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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: CHARLOTTEMarch 16, 2018Roy WilliamsTheo PinsonKenny WilliamsCharlotte, North Carolina North Carolina - 84 Lipscomb - 66 ROY WILLIAMS: I'm not going to start out by telling you how Tiger stands because I don't know how Tiger stands. I'm very appreciative of these guys up here with me and very appreciative of the guys in the locker room. We didn't play our best. Lipscomb was more active than we were early. We had I think five turnovers in the first eight minutes and they had more points off turnovers at half and ended up with more points off turnovers than we did. I looked down at the stat sheet and we have five guys in double figures. We shoot almost 52 percent, hold them to 36 percent. So, there were a lot of good things. I think late in the first half, I yelled at them in the huddle and they tried to show me how dumb I was and they went out and played very well the last four minutes and got us a little bit of a margin and then just kept playing and making plays. Theo was 15 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists. I love that. Kenny being 4 of 5 from 3-point line. So, you got to win one to be able to stay around and so we won one, and I'm pleased for the guys up here and the guys in the locker room. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Kenny and Theo. Q. Kenny, just talk about how special today was for you. KENNY WILLIAMS: It was very special. I was excited all week to come to play. My first game playing heavy minutes in the NCAA Tournament. So, you know, this is what you look forward to growing up. So, you know, I was a little bit more excited about that. Q. Theo, what was your preparation for Garrison Mathews? THEO PINSON: Just to make everything tough. I mean watching clip tape, you thought everything he was going to throw up go in. So, we just wanted the make everything tough, and we knew we couldn't support the that much on him. Once he gets going, he gets going. I remember I was watching because Mike was my teammate, so I was watching the championships game and I saw he had like 39 or 36 or something like that. I knew if he got going it could be a long night for us. Q. Theo, can you tell me when you incorporated the coast-to-coast part of your game and why exactly that happened? Did you get the Coach's permission? Did you see the floor open? When was that and why was that? THEO PINSON: I think I got coast-to-coast when I was five. I remember when I was five, they got mad at me because we was doing jump balls and I just grabbed the ball and tried to go coast-to-coast and lay the ball up. It didn't start now. Building confidence and understanding that I have a gift and I could put pressure on the defense, especially playing at the 4 position, I'm the trailing big so it gives me a little more room to operate and make plays for my teammates and myself. Q. Theo, you just said you're the 4, yet you've become the main distributor ever since went with the small lineup. How have you embraced that role, and have you had to change your game to adapt to it? THEO PINSON: It's just -- that's something I've been doing since I've been here, trying to make plays and give get my teammates open and open shots. At the same time I'm more -- I'm a focal point now. People want to stop that, of course, but at the same time, I think if I can get into the paint or I can draw somebody's defender and we got great shooters, like Coach said, we got really good shooting team Cam, Joel, Luke and Kenny. We even had a conversation during the game. I tried to get Kenny's man to draw to me a little bit longer, which I could have picked to him, but just trying to make a play and get his defender to come off so I can kick it to the great shooters we have. Q. Kenny, you guys had some trouble getting clear of them the first half, but was it a matter of just not turning the ball over and did you feel like once you kind of took care of that, you'd be okay? KENNY WILLIAMS: Yeah. We were turning the ball over. That's what kind of gave them confidence. I think they had 13 points off turnovers in the first half. That gave them a little confidence and let them stick around. We were beating ourselves. Once we got over that hump, we were all right from there and we just had to get stops and finish on the other end. Q. This is almost the same question. But Theo, why do you think you guys started so slow and was that a product of whatever? THEO PINSON: I don't really know. I guess just trying to get your feet wet. It's a big time game. You win or go home. It's the bottom line. If you don't have jitters, you're not human. We needed to get our feet wet, and once you saw we got going, we got going and I think we responded well. Q. Question for Theo -- actually I'm going take one for each. Theo, question for you is, Kenny was really good on the 3 point arc today. When you guys were in Brooklyn, he did a lot of finishing the break. What part of his game do you really, really impresses you the most? THEO PINSON: He's a basketball player. That's the biggest thing. People want to just call him one thing and that's a shooter. I mean today