NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 27, 2002

Roy Williams

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: Thank you very much.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: Yeah, that's right (laughs) how dumb I was...

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: I think I will be able to enjoy it. I am going to work very hard to make sure that I do once we get past the ticket requests and the room requests, from everybody in the world, I think that it will get to be a lot more fun. But I am going to push our team to enjoy it. We're going to try to allow them to see and do several things and enjoy the moment themselves and at the same time when I am watching tape, I am going to be really concentrating. When I am on the court I am going to really concentrate. That's what I am going to ask our players to do, the same thing. Try to enjoy themselves but realize that we're there to try and play as well as we can play. That has to take priority.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: Well, I really haven't gotten down to that stage of the scouting and tried to see about the matchups so I will just have to go off the top of my head. The first thing that comes to my mind is that I think we are very similar teams. They have some -- a couple of guys up front who rebound a heck out of it; can run, particularly Wilcox as athletic -- and Lonny makes up for some of the factors that people say he's not very athletic, and I happen to think he is. But with the strength and the bulk that he has, and three perimeter players who can shoot, who can pass, who can dribble and handle the ball, and can defend people and so, to me, the matchups don't really breakdown as individual against individual. It is team against team and they have got a couple of guys that they can bring in off the bench that really help them. We feel like that we do also, and you know, it is interesting to look at it that way.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: He's not 100% by any means. I think that his stamina is still in question. He gave me more tired signals in the Oregon game the other night than I have gotten from him the entire season so we are trying to get him some extra time on the bike and things like that because we don't want to pound on his ankle this week; trying to see if we can build his stamina back up because he basically went about nine days without really doing much on a conditioning basis at all.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: I don't know if I want to be the ring leader of that crowd or not. But the one that always gets the most attention and I have never done it anywhere except the Mississippi River is in 1982 when I was assistant in North Carolina, somebody told me it was good luck to spit in the Mississippi. So I did it that year and we won the National Championships. So I did it again in 1993 when we were going through St. Louis, and then did it again this year when we were in St. Louis. So that's the one that's got the most attention. I really don't go around spitting in every, you know, little puddle of water that you can find (laughs), but there's a lot of things, sometimes I always know what coat and tie, what that record is of that coat and tie. But this year being 33 and 3 I can tell you which three outfits I will not be wearing in Atlanta, I can tell you that. But I do get them cleaned in between. I don't wear the same ones all the time but if I wear one outfit against one team and we win and we play them again later on in the conference schedule I may do that. A lot of mine are just something that hits me that day. I will say, okay, that's good luck. Whether it is finding a penny or whatever, and I try to even be not as superstitious as I have been in the past.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: Well, I guess and I might even be a little confused, I don't know that how they have changed their game. They are both very fundamentally sound all-around basketball players, and that's what we ask them to do. They are both very good defensively. They can handle balls. They can pass. They can shoot, Nick being the inside player can rebound more, but Kirk the perimeter is really good, sliding his feet defensively, and has-- can really shoot the basketball with range. But I don't know that they have you know, to -- again maybe I am not understanding the question, but their fathers were fantastic coaches and teachers that taught them to be fundamentally sound all-around basketball players and that's what they have done for us from day one.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: I think that's a little bit of it because he's so fundamentally sound that he can do anything, he doesn't have the size to play center spot for you, but he can play anywhere on the perimeter and guard people with different sizes. He can guard the 6-foot guy and he can also cause some problems for the 6'4", 6'5" guy. It is a little difficult for him if he tries to guard anybody bigger than that. He also knows he's probably going to be playing 15 minutes a game at the point; he's such a great runner that when he's not at the point he really gives Aaron Miles a target to pitch ahead to.