WRAL Sports Fan

North Carolina

Williams: If you don't enjoy the good times, bad times can kill you

By Tim Hall

Feb 8, 2010

It's becoming a broken record. North Carolina loses again. Last week the Tar Heels lost at Virginia Tech. They followed it up with a loss at Maryland on Super Bowl Sunday.

Now North Carolina has lost six of its last seven games, including two three-game losing streaks in that span. Head coach Roy Williams had never lost three games in a row in his seven years as coach at Carolina. Now he's done it twice in three weeks, and Duke is the next game on the schedule.

Williams has said a number of times he's dealing with things he has not yet dealt with in his 21 years of coaching. The year has been a mess when compared to last year's national championship winning team. This year has shown one of the best college basketball programs in history that winning isn't easy. It's difficult to stay on top every single year. Williams views that as more of a reason to cherish those moments of success.

"I don't think there's any question you need to enjoy the ride and enjoy the journey. We've won two national championships in the last five years and the joy that I had wasn't nearly as high as the lows are when you do struggle a little bit."

What a difference a year can make. At this time last season, North Carolina was No. 3 in the nation with a 21-2 record heading into the Duke game. The Heels won that game at Cameron Indoor 101-87. Things obviously continued to get better as the Heels continued through March.

"If you don't enjoy the good times, the bad times can just kill you," Williams said.

"The way I'm feeling now I'm wondering if I'm worth anything, wondering what I'm doing. You can't eat, you can't sleep and yet just last year you won a national championship which we dream about."

After the Heels won the championship last April, Williams said that he wanted to enjoy it more than they did in 2005. Looking at it right now he still feels he didn't enjoy last year's title enough.

"Right now we're about as low as you can possibly be so it's not much fun enjoying this. I still didn't get much fun out of the other and right now it's bad."

Time is running out for this year's Heels team if it plans on having anything to enjoy. A loss to Duke would leave Carolina 13-11 and 2-7 in the ACC, with more road games than home ones left to play.