he made a left-hand floater, left-hand floater. Wasn't it left hand? He's just not -- ROY WILLIAMS: That was a bad shot. That was a bad shot. THEO PINSON: But he showed them he can make it. So maybe he got an opportunity to do it again. Kenny is a basketball player. That's the type of players Coach recruit that they can do more than one thing. Just showed today. Q. Kenny, since it became the post-season you've been playing really well. Is there something about the big games that you think maybe stirs something inside of you? KENNY WILLIAMS: You know, I think so. I'm competitive, so I think that's just the competitive nature of me wants to step up when the games get bigger. And also know now it's do or die, win or lose, win or you go home. I know I had to step up my play going into the post-season. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions for Kenny or Theo? ROY WILLIAMS: Before they leave, let's get this straight. That was a bad shot. You guys need some coaching. Why was it a bad shot? THEO PINSON: I don't know. KENNY WILLIAMS: I don't know. ROY WILLIAMS: He doesn't practice it during practice games. I'm dumbfounded, this rascal doesn't have the answer. He was standing under the basket. All he had to do was bounce, pass, layup. THEO PINSON: I clapped like you did. ROY WILLIAMS: Theo is always ready to stay longer if you need him. Q. Roy, can you speak to the way that Kenny has played here down in the post-season? ROY WILLIAMS: Well, he has had some good games. He's had a pretty doggone good year. I think he's one of the five best defensive players in our league. He led our team in charges, he's really good defensively. Today, he picked up the two early fouls but he made two 3s, but he's had a pretty doggone good year all year. Now, one thing, the team the other night when he got somebody else asked a question about his layups -- you or Roger or somebody else? Makes no difference. The other night they were trying to press us. So Theo broke the press and threw it to Kenny because we do believe in attacking against the press. He's a really good basketball who is hungry. Last year he got hurt and didn't play all that time period. His freshman year, he was 1 for 13 from 3. He likes having success. But he has had really a good year for us all year. He's been our most consistent defender. And I'm not sure who is the leading 3-point shooter, either he or Luke. They shot it pretty well. He's taking it to a little bit of a different level, which is okay for me. Q. Roy, you said yesterday you wanted the team to have fun here and enjoy themselves. Was your pregame routine chilling with your grandson there on the bench, was that part of your effort to have fun? ROY WILLIAMS: No. The kids grow old so quickly. I used to get Courtney on the bench if I could, mostly at home. I never let Scott come down to the bench. That's one of the things I regret. So later on after he got older, Neil was my assistant, even I got Neil to have his sons down on the bench. We came back to Chapel Hill and I got Coach Robinson and his sons and the same thing for Coach Davis. I love the picture a hundred years ago. You guys never saw the picture. I saw a picture of Tark sitting on the bench and his son Danny was sitting on the bench with a coat and tie on. Danny will hate me saying that looked like a sweet little kid. I've always remembered that. I know I didn't have that neat memory with my own son. Q. Coach, obviously you've been successful at a lot of places. You're now 15-0 in this building, 12-0 in Charlotte. What about Charlotte brings out the best in the Tar Heels? ROY WILLIAMS: We have good players who have really played well. The fans do help us, and I'm willing to see if we can pass a law that says we play all the NCAA games here. I'd be willing to go for that. But usually we played really well here. '05 -- excuse me, '05 particularly I thought we played great here. So, players play. I've never lost to a building, but this has been very comfortable for us. Hopefully, it will last one more game. Q. Roy, Joel Berry passes Michael Jordan on the all time scoring list. I know Michael didn't play four years, but is that a line of demarcation for a Carolina player? How would you put that into perspective when you pass him in the record book in that way? ROY WILLIAMS: I'm sure every kid, you know, you say something like that, I start grinning. I mean, my gosh, but the 23 was pretty good. Having that extra year probably would have helped him, too. But you still, you're ahead of Michael Jordan in something. Lot of guys aren't ahead of Michael Jordan in anything. I'm happy for Joel. But also I've never had a point guard goal tend a shot that was not going to go in. Let's remember that's one thing I told him on the bench and in the locker room, to goal tend a shot that is not going in was not the smartest point guard play I ever had. Q. Roy, you're going to go up against a big strong team Sunday. Have you seen a team like that this year? How will you matchup with Texas A&M? ROY WILLIAMS: I'm sitting on the fence with it because I haven't seen them very much. Maybe it was the ACC tournament. I watch a lot of games, but it's games against people we're