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: He's very vocal and he is vocal with the team and out on the court and he does lead somewhat by that, but the biggest way that Drew leads is how successful he is as a player. The other players feed off of his success. They feed off of him getting three rebounds in a row like he did on the one possession down the court the other night and it gives the other guys a little bit more energy level. Then he understands how to play the game so much more than he did. As a freshman here he might not have said too much because he was a freshman, but when he did say something people just sort of looked out of the corner of their eyes but the young man understands the game of basketball so much better now that about anything that he wants to do on the leadership role the other guys appreciate.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: I think Drew has had a fantastic year. I think Jason Williams has had a fantastic year also. The NCAA tournament is one game and you are out, Tiger Woods played in a Match Play tournament several weeks ago and he's the best golfer in the word and he played No. 64 and he lost. That's what we face everyday in the NCAA tournament. But I think that Drew throughout the course of the season, the first day to the last day, has played exceptionally well and I think that he's probably -- at the start of the season I think it was Jason was clearly going to be the college Player-of-the-Year if he had a good year. Drew wasn't really on the radar. I think he's just come so-so far and played so-so well that he's made probably a lot of those contests a lot closer than people expected him to be.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: It is something that -- I was with Coach Smith -- needless to say we have talked about it before, and Lute and Jimmy are both good friends and both of them - it is strange I didn't use the exact same terminology that coach did, but in '82 when we won the National Championship Game, I said to him afterwards I said, I am so happy for you that you shut those people up. He looked at me and said, I don't know that I am any better coach now than I was two and a half hours ago. You start thinking about it that's really true and Lou and Jimmy, both given me the same kind of scenarios, and just, you know, it's something that I know that people are going to say and I have got to live with, and if we ever do with win it, they will move to somebody else and if we don't, they will keep coming after me. I just hope we're always in position so that at least they are saying that we're successful.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: I am not in the locker room until we go in and give them the last little bit of information that we might give so I don't know if he does it often. I do know that he said some things in the locker room before the game the other night. I do know he was more vocal in the huddles and particularly as we were breaking the huddles in the Oregon game than any game he has had this year. At first it sort of startled me and then I sort of grinned and felt very comfortable by it because Nick is a great leader and when he says something those kids listen to him.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: I think the won and done is part of it because everybody thinks they have got a chance to win just once. If I play Tiger Woods one hole I might win one hole but the more of you play I am not going to win for sure. But I think that's part of it. I think the other thing is there are just so many good players in college basketball that teams really are much more evenly matched than people appear, than the people think they are.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: Well, I hope that I am always considered part of the Carolina family and I think I am. I know I am by Coach Smith and I know the players that I was fortunate enough to help coach there. Some of the fans I am sure were not as happy with me as they wanted to be when I decided to stay here but I have always felt that time will heal a lot of wounds and my success that I am having as a coach is No. 1 directly related to how well my players are playing. But after that, everything I do, I learned from Coach Smith and Coach Guthridge and Eddie Fogler. So I hope that they feel a little more satisfaction and through that part of it that the Carolina people know that I learned what I know about coaching was the Carolina way and that's what we're trying to do.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: As a matter of fact, I spoke to Coach Smith even yesterday so it's still a family and it will always be that way.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: A little bit of both. I wanted to be a little bit faster and a little bit more athletic over the last couple of years. I think we have gotten away from not completely the way I wanted to play but I just like to play at a fast pace and to pressure the ball and to pressure the other team by running it up their backs. So we have tried to recruit a little more of an athletic player over the last oh three, four years even, and we definitely are faster with our big guys than we have been in a lot of times because we have had some really big players who were very important to us, but didn't run as well as these two guys we have got right now.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: You know, I don't know, it's helped us this March, I can tell you that, but we have had a couple of pretty good runs and maybe not been nearly as athletic as we are right now but I think -- I just like to play that way. I think kids like to play that way, so it has been something that our kids themselves the kids on our team have really enjoyed and I think that I have been trying to push for a long time to enjoy the season itself and enjoy the journey and perhaps that has been part of it.

COACH ROY WILLIAMS: Okay, everybody, have a good day.