|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE OPERATION BASKETBALLOctober 29, 2014Roy WilliamsCHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA Q. Roy, when you look at this season and everything that's gone on off the court, your adversity, you've handled that. What can you say about your players as well as your coaching staff? ROY WILLIAMS: Well, what I can say about my players is thank you, because if it wasn't for the players and the time on the court, this would not be much fun. But my players and the time that I have with them on the court is just incredible. For some weird reason, I think that's what I was supposed to be doing with my entire life. And if I was not coaching, I'd be getting a bunch of guys together to go on golf trips, and I'd be trying to coach them. My staff, they know Roy Williams. They understand what's going on. They're very proud of what we've done and what we're trying to do and what we will continue to try to do. And then the other thing is when you walk on the court, you sort of get lost in what you're doing, and I love that right now for maybe even reasons that I shouldn't love it, but I do anyway. Q. With everything going on right now, what are some of your expectations for the season? ROY WILLIAMS: You know, last year we had a little junk going on but it was nothing compared to what we have going on this year, but boy, my team really focused pretty doggone well on what we were trying to do on the court and handled the adversity. I'm expecting and hoping and praying and pushing, I guess all of those, that's what we'll do this year, as well. I've got a great group of kids. Bobby Cremins and Dave Odom, the guys back there that I coached with or against, they would love my team. I mean, Bucky would love my team. So that's what we're focusing on right now. Coaching is trying to get kids with varying degrees of ability towards a common goal, and that's what we're trying to focus on is making the sacrifices trying to get to the common goal. Q. There's no question the ACC is the premier, one of the premier basketball leagues‑‑ ROY WILLIAMS: You said it right the first time. Q. The premier basketball league in this country. However, largely disappointed in March with only one team making it out of the first weekend. Do you think the conference has something to prove, and do you think that your team has something to prove? ROY WILLIAMS: Do I think the conference has something to prove? It varies from year to year. I mean, we had a stretch where we won it in '05, '09; Duke won it in '10, Duke it won it in 2001. Louisville won it a couple years ago. What have you done for me lately? Last year we didn't do well and March everybody wanted to play. I don't think my team has anything to prove. My team has to prove to themselves we can be a pretty good basketball team, and you do that by getting ready and doing the best you can every single day. If you prepare and work hard as you can and get better each and every day, you've got a good chance at the end of the year. Q. Looking at Brice and what he's been able to do, what can you say about his leadership and where he's at for you right now as this team goes forward? ROY WILLIAMS: Where he's at for me right now, he's somewhere talking to another group of you guys is what he is. A wonderful kid, gained 15 to 20 pounds since last season. He's a gifted youngster. Got to get his motor going at a higher rate and more consistently. He made a New Year's resolution yesterday after practice that I'll probably hear again tomorrow after practice, too. But he has an ability to score, has an ability to rebound. Has to focus on the smaller things that will allow him to do that even better. A key to our basketball team is which post players or are there post players that are going to step up and be big‑time players for us. Brice and Kennedy are those two that are probably going to be asked to do more than anybody else. Q. You gave us your personal reaction to last Wednesday on Friday night. Is that something you've felt the need to address kind of directly with your team? And then the second half of that would be what would make up the ongoing skepticism that you didn't know the extent of what was happening? ROY WILLIAMS: You know, I called the team in early last week. I think Wednesday is when that stuff came out, and I said, guys, do you have any questions about anything? And they look at each other, they look at me, they look at each other, they look at me. 15 years ago kids thought Michael Jordan invented the game. Now it's Kevin Durant and LeBron James. "I've got no questions." I said, come on, guys, you've got to have some questions. One guy said, okay, what happened? That takes a long time to answer what happened because I don't even know what happened, that kind of thing. But I think you have to deal with it. I've met with‑‑ we had some parents at our exhibition game. I met with them to see if they had any questions and told them what I knew, and then you've got to move on. I can't tell them things that I don't know, and I can't shadow any guesses on