“I haven’t talked to them since the game. I’m not saying they’ve got to grow to 6-11 from 6-1 or that they’ve got to start shooting left-handed instead of right-handed, but if I’m screaming at a guy to get back in defensive balance and I said that on Oct. 15, that’s long enough. You need to change. You need to do it. If I’m saying, ‘Get to the board,’ and you’re a 3-4-5 – on Oct. 15 we said that 3-4-5 need to go the board every time – I don’t need to yell that anymore. You need to change.
“It’s like as a kid when you’re starting to put your finger into a [light] socket and Mom or Dad says, ‘No,’ and slaps your hand, at some point you’ve got to decide to stop putting your finger into the socket. Mommy and Daddy don’t need to say no anymore. You need to decide to stop doing it yourself. That’s exactly what I was talking about. If I’m over there yelling, ‘Get a hand up!’ and I was saying that Oct. 15, then I’m the dumb one because I’m still yelling the same thing.”
–
” It’s frustrating, there’s no question about that, but that’s also laying the blame. And the blame’s on all of us; it’s not just the kids. But I am tired. I’m tired of saying the same thing over and over and over. If you get into this University, you’re fairly intelligent, because I got a degree from here. At some point you’ve got to change. That’s education. You have got to change your behavior.”
I don’t think Roy has done a fantastic job with this team but I’ll happily support the kind of mistakes he has made this season. To me, Roy saw an 8-8 ACC season coming from the very beginning of practice. He pushed this team to be better than that and instead things spiraled out of control. The buttons he pushed were all wrong. He kept trying to put someone else in…someone who was very good at basketball in…and that player was not on the bench. Suddenly, this was a team that could not create good shots. This is a team full of players trying to do things they had never done before. Every single player who got minutes was being asked do take a huge step up from last season and most of them were unable to make that step. We see this team at times look like they have never ever played the game of basketball before. The rotation probably should have been set by December. John Henson and Leslie McDonald should have played more than they did. They both make tons of errors but who on this team doesn’t? The Wear twins got way too many minutes. I’m sure this could go on all day but it is easy to see that Roy kept tinkering because he was trying to make this team excellent. That is all he has known and he was not about to stop trying. Unfortunately even Roy Williams, savior of North Carolina basketball, can not turn water into wine. “But he brought in the water” says Dook asshat. Fair enough, I suppose. Pardon me if I give Roy Williams a pass, considering 4 of last years starting 5 are making money playing basketball this season. He signed those guys too. Maybe I’d rather have John Wall than David Wear but maybe I wouldn’t.
I’m going to stop here but my point to all this rambling is simple. Taking a longer view of things helps me see that things could be a whole lot worse. In fact, things are pretty rad. In some ways this is just like any other season. We play a game on a Thursday in March that we must win to keep playing (competitive basketball). If we lose ‘will he stay or go’ questions will begin. Dook will flame out in the first few rounds. Jon Scheyer will cry. Some team will upset Kentucky. It will get warm. Harrison Barnes will show up.
I’m going to smile and try to enjoy whatever we have left of the defending champs. Join me?
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It wasnt so much as what Coach Williams said as it was his demeanor. He appeared relaxed and comfortable with himself and I was happy to see that. We all know how frustrated he is, but I saw a man who has come to terms with what this season has become. He’s said all he can say…to the players, to the media, to everybody…and he realizes exactly where things are. His only concern right now, as well it should be, is to prepare his team to play GT and he’s not going to quit. I have loathed some of his coaching decisions this year, but I applaud him for continuing to do his job the only way he knows how….the same way he has successfully done it for twenty years.
Great. Now we find out that Roy hit his kids when they were babies….
I try to steel myself away from this stuff, but Roy Williams is the most fascinating guy to ever coach basketball. How can anyone look away from this guy? Most of us, if daddy was a drunk, we sort of try to obscure that fact, not Roy.
