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NIT SEASON TIP-OFF

November 24, 2006

Roy Williams

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

ROY WILLIAMS: We're very pleased with the end result. It was a frustrating night in some ways but I loved a lot of things that went on out there, too. We've just got to become a lot smarter basketball team than we were down the stretch. I got very frustrated with our play for the last 20 minutes, but at the same time, if you don't care enough about the kids to be frustrated with them when they don't do things right just because the score is in your favor then I don't think you're really coaching. I don't think any player that's ever played for me will say that I ever stopped coaching at any point. Tonight the ball didn't go in the hole as much early and they missed some free throws in the first half and in the second half they started making a lot of shots, a lot of threes and we were able to score some on the other end as well. We didn't take care, 22 assists, 24 turnovers.
I don't know that I've ever had a team that ran in and charged people as many times as this team does. Right now I have gray hair. If we keep playing like that, I'll look like you, I'll have no hair whatsoever.
I told them go home, tell their parents that what they want for Christmas was some brains and one of the parents in the back said, "Good, that doesn't cost much." We have great parents, too. We made some nice shots and did some nice things. Not as bad a taste in my mouth as the last time I was here. I told the kids, and as I told you after the game the other day, we lost twice up here in the preseason at NIT and we played for the National Championship. It's still really early and I have a really young team. If you look at it, two freshmen, two sophomores and one senior in the starting lineup. It's a work-in-progress but I do think we have some great material to work with.

Q. Hansbrough is tough to stop, but it looks like in the first half especially, Wright was just as tough to stop?
ROY WILLIAMS: Well, we had tremendous size advantage. They start Duke (Crews) at 6'8" and the next is Bradshaw, I have respect for how tough is he but he's their starting 4 man at 6'4", 6'5". They bring Childress off the bench, gives them a little more size but we needed to go inside. We needed to get the ball inside where our big guys had such an advantage.
If we keep going inside, hopefully we'll shoot more free throws than the other team. But they shot just as many as we did today even though they shot a lot of threes.
I'm like you, if I watched that, I wouldn't know what the crap to ask me, either. (Laughter).

Q. Have you ever enjoyed a win less than that?
ROY WILLIAMS: Oh, I enjoyed the win. I just didn't enjoy the way we played. You know, it's different from golf. You know, golf, I'm only interested in one thing; it's what I shoot. You know, if I hit it in the dang trees and it bounces out on the green, I'm saying, that's what's supposed to happen. I'm interested in my score. I play against par every day, and that's the only thing I'm interested in. If I get back and say, "God, I didn't hit it very good," you know, I don't say that when I shoot 73. Which I did shoot once all summer.
But in basketball, it's got to be how you play. You've got to play well on the defensive end and on the offensive end because you're aiming to get better and better and better, and you have some big-time dreams and hopes at the end of the year. If you improve every day, that's going to help you. I told the kids if they would play and play intelligently, I would go the entire second half without ever looking at the score. I couldn't do that. We were just not playing very smart. I even jumped on Coach Holladay. Let's get so and so out of there, it could get too rough. I said, "I'm trying to win the dang game." The game is never over. So the way we play is a lot more important than the final score because we're trying to do something at the end of the year.

Q. On the flagrant foul, you were on the floor quickly; what's going through your mind and how did you see that?
ROY WILLIAMS: I just saw Tyler get up. He's a fiercely competitive kid and he was getting up very quickly. I just wanted to make sure that that was all he was doing was getting up.
I did think that it was an intentional foul. I did think that we should have gotten the ball and two shots. I was surprised, but I don't know the rule well enough either, but I was surprised when he was ejected.
The other side, corner of my eye, I just wanted to make sure nobody on my team was leaving the bench because we're not ever going to do that.

Q. What kind of improvement have you seen early this season and in practices from Tyler?
ROY WILLIAMS: I'm glad you said in practices, because I didn't see a lot of improvement today. (Laughing).
He's worked so hard on his body. I think he's quicker. I think he's more explosive. I think he's stronger. I think he's shooting the face-up jumpshot better. But all of those are just little improvements. I use this example before, if you make 97 on the test and you improve; I mean, you can only improve three. If you make 50 like some people in this room probably did, your improvement could be a hell of a lot more. He made a 97 last year so it's hard to improve.

Q. So he might be a little better at what he does than some of us might be at what we do?
ROY WILLIAMS: You guys are awfully intelligent sometimes. (Laughter).

Q. Tyler had a better game tonight than the other night, what did you think of his improvement and bounce back?
ROY WILLIAMS: I just think he was more active tonight. We wanted to get the ball in there and the other guys did a better job of getting it to him. We didn't do as good of a job getting the basketball to him. Let's go watch the big-time championship game.

End of FastScripts

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