How the Tar Heels are approaching the final seven games of the regular season
Three days after being embarrassed by Wake Forest on the road, Roy Williams was asked about his team’s confidence and whether that was a factor in North Carolina’s recent struggles.
UNC (10-14, 3-10 ACC) has lost four straight since winning back-to-back games against Miami and N.C. State on Jan. 25 and 27. It plays Virginia (16-7, 8-5) on Saturday at home at 8 p.m.
Williams said ‘yes,’ to the question about the Tar Heels’ confidence, but also added that competitiveness was also an issue. He compared this team to the 2005-06 team, which was also inexperienced. Its returning players hadn’t played significant minutes, either.
David Noel, the leading returning scorer, in the previous season averaged only 3.9 points per game during the 2004-05 championship run his junior year. Reyshawn Terry, the second-leading returning scorer, averaged 2.3 points per game as a sophomore in 2004-05.
Despite the inexperience of the 2005-06 team that featured freshmen Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green, Williams said it was a competitive bunch, and that year was probably the most fun he had coaching.
“Tyler Hansbrough, himself, brought such a level of competitiveness at every drill that people fed off of that,” Williams told reporters Friday. “David Noel, and I still say this, and I’ve said it consistently since 2006, and it never changed, he’s the best leader that I’ve had on any one of my teams.”
“They competed their buns off every night at a high, high level.”
Some would argue that the 2005-06 team, after losing all five of its starters from the previous year, overachieved. They finished the year 23-8, and lost in the Round of 32 of the NCAA tournament.
This season, however, injuries, lack of experience, and anything else that could go wrong has affected the Tar Heels. UNC senior guard Brandon Robinson will miss his fourth consecutive game with an ankle sprain, and the Tar Heels will run with their eighth different starting lineup in 2020. Junior forward Garrison Brooks, who is dealing with a scratched cornea in his right eye for third time this season, is expected to play with protective glasses.
He played against Wake on Tuesday, but had trouble seeing out of that eye.
Trying to get better
Confidence, or lack of confidence, was evident in how UNC finished its game against Duke on Feb. 8. The Tar Heels had a nine-point lead with two minutes remaining.
But in the final 71 seconds, the Tar Heels missed 5 of their 10 free throw attempts and allowed Duke to tie the game and send it to overtime. In overtime, the Blue Devils pulled off a 98-96 victory.
That loss carried over into UNC’s game against Wake three days later, when the Tar Heels lost to the Demon Deacons by 17. It was their second-largest margin of defeat this season.
“It’s a combination of things,” Williams said. “That old saying — I think if it was just one thing, between me and Coach Robinson, and Hubert (Davis) and Brad (Frederick) and everybody, I think we would have figured it out.
“But the kids want it. I want them to want it desperately. But they do want it.”
The Tar Heels have seven more games before the ACC tournament begins, including their game Saturday against Virginia. An at-large bid to the NCAA tournament is out of the question, and a possible NIT bid is slipping away, too.
Before he left the press conference, Williams was also asked his team’s motivation in the last few weeks of the season.
“I hope it’s to play better basketball,” Williams said. “I haven’t seen any signs of them giving up. If they are going to, don’t even come to practice. The motivation to me is to get better, and who knows what might happen at the end.”
Virginia at UNC
When: 8 p.m., Saturday
Where: Dean Smith Center, Chapel Hill
TV: ESPN
This story was originally published February 15, 2020 at 7:00 AM with the headline "How the Tar Heels are approaching the final seven games of the regular season."