Parsing this out, Roy now seems to be saying that he recruited the dumbest team in his history as a head coach. Even he cannot figure out why the esteemed officials of the University of North Carolina allowed these guys, with apparently no basketball aptitude whatsoever, to matriculate.
The most fascinating thing to me is that whenever Roy says something, the first reaction is, “right on.” “You go, boy.”
Then, when we think about what Roy is really saying, we realize that we can’t absolve him, even if we want to. If we absolve his coaching, then we end up impugning his recruiting. If we absolve his management of personalities, then we end up impugning his personnel decisions.
Roy, you are making it very hard for people to defend you.
“I try to steel myself away from this stuff, but Roy Williams is the most fascinating guy to ever coach basketball. How can anyone look away from this guy?”
Couldn’t agree more. The man is extremely interesting to watch. Moreso than any public figure I’ve seen in my life — coach or politician. Anyone.
I’m still fairly young, but I think Bill Clinton was pretty darn interesting (could be a real hoot, dependent on your view (political, cigars, other, the definition of “is” )). His presidency combined with an unusually forward first lady…well it weren’t boring.
Then again, that was my early-mid 20s; learnin’ stuff & hearing some really good rock emanating from the Northwest made it more memorable.
Thank you, briarcliff.
Some people felt that way about Bill Clinton, who was another person with great talent and perhaps a somewhat similar upbringing, who always ended up being the star of the show.
I have read pretty much anything I can get my hands on about Roy Williams and I have been a huge fan of his since the Coca-Cola article in SI back in 1997. And as SCL11 said earlier today, I am far from giving up on him. I don’t think all of this success could have been sheer luck. Alan Greenspan had about 15 great years and then one mindbogglingly terrible one and then retired. At least Roy has another ten years at least if he wants them….
Wow, you said the same thing TXTarheel….
I presume that most folks would choose the ben hogan route, and behave stoically if not extremely so (all the while bashing your 2-iron until your hands bleed on the practice range). I’ve read hogan was a cold fish even to his closest counterparts. Roy is many things, but not that fer as I can see.
however…ben hogan’s childhood may have been worser.
How about John Daly? Believe it or not, he was the finest person in his family. All the others, wife included, ended up in jail….
JD is a tragically true contradiction. One of the best short / sand games you’ll ever see…when he is on. Hard to forget seeing him with the cold shakes on a tour event once (not in person).
That being said…i bet Charles Barkeley and JD would be a hoot at a Vegas table. Not that either one should be within 100 miles of a table.
Id favor presidential / political history. Teddy Roosevelt had a fascinating life, for one.
How about Grover Cleveland?
By the way, two of the three greatest pitchers of all time had the letters “grove” in their names. That is probably why the third, Walter Johnson is generally recognized as the best ever. Who can keep the other two straight?
And as you said, TXTarheel, “here we are now, entertain us….”
to quote a certain ‘supposed user’…I must have mis-remembered on that one (Cleveland).
always preferred the pontifications of Chris Cornell / Soundgarden…or a little Alice in Chains can suffice.
I’m looking California, and feeling Minnesota
This season is odd, isn’t it? You can’t look at it and you can’t not look at it.
I don’t know sports stars nearly as well as william and others here do, but I always thought Bill Tilden was among the most fascinating. He was the dominating tennis player of the 1920′s, and probably one of the best of all time. He is likely best remembered for his more-or-less open homosexualtiy; evidently he had relations with more than one teenage ball boy, and twice went to prison on morals charges. But what I think is most interesting about him was his iron-clad sportsmanship. If he thought the umpire made an erroneous call in his favor, he would intentionally hit the next ball into the net. He also refunded to the promoter his share of the proceeds when one of his tournaments failed to draw the expected crowd.
That sort of behavior is unheard of now. Unfortunately.
I think I covered this already in another thread about as well as I can. The short version is this:
Why are they still playing if they don’t listen?
Why did you recruit them if they don’t listen?