what I don't know. The second part is something that Coach Wooden said one time about reputations being what people think you are but character is who you are, and I feel very comfortable about my character. I can't control what somebody else's skepticism is. I know Roy Williams. I know I've never one day in my life failed to do something knowingly that would hurt our student‑athletes. I've never one day in my life did something that I shouldn't have done. If you want to accuse me of being naïve, go ahead. You can be as skeptical as you want. But the people that know Roy Williams know that some of those things that are being said are not fair. Q. When you add a new team to the conference like Louisville, what does that do for you? Does it make things fun because now you're‑‑ I know you've played them before, but now you're scouting new teams. What does it do for you? ROY WILLIAMS: Well, there's no question it adds a little more excitement because of the unknown, but it also makes you sit back and think, why am I playing Kentucky at Kentucky? Why am I playing in Nassau with Wisconsin, Florida, Oklahoma, UCLA, Georgetown? It makes you wonder why you're playing Ohio State up in Chicago. We don't need anything outside our conference to have a strong schedule. It's the best basketball coaches in the country. Is it going to be shown on the court this year the first Monday in April? Who knows about that. But adding Louisville, just like adding Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame last year, is exciting and scary both. Q. Kind of along those same lines, you mentioned the schools you guys added last year. How competitive is this league going to be this year? ROY WILLIAMS: It's scary. I mean, it really is. It's scary. I felt like this is the 12th year back, which is hard to believe that, too, but I thought every year you had to be ready to play on game night, regardless of who you were playing or where you were playing. If you wanted to win, you had to be ready. Now it's gone another step because it's scary because you can get your rear end worn out. You can get embarrassed if you're not really ready to play and play very well, regardless of who you're playing or where you're playing. Q. You've got a very talented team coming back. What do you see your role of your newcomers? Do you see them stepping in and giving you a big lift? ROY WILLIAMS: Well, I think we are gifted and talented in some places, but I think those three freshmen are going to be a big boost for us because they're gifted and talented, too. In the exhibition game, they got 18, 15 and 12. They're going to be an important part of our basketball team. We have one scholarship senior on our club, so it's mostly a freshman, sophomore, junior team. But I think those three kids can add something that we might be missing. They all have ability to score and can help our shooting. 347 Division I teams last year, and we were like 340th in three‑pointers made per games and 341st in free‑throw percentage. It's sort of a challenge to try to do better than that, and I think those three guys will help us. Q. I know you talked about the overall depth of the ACC, but can you talk a little bit about the coaching depth? It seems like night in and night out, you're going against future Hall‑of‑Fame coaches. ROY WILLIAMS: Well, you think about it, if you're coaching in the ACC, you must be pretty doggone good or you wouldn't get the job to start with. I've never felt like that I won a single game in my entire career.  I really didn't. I'm not being humble or corny or anything. I never felt like I won a game. The players out there on the court, they determine‑‑ I coached two games against Coach Smith, who I think was the greatest coach ever and 100 times better off the court, and I coached two games against him, and I never looked at him because it was the teams on the court. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for every coach in our league, and no one can have more respect for fellow coaches than Roy Williams does. But I'm a lot better coach if my players are really, really good and play really well on game day. Q. Given the number of non‑basketball questions you've had to answer, and I know there's an irony in that, but can November 14th get here fast enough for you and will a lot of that become background noise once the season gets under way? ROY WILLIAMS: Well, I don't think for me personally and our school and what's gone on is ever going to move very far in the background because it's a very sad time. I'm very hurt by the whole thing, but we've got to move on. But November 14th, the first game, I don't think in terms of it getting here quickly enough. My gosh, I'm 64. The doggone time passes so quickly now, I wish it would slow down. I want people to get to talking about basketball instead of questioning things that I have no control over, no knowledge of or know when things are going to stop or start. But the savior for me right now has already started, and that's getting on the court with my team. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|