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Roy Williams Hopes Long Break Helps Defensive Mentality

By Gregg Found

Jan 31, 2008

While some see North Carolina’s defense as a leak ready to explode and others see it as people looking for a reason to complain about the Tar Heels, Roy Williams sees it as a little bit of each.

“It’s not where I want it to be,” Williams said Wednesday. “But it’s good enough to be 19-1.”

The coach has fielded a heavy stream of questions about his team’s defensive play as the result of close calls against Clemson and Georgia Tech and a loss at home to Maryland. Maybe he’s a fish out of water, but the coach seems optimistic.

“It’s not where we hope to get to, but it’s not that far from being a pretty good defensive team,” Williams said. “It really isn’t. Coach Smith left a message after the Miami game and said, ‘I thought you were a lot better defensively, they just made some shots.’”

The Tar Heels will welcome Boston College on Thursday night with fresh legs. UNC hasn’t played for a full week since beating Miami, and in that week they’ve had two days off, two light practices and three full practices.

“I hope mentally it helped them more than anything,” Williams said. “I was trying to help them get their legs back ‘cause it is a marathon that we’re trying to run here.”

He mentioned that the two practices following the loss to Maryland were two of the team’s best practices all year and that the Tar Heels have followed those up with good practices on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

And though most are quick to point at points allowed per game as a measure of team defense – UNC is giving up 72 points per game this season – Williams relies on a different stat.

“I’d like to shut ‘em out, but I’d rather be concerned about them shooting a low percentage,” Williams said. “People are going to score against us, cause we’re going to run it up and down.”

“I’ve always thought that number of points allowed to be was not a true indicator of how you are defensively. But I do believe that field-goal percentage is, so we are constantly trying to get the other team’s field-goal percentage down.”

That figure stands at 42.3 percent thus far for Tar Heel opponents. Boston College brings a 46 percent shooting figure and 74 points per game to Thursday’s matchup.

They also bring point guard and team leader Tyrese Rice to square off with Ty Lawson in a matchup of some of the conference’s best points guards.

Marcus Ginyard played AAU basketball with both – albeit when he was 12 and 13 years old – and can’t wait to see the matchup.

“I just hope that Ty takes this as a personal challenge,” Ginyard said. “I want him to really push.”

The speed battle, according to Ginyard, goes to Lawson.

“Ty is definitely faster, no doubt about that.”

But Rice has shotblocker extraordinaire Tyrelle Blair to back him up. The senior center, who stands 6 feet 11, transferred to BC two years ago from Loyola in Chicago and has seen his role increase with the departure of Sean Williams and Jared Dudley.

“You have to instruct guys, you have to coach guys how to play against a shotblocker,” Williams said. “Most guys think you go in there and you double and triple pump…(but) the toughest block is when a guy takes it right at your face.”

Without a rejector like Brandan Wright on the team, it’s tough for Williams to simulate Blair’s presence in practice.

“You don’t want to put a guy out with a tennis racket either because that’s not realistic,” he said.

He said that Tar Heels would have to follow the Tyler Hansbrough against Kenny George approach and take it hard at Blair.

“He’s not going to block as many dunks as he is somebody who jumps six inches off the ground, tries to triple pump and throw it over his head.”