I sure hope you are planning to clean house before next season and get some players that will listen.
RW could bring T. Hans into the locker room for a post-season discussion.
“coffee is for closers”
Tyler will cue the sales scene from Glengarry glen ross, with alec baldwin. google or You tube if you don’t know it…classic. Tyler had brass…ones. Which in many way is applicable.
“3rd place…you’re fired. Do I have your attention ?”
PS: the setting is a sales force meeting, but actually it’s a competition for their jobs selling real estate.
Rath, jack nicklaus likely had a comparable reputation. Class winner, class 2nd place. Jack memorably gave a 2-footer to halve the ryder cup (either 1969, or 1970).
I’m not a huge tennis person anymore, but thought Arthur Ashe was class act. Can’t play here…ok I’ll beat your ****** anyway. (a very simplified anecdote. I’d have to read up on Ashe)
I saw some clips of Ashe playing tennis on grass at the U.S. Open and it looked like a completely different game from today. Beautiful and graceful, although even back then people were beginning to complain about power tennis ruining the game. Ashe would have his final great moment in dismantling Jimmy Connors in 1975, I think, at Wimbledon.
There was a brilliant book written about Ashe’s U.S. Open win in the 60′s which I guess was right before the tourney went towards being for mostly professionals. Bill Tilden was another fascinating figure as was Rene Lacoste, who came from a great sporting family and started a line of sportswear.
Is this a day for all the amateur psychologists to hold sway? lol.
If so, here is my 2-cent contribution. It was my great realization of a dream to attend the Wednesday practice round of The Masters last year. I have always loved to watch by TV golf on such a beautifully manicured course and wanted to walk Augusta National and enjoy the beauty. That I did.
Another scene also came to the front that amazed me too. It was the pure adulation and hero worship that was accorded to Tiger Woods by many men but also by a great many middle-aged women in the crowds that followed Woods on every hole. I wonder how those same people view Tiger Woods after his “bad” year?
^^To reiterate a prior post- why do they play if they can’t or won’t listen?
^I assume this is a rhetorical question.
It would appear that the ones who can’t or won’t listen (we have to assume that there are at least some who can and do) do play less.
If everyone can’t or won’t listen, on an equal basis, then play the most productive players, which is probably what they should be doing anyway. You’ve still got to field a team for a minimum of one game, and, no, you don’t play the walk-ons.
After exhausting every last superstitious ritual, many nights of lost sleep, one lamp broken by a thrown hat and a “He’s Not Here” blue cup- fueled drunken stupor Saturday after the Hansbrough Indoor Massacre I’ve reached peace with the fact that I think Roy experimented with a new recruiting strategy with the last two classes: A blend of project players (Wear twins, McDonald, LD2, Zell) and risk-reward players (Henson, Strick, Ed).
I think he had to know that the latter group might be a little slow to listen to him, but assumed that would be made up for if they stepped it up in games and followed the lead that we all (wrongly) hoped and believed Marcus and Deon would provide. I think Roy also believed that would more than provide us with enough talent to allow the project guys to develop and that, combined, that would lead us to an 8-8 type ACC season and at least some NCAA tourney experiment, while maybe accelerating our chances to really take a huge leap forward next year with the addition of Barnes, Bullock and Marshall.
Am I being naive? Probably. Do I care? Not really. At this point, I’m doing what I can to just suffer this season as little possible. But if I’m right and he did that and it exploded in his face, then fine. I think the two titles and three final fours in five years have more than earned Roy the right to do that sort of thing. Alright, I’ll stop rambling and go back to making my anti-dook signs for the ACCT, while figuring out which mid-major I’m adopting for the NCAAT (I’m thinking Butler). Let the shredding of my hastily put together theory commence.
But what do you do when you have players who do not listen and you also have players who are not productive?
You lose early and often. You place no players on ANY all-ACC team. Your season sucks. Your alums and other fans are po’ed to the max. Have a drink. It’s baseball season. GO Heels!!
