same time if our perimeter shooting is not going to be as good as it was last year then we've got to balance it out so we've got to rebound it better, we've to defend a little better, we've got to play a little smarter, we've got to protect the rim more, we've got to score at the rim more. So you've got to balance out how to play, but those are big time losses."

On the process for point guards earning trust
"To do what I tell them to do. It's pretty easy. Raymond [Felton] was so tough mentally, but Raymond's shot wasn't going in his sophomore year. You can go look at the stats, it was like 29% and he wasn't establishing the defensive presence I wanted him to at the center line. In his junior year he worked harder on his shot between those two years than anybody I've ever seen and made more significant improvement than anybody I've ever coached. Not only just his shot but if I'm not mistaken his junior year he led the ACC in three-point shooting and the year before he looked awful, and that [growth] was nothing but his sweat, and he also established our defensive presence by drawing a line at the center line and making it difficult for other teams to guard. I don't think that he didn't agree with what I was asking him to do but it just took a little while for him to understand it and get better at it. I think it's a tremendous credit to him. It's been 32 years I've never seen anybody change their shot like Raymond Felton did and I've never seen anybody change their body and his play like Sean May did so those are two special guys there. Some guys change immediately and some guys don't have to change as much."

On this team's physicality
"Now, Cole's not as big as Coby. Even without the hair he's not as big as Coby… I think Coby was just as physical as Cole. Kenny was very physical drawing charges. Luke was very physical. Cam was not as physical. B-Rob's not as physical… We've just got to be able to rebound the basketball, that's all it is. The toughness issue between right ear and left ear is what I like better that necessarily physical play. Beating the guy to the spot is better than hitting him when he comes across you so I don't talk about the physical part of it I talk about going to get the ball off the board."

On the team's identity
"I don't know the answer to that. We've had four practices this summer and had four right now and I don't think you get to know the identity of your team until you start playing games and having some adversity and especially maybe a little later in your preseason you play an exhibition or scrimmage. We scrimmage Villanova again this year so we'll know some more at that time. I think it will be a running team and I think it will be a good defensive team even though we lost Kenny, Kenny was fantastic defensively but I think that some of the other guys will pick it up and be pretty good defensively too. But right now I can't tell you."

On the last days of one-and-dones and if it has changed his recruiting
"Not so far no. When it changes everyone will have that decision to make: do I recruit Ed or is he going to go straight to the NBA, I better make sure I recruit Luke – something like that. I think it will change. My first year back here was the last year you could go straight to the NBA and I remember trying to find out what JR Smith and Marvin [Williams] were going to do. I went to JR's home and left there and said that he's going to the NBA and I went to see Marvin and Marvin said he was coming. So, we'll have to make adjustments like everybody. I think you'll still try to recruit the best players but you don't want to recruit the five best because if they all leave you don't have anybody."

Players Mentioned

Cole Anthony

Garrison Brooks

Brandon Huffman

Christian Keeling

Justin Pierce

Brandon Robinson

Coby White

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