Sunday, March 11, 2007
UNC takes Williams to his first ACC title game
The Tar Heels' coach is about changing perceptions.
TAMPA, Fla. -- Think the ACC Tournament doesn't mean anything to Roy Williams? Just ask the statisticians and timekeepers who witnessed his wrath Saturday at St. Pete Times Forum.
All it took was back-to-back possessions on which Carolina almost committed shot-clock violations for Williams to wind up and pound the scorer's table.
Never mind that the Tar Heels were leading by 16 points with slightly more than five minutes remaining.
Official Jamie Luckie ushered Williams back to the bench and raised a finger to his mouth as a warning against further outbursts.
Williams could afford to laugh about the incident after Carolina had advanced to the final with a 71-56 victory, although he did object when a reporter asked him about "kicking" the scorer's table.
"I didn't kick it," Williams said. "I hit it with my hand. Kick is with your foot. Hit is with your hand. The referee told me that I couldn't do that. I said, 'I'm not mad at you. You know that.'
"He said, 'But the perception ...' I said, 'You don't referee on perception. There's 8,000 people at least who think you made a mistake on every call.' "
Carolina (27-6) may have exercised bad clock management on two possessions, but the Tar Heels didn't make many judgment errors in a game that never got inside nine points in the second half.
The Tar Heels will meet 10th-seeded North Carolina State for the championship today. Carolina last won the ACC Tournament in 1998 and hasn't even reached the final since Williams' arrival in 2002.
Williams has spent all week disputing the notion that he doesn't care about the ACC Tournament, and when he isn't talking about winning it, his players are.
"If you're going to come, you ought to try and win the thing," Williams said. "I've never come here and said, 'Let's don't win it. Let's relax and get ready next week.' I challenged the guys and said, 'You want to do something that nobody else has done?'
"I've always wanted to win. People act like I don't, but they've [the players] picked up on that.
I showed them the banner [from] last year. It says, 'NCAA tournament.' That's all it says. This year's will say 'regular-season champion' and, if we play well, maybe it will say something else."
By NCAA tournament, the banner means that Carolina was an NCAA participant.
The Tar Heels lost to Boston College in the ACC Tournament semifinals before Duke won its seventh title in eight years.
"I'd just like to win one," Williams said.
It was apparent from the early minutes Saturday that Carolina wasn't going to lose to Boston College for a second straight year. The Eagles shot 24.1 percent from the field in the first half, quickly falling behind 27-11 before going into the half down 38-23.
Carolina built its lead to 48-28 early in the second half. Boston College got as close as 50-41 on a Sean Marshall 3-pointer with 13:01 left, but Williams didn't blink.
The Tar Heels responded with a 16-2 run "and we did it by attacking," Williams said.
"My whole deal, always is, 'Attack, attack.' We try to do it under control, but I'm not the kind of guy who panics over on the bench and calls timeouts and worries about what's going on because I think that goes in the minds of the kids, too."
Boston College (20-11) got 23 points from Marshall and 20 from Jared Dudley, the ACC player of the year.
Sophomore guard Tyrese Rice, coming off a 32-point outing in a 74-71 victory over Miami, made one of nine shots from the field and finished with four points.
Dudley and Rice were a combined 2-for-15 at the half.
"As a team, we didn't shoot particularly well," Eagles coach Al Skinner said.
"As I told our team, 'It's about time we got out of this freakin' league [schedule] and had a little success.'"
BOSTON COLLEGE (20-11)
Dudley 7-18 4-6 20, Roche 1-2 0-0 2, Oates 1-4 2-2 4, Rice 1-9 2-2 5, Marshall 8-14 3-4 23, Haynes 0-1 0-0 0, Kaba 0-0 0-0 0, Neville 0-0 0-0 0, Spears 0-2 0-2 0, Blair 1-5 0-0 2. Totals 19-55 11-16 56.
NORTH CAROLINA (27-6)
Terry 3-7 0-0 7, Wright 10-12 0-2 20, Hansbrough 4-10 1-1 9, Ellington 2-9 4-4 10, Lawson 4-9 2-2 10, Ginyard 2-3 0-0 4, Frasor 2-4 0-0 5, Thomas 0-0 0-0 0, Green 2-4 0-0 4, Burke 0-0 0-0 0, Thompson 1-1 0-0 2, Miller 0-1 0-0 0, Wood 0-0 0-0 0, Stepheson 0-2 0-0 0, Copeland 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 30-62 7-9 71.
Halftime--North Carolina 38-23. 3-Point Goals--Boston College 7-17 (Marshall 4-5, Dudley 2-4, Rice 1-5, Roche 0-1, Oates 0-2), North Carolina 4-13 (Ellington 2-4, Frasor 1-1, Terry 1-2, Miller 0-1, Green 0-2, Lawson 0-3). Fouled Out--None. Rebounds--Boston College 27 (Oates 8), North Carolina 41 (Hansbrough 13). Assists--Boston College 8 (Rice 4), North Carolina 18 (Lawson 8). Total Fouls--Boston College 13, North Carolina 15. A--22,269.