I think the coach, particularly at this level, creates an environment for the team to succeed. He has final say on recruiting and all the other major decisions but there is only so much one man can do. There are a few men sitting on that bench with ties that hold some level of responsibility on this team, it’s not just Roy and the boys. Something that gets over simplified here and everywhere. Obviously he’s the face of the team so he gets the baggage but there must be more to this storyline. It’s easier to see on fb teams as you have so many players the level of specialization is extreme. One more reason basketball is so cool – five players on the floor and only so many roles.
william noted that Greenspan was successful over a long period of time which is true and it’s much easier to see that he created an environment for success and failure. I think the same thing happened with Roy, though many of these decisions were made years in advance so it’s hard to tie them back to a single moment or time when x happened and y was the result.
“Already building team chemistry. RT @kendallmarshall Decided ima go down to NC on Sunday to watch my bro @uncbull35 win a state championship 7 mins ago” – THF Twitter
YOU CAN PARTICIPATE:
NCHSAA STATE BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP SCHEDULE
SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 2010
96th ANNUAL MEN’S NCHSAA BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS
At Raleigh–Reynolds Coliseum
Class 2-A Men — 2:30 P.M.
Kinston High School Vikings (27-4)
Vs.
West Caldwell High School Warriors (27-2)
http://www.nchsaa.org/newsletter.php?mode=display&archiveID=1166
^Thanks for the heads-up on NCHSAA Championships and Kinston’s game, BBLB. I know what I’ll be doing this Sat. afternoon unless……..well, never mind.
Hopefully some of the folks on the site, who attend the game, will give performance evaluations of Reggie.
How does a sinlge reporter not ask follow up questions such as:
So Roy was it just a select few that did not listen or was this problem widespread?
Also did you bench or cut the minutes during the season of the players that did not listen or provide effort?
Knowing what you know now Roy, how would you have addressed these listening and effort issues differently?
I view this as one big stinking EXCUSE that basically says look guys Ole Roy (3rd person) coached his ****** off, but these guys just didn’t get it and wouldn’t listen so it’s not my fault.
So let me get this straight in my feeble mind:
1- Evidently there are rumors that Ed Davis came in out of shape while displaying poor effort and a bad attitude, but starts from day one is never benched and never has his minutes cut until his injuries.
2- There was an inherent problem of players not listening from day one and showing poor effort, but no major lineup changes or adjustments to minutes from the Head Coach were implemented that some would have viewed has sending a message or at the very least allowed those that do listen and show effort to play.
3- Roy not only throws the players performances under the bus, but now he questions their intelligence too.
4- Roy says everyone is to blame, BUT he is tired of saying the same thing over and over, although he never tried anything different from my outside point of view.
So which is it Roy:
You made a bunch of mistakes in recruiting a whole bunch of unintelligent players that don’t listen and provide poor effort or you failed to reach this team and might have blundered some of the decisions on how to develop this team and use its talent while not dealing with a couple of malcontents in the best manner possible?
The first one is a problem for next season, where the latter provides hope for next year once additional pieces can be added and the malcontents can be dealt with accordingly.
One thing is clear, Roy Williams lost control of this team and that is something I never thought I would say once he returned to Chapel Hill.
You know all the complaining that ya’ll do about Ginyard, Deon, Wears, etc getting minutes while arguably more talented players languished on the bench? This is the explanation with two notable exceptions. He was still willing to play Davis even though Davis’ effort was in question and for some reason he did not play Zeller more even though Zeller probably had a grasp of what was happening. Outside of that, the reason we kept seeing some players over others is because they showed a better handle on what they were supposed to be doing out there in practice. In other words, more talented players were not picking things up. Less talented players were.
Secondly, some of you seem hell bent on trying to pin the blame all in one place. I said this two weeks ago. It’s everything. Injuries, coaching deficiencies, player attitude, effort, team chemistry, Twitter, cats and dogs living together, etc. etc. etc.
