Written by: Garett

If you’re a UNC basketball fan, there is no doubt you’ve been frustrated with Roy Williams a time or two over the years. His coaching style is a little outdated, and extremely aggravating to Carolina fans, but you really can’t argue against his success. The man has won three national titles since taking the reigns as Tar Heel head coach before the 2003-2004 season. So, for all the peculiar ways of Roy Williams, there is a method to his madness that I totally understand. I may forget from time to time, when it’s the beginning of December and Carolina has its annual loss to Texas, but I have to sit back and tell myself that every dumb thing Roy did in those little-meaning regular season games is all part of his master plan.

One thing that Roy Williams has always done that frustrates me so much is not use his timeouts. Sometimes I think that he believes if he saves them up throughout the year, they will rollover to the NCAA tournament where he will have over a hundred to spare. He will let teams go on massive runs without calling a timeout to break the momentum. He has even made statements before along the lines of, “they got themselves into this mess, they will have to get themselves out.” Other times he won’t call timeouts when the game is down to the wire and it would be a great time to draw up a last second play. Instead, he will let the clock continue to run and put all trust in his players to figure it out. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. While this aggravates me to no end, I have to remind myself that Roy does this all regular season long as a learning curve for his players. Then, if in the NCAA tournament he doesn’t have a timeout to give in difficult situations, he can lean on his players to figure it out because they have been through those situations before. If the Tar Heels lose a regular season game because he didn’t call a timeout and his players do something bone-headed, Roy counts this as a positive thing if it provides a teaching moment to his players.

Another thing that Roy Williams does throughout the regular season that costs them occasional wins is play an extremely deep bench. Whereas most coaches will play 7-8 players, Roy will play up to 10-12 each game. This cuts away from playing time from the team’s best players, and also establishes some weird line-up combos out on the floor. There will also be crucial moments at the end of games where there will be certain players on the floor that make every Carolina fan scratch his head (or throw something across the room). But once again, while this may mean a few more losses in the regular season, it only helps the Tar Heels in the NCAA tournament. The more playing time you can give your bench in the regular season, and the more situations you can put them in, the more it will benefit in the long run. Then when Carolina is in an Elite Eight game and some of the star players are in foul trouble, or fouled out, the bench players won’t be like a deer in the headlights in tough situations because they have already been through them. It very well might be the 3rd or 4th guy off the bench that comes up big with a clutch block or basket in March.

While many top programs in the country really pitch the promise of NBA to recruits in high school, UNC doesn’t seem to do that, and certainly doesn’t cater to them if they decide to play for the Tar Heels. For example, Nassir Little is a freshman phenom who currently plays for UNC, and is a consensus top five NBA draft pick next year. However, he doesn’t start for UNC and gets about twenty minutes a game. There is not a doubt in anyone’s mind that he would start for any program in the nation if he wasn’t at Carolina, including Kentucky, Duke, and Kansas. Freshmen stars who go to those programs instantly start, see about 35 minutes per game, put up really good numbers, and get drafted high because of it. Freshmen stars who go to Carolina have to relinquish their role to fitting in Roy’s system. Marvin Williams was another example of a guy who was a lottery pick after his freshman season, but was a 6th man all year long for Carolina. Roy Williams doesn’t care at all about a player’s stats and trying to embellish them for the NBA scouts. The only thing he cares about is winning championships. This can be really aggravating all season long when certain players aren’t getting the playing time they should.

Even though I occasionally declare I’m ready for Roy Williams to retire after regular season losses resulting from his peculiar coaching style, deep down I don’t mean it. Carolina fans all around, including myself, tend to forget all the success that he has had at Carolina with his coaching style. Essentially, Roy treats the regular season as preparation games for the NCAA tournament. While those November and December losses to non-conference, unranked teams are more frustrating than anything, getting to the Final Four and winning championships more than make up for it. For Carolina basketball, there is only one season that matters: March.

Garett

The Curious Case of Roy Williams