Roy Williams discusses UNC's victory over Winston-Salem State

Williams wasn't pleased with the Tar Heels.

Here's everything Roy Williams had to say after North Carolina's 96-61 victory over Winston-Salem State in Friday night's exhibition game at the Smith Center.

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Opening statement

Those of you who have been here around here for a long time like me, know the first thing I say is it’s a glorified practice, but it was a little frustrating at times. The things we’ve been working on, I didn’t think we were emphasizing enough out there, but that’s the reason you have exhibition games and that’s the reason you have 26 practices up until today, and the good news is, we’ll study the tape tonight and coaches grade the tape tonight and show the players the tape tomorrow and do some things to get better.

They seem to have more interest, better ability to drive the ball to the basket and kick than we did to stop them. We know Notre Dame is going to shoot a ton of threes and much more skilled — blessed is a better way to put it — blessed athletes than what Winston-Salem did, but I think we gained a great deal more from it if we would have if we had just been practicing. Don’t know anything about B-Rob. They’re going to have some X-Rays made tomorrow morning and we’ll know more after that.

Anything kind of jump out that you gained from tonight?

They know I can get mad now. It’s been in the back of their minds; they didn’t know that for sure, but it removed any doubt now.

How’s the defense been coming along?

We’ve been doing some nice things defensively and tonight, we started making mistakes and forgetting who the heck we were supposed to be guarding. After that, it sort of went downhill. You look at numbers and they shoot 32 percent, but we gave them way too many open drives to the basket, particularly in the first half. In the second half, they’d drive and we had somebody help and they’d kick and, what’d they shoot? 16 threes in the second half and they made four; it looked like to me they made 14 out of 14.
Coach Smith used to say you shouldn’t get too mad until you look at the tape. I’m already too mad, so I’m not going to say anything else until I look at the tape.

On his respect for Big House Gaines and what it would take for a big-time recruit to play at an HBCU

The second one, I have no idea. Earl the Pearl made ‘em look good and some of those guys, it can be done … Ben (Wallace). It can be done, there’s no question about that. They have to have the ability first but then they have to have that unbelievable desire to outwork people all the time.

Big House, Coach Gaines, he was great. He was great to me when I was a young coach, great to me when I was an old coach and my favorite story is we were in Houston, Texas, and I said, ‘Coach, you have anything planned to get you something to eat?’ He said, ‘No, not really.’ I said, ‘I’ve got a great barbecue place over here.’ … we went there and I was his friend the rest of his life. I showed him some of the best Texas barbecue you’d ever seen and he’d remind me every time I’d see him, he’d say, ‘You got any place in this town?’

Coach stood so many great things, being a great basketball coach but caring about people and trying to make sure that all his players got to be better players, but more importantly got to be better human beings by being with him. That’s a pretty good legacy to have.

On Leaky Black

The first 10 practices, he barely practiced. Since then, he’s been getting in more and more; we’ve been trying to go slow with him. He had one stretch today, I think he had three assists in a four-possession stretch and that was my favorite stretch of the game.

For us to be a really good basketball team, Leaky’s got to stay healthy and play and not make the silly mistakes he made today. Seven assists, one turnover, 2/3 from the floor, I don’t mind if he shoots more than that and I like him taking the ball to the basket, but seven assists and one turnover is the best part.

On Andrew Platek

He’s a good shooter … he was 1/4 from the 3-point line, he was 0-for-ever-how-many he took of those stupid floaters. Justin Jackson is the only guy I’ve ever seen that can make floaters, so he’s got a few more weeks to show that he can make them, or we’re going to put them in the basement.

Just a tough kid and tries to do the right thing; made maybe the best pass of the game, pitching it down the court to Armando as he was running down. He had three assists, zero turnovers. Andrew is a tough kid, too. He missed a good bit of preseason practice for his ankle as well.

What were the issues on the turnovers that you saw?

Stupidity.

Was Cole Anthony trying to force it tonight?

I don’t know. Cole is a playmaker, he makes a lot of plays, sometimes you’re going to make mistakes. I thought he made a couple of times where he penetrated it and got too far in there with two or three guys around him.

What you need to do is penetrate then you’ve got to stop at a point where you can make the play for somebody else or make the play for yourself. If you get too far in there, then you can’t make a play for anybody.

But he’s been sensational for us and the good news is, if I have to worry about Cole, then I don’t have many worries because he’s really good.

On Black and Justin Pierce offering flexibility

Guys, right now, we have eight guys that I feel like we’ve got confidence in. I’d like to get another one or two.

We have eight guys which means some guys, Leaky is going to have to play 1, 2 and 3 and Justin is going to have to play 3 and 4. So, it’s harder to cross the line. We have the point guard position, we have two wing positions and two post players. If you go across the line from one of those positions to the other, it’s difficult and Leaky and Justin are the two guys that are going to have to do it the most.