Is Roy ultimately responsible? Sure but I am trying to figure out why people get so bent out of shape over Roy being honest with what is happening with the team? Based on the product on the court does anyone dispute Roy’s assertions that the team is not listening or executing as instructed? And spare me this “well Roy has to figure out a different way.” Really? It is not like he gets these guys 24-7 for nothing but basketball. It is not like he has huge amounts of time where he can sit down and rewrite the book he has used for 20 years then has the time to reteach stuff. And even if he did, apparently they don’t listen so what difference does it make? Besides that show me where he said they were not intelligent. He said if you get into UNC then obviously you are intelligent. He is not saying they are stupid, he is saying they have not been committed to doing the things he has instructed them to do. At no point is he saying these guys are not smart but he is questioning their focus to do the things that will help them win such as blocking out a secondary offensive player on the fast break which he said they talked about in practice and two days later someone did not do leading to an easy basket.
You tell me. If the coach stops practice to explain a play and says “now here, Larry is trying to stop Marcus on the fast break and Will you are coming up behind. Now Will you need to pick up Dexter as he is coming up court and block him out just in case Larry forces Marcus to miss the shot” and then in the game that play happens and no one boxes out Scheyer as he is coming behind Singler on the break whose fault is that? Is it Roy’s? He instructed them on what to do. Are they stupid for not doing it? No, they probably fully understood what Roy meant. However in the heat of battle you have to be focused on the little things to win and if Will Graves forgets to box someone out at a given point is not because he is stupid it is because he is not focusing on what he needs to be doing.
IMO, I think you can easily carve up what’s wrong into nice chunks. Once you take the injuries out of equation I still think you end up tilting in the direction of the players as the primary issue though you are probably talking about a 60-40 situation. Why do I think that? Because Roy has been successful for 20 years running his system. The only thing that changed was the players. Did he make mistakes in recruiting and utilization of personnel? Possibly on the first and likely on the second, especially where John Henson was concerned. I am not ready to throw anyone in the freshmen class under the bus yet simply because they deserve more of a chance.
The bottom line is there are many things wrong here. Beating on one point over another is really not telling the whole story. Besides that, in the case of this coach, I figured he might have earned a mulligan for a bad season given how good things have been over the past five years. I guess that is not the case.
native, I had the chance to see both US Opens being hosted at Pinehurst (1999. 2005). IT is incredible how deep the crowd goes, or used to go, following TW on the course. Golf can be interesting to watch, but less so if he does not lurk on the Sunday leaderboard(s). I think he’ll recover…just think if he only focused on golf.
for this talk of Greenspan…his career spanned notable achievements at the FED but economic courses will debate on end the FOMC role in percolating this real estate bubble, a 2nd speculative asset/investment bubble to occur since 1995 no less. Easy money.
http://www.news-record.com/content/2010/03/09/article/north_carolinaaposs_fall_from_grace
should be many of these type of articles driving the nails into the coffin
^^^^
#1 “Rumors” – How flagrant this was cannot be determined by the general public to the degree that we can say Roy should have taken a certain action.
#2 How can we say lineup changes were not made to send a message when we don’t precisely know who was doing what? Maybe they were made.
#3 Fair enough – Though I don’t think he meant “unintelligent” so literally, if he even said it or implied it. The main point was that they are being slow to catch on and not concentrating.
#4 Seems to me he tried pretty much everything – Maybe not with the timing or sequence it should have been tried.
^^^ I believe the 60-40, player/coach ratio is about right, regarding relative responsiblity for what has happened. I might even be inclined to put a little more on the players if we didn’t have only 2-3 players on the team with much experience or PT history.
