Roy Williams on Recruiting and Defending Vernon Carey

UNC coach is very familiar with Duke center

Williams has to figure out how to defend Vernon Carey, who is averaging 17.8 points and 9.0 rebounds for Duke this season.

“We’ll just hopefully be able to play defense a little early,” he said. “I think that the key is that you can’t wait until they have the ball on the wing, and he’s supposed to jump four feet, and then decide to start playing defense. So play defense early, get on the high side, try to see if we can front him down low or get him off the block, like we try to do against everybody. He may be—I’d have to go back and think about who all we played—may be the best low-post scorer we’ve faced so far. I recruited him extremely hard. He can also shoot the facing jump shot. He has good hands and can pass. He’s really, really a gifted player.”

Williams spent a great deal of time recruiting Carey and also Carey’s Duke freshman teammate, Matthew Hurt.

“I thought we had a chance, or we wouldn’t have kept going recruiting them for three years,” Williams said. “A lot of trips to Florida (where Carey is from), a lot of trips to Minnesota (Hurt’s home). They’re two great young men, great families, people we enjoy being with, unbelievable players. Matthew shoots the ball as well as anybody his size I’ve ever seen. Vernon is a guy that can do little bit of everything. He’s a good passer, shot blocker, rebounder, but he can really, really score. He can shoot facing. I’ve seen him make three threes in at least one or maybe two different high school games. They’re not good memories, because, in the end, they chose to go somewhere else.”