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Tar Heels set lofty goal
It’s national title or bust for Roy Williams’ group
CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams is thinking about a national title.
He came out and said as much Thursday at the first media gathering of the season. No one asked him about it. No one prompted him. Not directly anyway.
He was asked about expectations, and he said he thought his team would handle them.
“They don’t have a choice,” Williams said. “If you want to do good, you have to play well, and I think our guys have been focused and had great challenges in front of them since we lost to Kentucky.”
He said they’ll put the goals down on paper tonight. He left no doubt which goal would be at or near the top of the list.
“We’re going to try to be the best team we can possibly be,” he said. “We set that as a goal in ’05 and it worked. We set that as a goal in ’09 and it worked. We set that same thing as a goal, a very legitimate goal, in ’08 and it didn’t work.”
This team is a lot like the ’09 team, which was a pretty good college basketball team. In fact, it might’ve been one of the best ACC teams we’ll ever see. So for someone to compare this season’s UNC team to Tyler Hansbrough’s national championship team seems unfair.
And it’s not even clear which it’s more unfair to, this season’s team or the 2008-09 national champions.
But there are a lot of similarities, and Williams himself pointed out many of them. It started the year before with a loss that resonated — to Kansas in ’08, to Kentucky in March in the region final. It carried into the spring when players announced they would delay joining the NBA to come back for a national title run — Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington, Ty Law-son and Danny Green in ’09; Harrison Barnes, John Henson and Tyler Zeller this spring.
There are other comparisons that come down to style of play, the strength inside and out. But let’s be honest. There’s a banner hanging in the Dean Dome for the ’09 team. This year’s team is only a roster on paper right now.
“In ’09, there are some similarities,” Williams said. “We did have a very good year last year. We would like to have gone a little more, just like ’08, so that makes it similar. But every team is different. That ’09 team was easy to coach. It remains to be seen if this is going to be that way. That team had some of the best leaders with different characteristics that I’ve ever been around.”
He went on.
“We were the best team that year,” Williams said. “The difference between this team and ’09 is I don’t think any team stands out above the other. I really felt like we were the best team in ’09.”
He mentioned Ohio State, Duke, Kentucky, Connecticut and Louisville, and he said he was probably leaving some schools out among the list of schools capable of winning it all this season.
“There are some really good teams out there this year,” Williams said. “That’s different from ’09.”
The best team doesn’t always win in college basketball. Just last year we watched a Final Four that included no No. 1 seeds and no No. 2 seeds. It also didn’t include Carolina or Duke, and a lot of people think one or both could be in this year.
Williams is one of those people. And his players didn’t back down from the challenge. To a man, they said they’re ready to chase their own banners and rings this year.
“If this team mirrors ’09 in one thing, it would be fantastic,” Williams said. “In ’09, not one day did I ever think somebody was trying to make sure they got their own. And that was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.”
That team was built for a championship, a team with a great point guard, a great inside presence, good defense and good outside shooting. That team overcame early losses and close games. And it got better as the year went on.
Williams hasn’t even seen this team play, but he said he would start the year expecting certain things, and if it finds a consistent outside shooter, this year’s team could indeed begin to resemble one of the best ACC teams we’ve ever seen.
Other coaches would shy away from saying that. Other coaches would consider it blasphemy. Williams considers it a coaching tool.
“These guys haven’t won a thing, and the old-timers tell them, the old-timers point in the rafters, the old-timers show them the rings,” he said. “You can talk all you want to talk, but to have to do it. There are some similarities if you compare this time of the year to this time of the year in ’09. A lot of the things we went through and are going through are identical in some ways. So I think that’s part of it. In reality, whether I like it or not, there are going to be comparisons.”
This team hasn’t done anything yet, he said.
“They just look good on paper,” Williams said.
They look really good on paper.
It’s national title or bust for Roy Williams’ group
CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams is thinking about a national title.
He came out and said as much Thursday at the first media gathering of the season. No one asked him about it. No one prompted him. Not directly anyway.
He was asked about expectations, and he said he thought his team would handle them.
“They don’t have a choice,” Williams said. “If you want to do good, you have to play well, and I think our guys have been focused and had great challenges in front of them since we lost to Kentucky.”
He said they’ll put the goals down on paper tonight. He left no doubt which goal would be at or near the top of the list.
“We’re going to try to be the best team we can possibly be,” he said. “We set that as a goal in ’05 and it worked. We set that as a goal in ’09 and it worked. We set that same thing as a goal, a very legitimate goal, in ’08 and it didn’t work.”
This team is a lot like the ’09 team, which was a pretty good college basketball team. In fact, it might’ve been one of the best ACC teams we’ll ever see. So for someone to compare this season’s UNC team to Tyler Hansbrough’s national championship team seems unfair.
And it’s not even clear which it’s more unfair to, this season’s team or the 2008-09 national champions.
But there are a lot of similarities, and Williams himself pointed out many of them. It started the year before with a loss that resonated — to Kansas in ’08, to Kentucky in March in the region final. It carried into the spring when players announced they would delay joining the NBA to come back for a national title run — Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington, Ty Law-son and Danny Green in ’09; Harrison Barnes, John Henson and Tyler Zeller this spring.
There are other comparisons that come down to style of play, the strength inside and out. But let’s be honest. There’s a banner hanging in the Dean Dome for the ’09 team. This year’s team is only a roster on paper right now.
“In ’09, there are some similarities,” Williams said. “We did have a very good year last year. We would like to have gone a little more, just like ’08, so that makes it similar. But every team is different. That ’09 team was easy to coach. It remains to be seen if this is going to be that way. That team had some of the best leaders with different characteristics that I’ve ever been around.”
He went on.
“We were the best team that year,” Williams said. “The difference between this team and ’09 is I don’t think any team stands out above the other. I really felt like we were the best team in ’09.”
He mentioned Ohio State, Duke, Kentucky, Connecticut and Louisville, and he said he was probably leaving some schools out among the list of schools capable of winning it all this season.
“There are some really good teams out there this year,” Williams said. “That’s different from ’09.”
The best team doesn’t always win in college basketball. Just last year we watched a Final Four that included no No. 1 seeds and no No. 2 seeds. It also didn’t include Carolina or Duke, and a lot of people think one or both could be in this year.
Williams is one of those people. And his players didn’t back down from the challenge. To a man, they said they’re ready to chase their own banners and rings this year.
“If this team mirrors ’09 in one thing, it would be fantastic,” Williams said. “In ’09, not one day did I ever think somebody was trying to make sure they got their own. And that was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.”
That team was built for a championship, a team with a great point guard, a great inside presence, good defense and good outside shooting. That team overcame early losses and close games. And it got better as the year went on.
Williams hasn’t even seen this team play, but he said he would start the year expecting certain things, and if it finds a consistent outside shooter, this year’s team could indeed begin to resemble one of the best ACC teams we’ve ever seen.
Other coaches would shy away from saying that. Other coaches would consider it blasphemy. Williams considers it a coaching tool.
“These guys haven’t won a thing, and the old-timers tell them, the old-timers point in the rafters, the old-timers show them the rings,” he said. “You can talk all you want to talk, but to have to do it. There are some similarities if you compare this time of the year to this time of the year in ’09. A lot of the things we went through and are going through are identical in some ways. So I think that’s part of it. In reality, whether I like it or not, there are going to be comparisons.”
This team hasn’t done anything yet, he said.
“They just look good on paper,” Williams said.
They look really good on paper.