THF,
Yes, Roy deserves a mulligan because he has earned it and as I’ve said before I think he will reflect on his mistakes this season and come back stronger than ever, but I just have a problem with the way he has communicated all these issues all season. We’ve already been lectured many times this season that Roy has a detailed grading system that determines starters and playing time, so if he is still having listening and retention issues in March how did these issues continue to get missed in the grading system. If it wasn’t for injury nothing was going to change in the rotation and minutes from day one, so if listening and effort were an issue then when and how did Roy address it via minutes and rotation? If the listening and effort was so bad for the “more talented” players then why not shell out a DNP every once in awhile to send a message, and you pointed to Will Graves in your example so I don’t think the issue was limited to the freshmen.
If Roy doesn’t want to air the dirty laundry fine, but then don’t bring up players not listening and you having to say the same thing over and over again as an excuse, but not address how you either handled those issues or at least how you should have handled those issues better. Otherwise it is just a copout in order to cast you in a light that you did your job, but the players just didn’t do theirs. Roy could have said “we have had a hard time applying what we have practiced into the actual game environments this season” and basically conveyed the same point without calling out players for failing to listen even though he keeps coaching it.
Also, I never said Roy called his players stupid, just that he questioned their intelligence and this quote definitely questions their intelligence or at least how their intelligence is being applied:
“If you get into this University, you’re fairly intelligent, because I got a degree from here. At some point you’ve got to change. That’s education. You have got to change your behavior.”
Roy basically is saying I’m a smart guy and got a degree from this University, so I know they only allow smart people into this University, so you should be bright enough to understand all the things I say and remember it. In other words, you should be smart enough, but I haven’t seen it yet.
My problem is Roy is not conveying a 60/40 split of blame (60% player and 40% coach), his comments are conveying more of a 90/10 split (90% player and 10% coach), and personally I think he should be conveying the complete opposite to the public (10% player and 90% coach) even though everyone in the locker room knows they are just as much to blame as the head coach.
I am not taking it that way and he used a golf analogy about “not forward pressing” on your swing or something like that and said that you have to be committed to remember to do what it takes to win. He said if he is up one going to the last hole, he needs to be remembering the things that will help him win. In his mind, the players have the same issue. I think he believes they know what to do but he thinks they are simply not focusing or concentrating. I don’t take that to mean they are dumber than anyone else but I do take it to mean they are not giving proper attention to detail.
BTW, Roy refuses to say effort and attitude are issues probably because doing so would create a major PR mess but Ginyard said as much and to some extent effort is part of being committed and focusing.
I agree that Roy has offered varying explanations. Then again that probably comes from trying to find different ways to talk about the same freaking problem.
Dschwind, you and I think a lot alike sir. While nobody can be completely absolved of this train wreck I still think it took a “perfect storm” of events, injuries, and personalities to bring this about. And I would disagree with posters that believe another (different/better) coach could have made at difference in the won-loss record this year. Roy has been more willing to try different things than I have ever seen out of him. Recall at the first of the season when we commented that we’d even seen the Heels playing zone? People were quick to say don’t get used to it, Roy doesn’t play zone. But he has this season, and a lot of it. Roy gets accolades for being a great recruiter, and deservedly so. Even the great ones are sometimes dealt a hand that they ultimately have to fold though. To further the poker analogy, you take what you’re dealt and then bet on the cards being turned to be what you need (new recruits). If you get a card that makes your hand stronger (a 5 star recruit that fits the program), then you keep betting even though the next card (recruit) might not pan out. The great ones keep playing and they win much more often than they lose.
It’s been said that Roy is a great recruiter and a so so game day coach. I’ll take that as a head coach any day and will see your string of early NCAAT flameouts and raise you a Natty or three.
Oh and another thing Dschwind, other than the broken lamp we had a very similar season experience. Go Heels!
scl11,
Point taken. I think this is where Roy’s penchant to be brutally honest and his ego come into play. I also think the things that make Roy successful. His emotional intensity, confidence and work ethic getting really turned around amid adversity, especially the first two. The stress of losing brings out the worse parts of his ego and his “heart on his sleeve” when it comes to talking about all that has gone wrong has created some bad situations.