getting ready to play. I watch 10 or 15 minutes of an NBA game if one of our guys is in there. I saw a few minutes -- I think, who did they play first game of the year, some other country? West Virginia. Wasn't it out of our country? I watched that. That was the first game. Watched a little bit of that. I saw them play a little bit of Kansas for about 6, 7 minutes. So I really -- I know Davis is a heck of a tough kid around the basket. I know Williams -- I wish I were related because he's as good an athlete as I've seen. His dunks, he dunks them straight down. His dunks don't go in sideways. Billy, just think about what that guy has gone through physically and mentally over the last five or six or seven years. I'm a big fan of his. I'm a big admirer, the health problems that he's had and still doing what he's doing the way he's done it. I really am. I'm a big hero. He's one of my big heroes because he's handled some tough stuff. But I don't know that much about their team, and I need to find out a lot more in the next 48 hours. I know a lot about their head coach and I'm a great admirer of his. THE MODERATOR: Three more questions. Q. Roy, Scott tells people he's really pissed off at you for sitting him on the bench. ROY WILLIAMS: I offered it to him, but I let him get a little bit too old. He said he would rather sit with his buddies. I know he has not said what you just said, either. Q. Same thing about Theo, the busting out, is that the alignment or his maturity or you just saying take the dadgone ball to the basket? How did that happen? ROY WILLIAMS: It's something that's been happening since Theo started playing, number one. But this year it stands out more because he is the 4 man. The 4 man has got to try to pick him up. Every year even, Theo's freshman year, for Justin Jackson, for Harrison Barnes, every perimeter player I've ever coached, I said if you get the ball off the board, I want you to bust out on the break because I'm old school, old guy. The best fast break basketball I ever saw in my life was Magic Johnson getting the ball off the backboard. It wasn't when Kareem got it and made an outlet pass or James Worthy made an outlet pass. It's when Magic got it off. He busted out on the break and already left two defensive players behind. He made good decisions on the other end and could take it to the basket himself and lay it up. I'm not trying to say that Theo it is Magic Johnson, but that's been in my brain for a long time. I coached that same way at Kansas, I've coached it that way at North Carolina every year. The perimeter player gets the ball, busts it out on the break. I think it's the best fast break there is. And Theo, his freshman year he had a bad assist to error ratio. His assist to error ratio has been really good. A couple of his turnovers were offensive fouls I thought were questionable. He's a play maker. I like for him to do that. If he doesn't get the rebound, I want him to run to the low post on the other end. Because again, the guy that's going to have to guard him is a 4 man, he's going to come and set a rear screen on the lob, gets him out on court against a 4 man. It's been more evident because he's attempting it more and the 4 guys are trying to pick him up. Q. Coach, can you talk a little bit about your perimeter defense. You took away your 3-point game today and really did a good job with that. ROY WILLIAMS: It was one of the three things I put up on the board. We put up three things before every game. And it didn't have to be a nuclear physicist to figure out we needed to stop them or try to hold they percentage down. We really wanted them to not shoot a good percentage from 3-point line. That was one of the things we put up. But you know, with our guys, we're the biggest remedy for anybody that's got 3-point shooting woes. I'm telling you what, let me make sure, Kenny Cooper was a 1-55 before tonight, so we decided to help off in the post. He makes three of them. Another guy that made one at the end. And I don't mean to pick on somebody that was 6-36. Like several years ago we didn't go into Kentucky and play them they can't make a 3. Shoot, against us they make every daggone one they look at. If you have a bad 3-shooting team, just play us and you're percentage will go up quite a bit. THE MODERATOR: Last question. Q. UNC since the tournament kind of have rocky starts in the beginning. How did you plan to combat that going throughout the tournament? ROY WILLIAMS: First of all, it's hard for me to answer when I disagree with what your question is. Last year we played Texas Southern. We won by 40 or 50 or something. Justin made five 3s in the first half. Back in 1982 before you were born, we had Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, James Worthy and we blew out James Madison in the first round 52-50. There have been some struggles there. You just got to play. I've never thought we struggled in the first round. I've always thought we struggled more each and every round we go. But winner stays, loser goes home. That's the way we try to approach it. Thank you guys very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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