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University of North Carolina Athletics
Roy Williams met with the media on Friday afternoon.
Photo by: Rebecca Lawson
GoHeels Exclusive: Pre-Virginia Notebook
December 6, 2019 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers
By Pat James, GoHeels.com
Two days removed from North Carolina's 74-49 loss against Ohio State, Roy Williams called his team's performance one of the three most frustrating of his coaching career.
But that hasn't caused him to worry about this team's long-term outlook.
"We've got to get better today," Williams told reporters Friday. "We did not get better against Ohio State. And don't take away from Chris (Holtmann's) club. They did some nice things and did some things that we thought they would do and were successful at. … But I'm not looking at what may happen in January or something. We've got to get better today and try to take those things that we focus on.
"It's hard right now. Ideally, we're going to practice for 90 minutes and have a 90-minute film session. And that's hard for me to even try to do because they've got exams. We changed our practice tomorrow. We were going to practice at noon and we moved it back. We have like seven guys who have exams tomorrow. But on Sunday afternoon (at Virginia) nobody is going to give a darn about that. So that's ideally what I would like to do, but I don't even know if I can do that."
Here are three more notes from Friday's press conference:
Bacot update
Williams announced Armando Bacot, who sprained his left ankle in the first half of Wednesday's game, will be out indefinitely.
"99.9999 (percent chance) that he will not play (against Virginia)," Williams said. "He is walking. He is not on crutches. But it ballooned up. It was big. So I don't see any way in the world that he would play."
Without Bacot, who is averaging 11.7 points and 9.6 rebounds in 22.0 minutes per game, Williams said UNC will turn to Justin Pierce to play the "4." Brandon Huffman and Walker Miller, who both played seven minutes against Ohio State, could also earn more minutes.
Williams also noted the Tar Heels played Garrison Brooks at the "5" and Leaky Black at the "4" for one stretch during Wednesday's game.
Offensive struggles
As of Friday afternoon, Carolina ranked 259th nationally in 3-point percentage (30.3), 286th in 2-point percentage (44.8) and 298th in free-throw percentage (64.7), according to KenPom.com. It was 296th in effective field goal percentage (45.0). UNC hasn't finished a season worse than 204th in effective field goal percentage since 1996-97, which is as far back as KenPom.com tracks such data.
Williams was asked Friday if this is just a poor shooting team, or if there's more to the Tar Heels' slow start offensively.
"Yes. Both," he said. "We're not pushing the pace enough to get easy ones. We don't have runners. We don't have the initial post option that a Tyler Hansbrough, a Sean May, some of those guys, Kennedy Meeks and Isaiah Hicks would give us even down there. We don't have that. And then the guys aren't running enough.
"The bottom line is the ball is not going in the basket enough, and we used to get more easy ones than we got. And I'm not giving up because I think this can be a good running team. We've just got to run better."
Similar situation
No. 5 Virginia enters Sunday's game at 7-1 and is coming off its first loss, a 69-40 defeat at Purdue on Wednesday.
Much like Carolina, Tony Bennett's squad is enduring some growing pains. The Cavaliers lost four players who accounted for a combined 142 starts and 66.4 percent of the scoring on last season's national championship team. They're also without senior guard Braxton Key, their third-leading scorer and top rebounder. Key underwent surgery for a wrist injury last week.
"I have not watched them play with the exception of the Purdue game," Williams said. "I don't know whatever disease that he felt, but it was the same disease I felt during the game (against Ohio State). Please don't take it that I'm talking for Tony's team, because Tony's got to talk for them. But the numbers that you look at it, they're not pleasant for either one of us. If he plays, he'd add a lot more to them (than I would for us)."
Two days removed from North Carolina's 74-49 loss against Ohio State, Roy Williams called his team's performance one of the three most frustrating of his coaching career.
But that hasn't caused him to worry about this team's long-term outlook.
"We've got to get better today," Williams told reporters Friday. "We did not get better against Ohio State. And don't take away from Chris (Holtmann's) club. They did some nice things and did some things that we thought they would do and were successful at. … But I'm not looking at what may happen in January or something. We've got to get better today and try to take those things that we focus on.
"It's hard right now. Ideally, we're going to practice for 90 minutes and have a 90-minute film session. And that's hard for me to even try to do because they've got exams. We changed our practice tomorrow. We were going to practice at noon and we moved it back. We have like seven guys who have exams tomorrow. But on Sunday afternoon (at Virginia) nobody is going to give a darn about that. So that's ideally what I would like to do, but I don't even know if I can do that."
Here are three more notes from Friday's press conference:
Bacot update
Williams announced Armando Bacot, who sprained his left ankle in the first half of Wednesday's game, will be out indefinitely.
"99.9999 (percent chance) that he will not play (against Virginia)," Williams said. "He is walking. He is not on crutches. But it ballooned up. It was big. So I don't see any way in the world that he would play."
Without Bacot, who is averaging 11.7 points and 9.6 rebounds in 22.0 minutes per game, Williams said UNC will turn to Justin Pierce to play the "4." Brandon Huffman and Walker Miller, who both played seven minutes against Ohio State, could also earn more minutes.
Williams also noted the Tar Heels played Garrison Brooks at the "5" and Leaky Black at the "4" for one stretch during Wednesday's game.
Offensive struggles
As of Friday afternoon, Carolina ranked 259th nationally in 3-point percentage (30.3), 286th in 2-point percentage (44.8) and 298th in free-throw percentage (64.7), according to KenPom.com. It was 296th in effective field goal percentage (45.0). UNC hasn't finished a season worse than 204th in effective field goal percentage since 1996-97, which is as far back as KenPom.com tracks such data.
Williams was asked Friday if this is just a poor shooting team, or if there's more to the Tar Heels' slow start offensively.
"Yes. Both," he said. "We're not pushing the pace enough to get easy ones. We don't have runners. We don't have the initial post option that a Tyler Hansbrough, a Sean May, some of those guys, Kennedy Meeks and Isaiah Hicks would give us even down there. We don't have that. And then the guys aren't running enough.
"The bottom line is the ball is not going in the basket enough, and we used to get more easy ones than we got. And I'm not giving up because I think this can be a good running team. We've just got to run better."
Similar situation
No. 5 Virginia enters Sunday's game at 7-1 and is coming off its first loss, a 69-40 defeat at Purdue on Wednesday.
Much like Carolina, Tony Bennett's squad is enduring some growing pains. The Cavaliers lost four players who accounted for a combined 142 starts and 66.4 percent of the scoring on last season's national championship team. They're also without senior guard Braxton Key, their third-leading scorer and top rebounder. Key underwent surgery for a wrist injury last week.
"I have not watched them play with the exception of the Purdue game," Williams said. "I don't know whatever disease that he felt, but it was the same disease I felt during the game (against Ohio State). Please don't take it that I'm talking for Tony's team, because Tony's got to talk for them. But the numbers that you look at it, they're not pleasant for either one of us. If he plays, he'd add a lot more to them (than I would for us)."
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