Someone above said that you don’t play the walk ons. Why the hell not? Please tell me why you don’t play the walk ons if you aren’t getting production from the scholarship players and you don’t feel they are listening to what you are teaching them? Playing the walk ons would at worst get you the same results we already got this year, ie a bunch of blow out losses. At least those kids probably freakin listen to the coach. At least we wouldn’t be sitting here questioning their effort. Do you think that might send a message to the malcontents and the kids on scholarship that don’t listen?!? And in the other thread I took it a step further, when I said if the walk ons won’t listen or won’t put forth the effort then hold open try outs on campus even if it’s mid-season. If commitment is the problem then show these kids that wearing that uniform and stepping on that court during the game are a privilege not a right.
Again if this is the primary problem with this team then UNC needs a drill sergeant type on the coaching staff to get in these kids face about it. Why is basic training in the military so hard? It’s because those kids have to do it without thinking about it or they die. Basketball isn’t life or death but those kids still need to learn how to do it without thinking about it or the team loses. Some of these kids need to be PTed until they either do it right or quit and go elsewhere.
Roy’s fault is that he is the one that has to make these decisions. He is the one that has to quit playing the malcontents and the ones that aren’t getting it. He is the one that has to hire the assistants to help him teach these kids. And he is the one that recruited this bunch that allegedly won’t listen to him. If he won’t bench the players that don’t listen, if he won’t hire the assistants that can get through to these kids, and if he can’t see this problem coming after spending 4+ years recruiting these kids then Roy is ultimately the one who has to bear the blame.
^uga, You seem less critically-balanced than I first imagined you to be. Guess you’re just showing some tough love, huh?
Maybe I’m just mad at this point. I was pissed at people here for beating up on these guys after winning two games in a row but that was before all of this doesn’t listen crap started coming out. That was before the Duke disaster.
Lack of talent I can take. Lack of luck I can handle. But lack of commitment??? No I draw the line there. These kids are the elite of athletic talent. Not 10% of the whole country ever get’s to play for a division I basketball team. These kids truly won the genetic lottery. They were endowed with a God given gift to run faster, jump higher, and shoot better then almost all of us. To throw that away because of lack of effort is a disgrace of the first magnitude IMO. Let them go play street ball if that’s their attitude towards the game. I would rather we got our asses handed to us every game every year because we played nothing but walk ons then to lose because our team didn’t even try.
I didn’t want to believe it was lack of effort. But when the head coach says it, and then the players start to say it, and then other players are clowning around on the internet after turning in this kind of season long performance then I have to believe it is true. They either need to grow up or get out if they are going to act like that.
^^^ I think that the score would not have been appreciably worse if Roy had played the walk-ons a lot. It could have been worse against the starters but Dook looked like they were trying to not run it up. I expect that that would have held true even if the 3rd stringers were playing. We don’t know the breakdown of who’s paying attention and who isn’t so it is difficult to parse this out. But if you have a group that’s absorbing the coaching and showing effort, then they should get the PT regardless of their team standing. A coach owes that to his team. What kind of message does that send to the guys who are doing their best when the F*Ups get the PT. Also, what does it get you? An ******-kicking at Dook. Ultimately is there more dignity in losing by 32 with your starters or by about that same amountor even more with playing a lot of scrubs? How does Roy intend to drive home the message that you have to follow his instructions if the players that aren’t get the PT anyway? I know that many of you will think I’m crazy for suggesting it, but at some point a coach has to demand the respect of his players unless they are too stupid to understand and if that’s the case it doesn’t much matter what you do.
X
There were plenty of times in past years that I was so hacked with a player that I wished that for once Dean would call the player out, tell the whole world what we already knew, that the offending player was the biggest moron ever to wear Carolina Blue.
He never did, thankfully.
Roy still has a lot to learn.