Roy blames UNC's struggles on...

[JasonEvans]

...Losing Kendall Marshall to the NBA.

At least that is my takeaway from this article.

It was only about a year ago around this time that Williams started to think Marshall might leave early.

“It caught us off guard, but not at the end,” Williams said last week. “I mean, we’re sitting here in September, October, (and) said boy, he played great at the end of his freshman year. But there was no one that would say he was going to be the 13th pick (in the NBA draft) – no one. And if somebody tells you they did, they’re a liar.”

Well, here is an entire DBR thread started in September of 2011 talking about Kendall Marshall's NBA draft chances in which many people talk about why he might leave after that coming season.

At the bottom of the first page of the thread, our own Jim Sumner says:

My Carolina sources think that Marshall is more than willing to start taking NBA money sooner than later.

And noted Carolina fan Wheat even posts a Sporting News mock-draft from early October 2011 that has Kendall Marshall going in the lottery! Sporting News projects Kendall as the #13 pick.

So, either Roy ain't paying attention or he thinks Jim Sumner and the Sporting News are both liars...

...either that or he is making stuff up and using revisionist history to paint himself as a victim in an effort to explain why a team judged as pre-season Top 15 is now barely on the NCAA tourney bubble.

--Jason "naaah, that can't be the answer" Evans

[Wander]

Well, look how long it took Roy to figure out that Marshall was better than Larry Drew. Look at his current rotation of players and starters. I don't think we can discount the possibility that Roy really was that slow to realize Marshall could leave early.

[Mike Corey]

That Roy Williams has had success as a coach continues to dumbfound me. The man simply cannot succeed unless he has a Porsche at point guard. When he's got a Kia, all he's got are excuses.

[OldPhiKap]

That Roy Williams has had success as a coach continues to dumbfound me. The man simply cannot succeed unless he has a Porsche at point guard. When he's got a Kia, all he's got are excuses.

It's probably because he has more passion for UNC in his little finger than the entire Ram's Club has in its collective soul.

Trust him, he's measured it.

[BD80]

That Roy Williams has had success as a coach continues to dumbfound me. The man simply cannot succeed unless he has a Porsche at point guard. When he's got a Kia, all he's got are excuses.

What was Jason Bateman's line in "Horrible Bosses" when he receives a dubious glance at his claim he was racing in his Prius?

"I don't win a lot"

[Durham Thunder]

Roy's a tough one. He seems like a top-5 coach at times, but others he seems overrated. I know that poll came out last year saying he is THE MOST overrated, but that's not true it's Calipari (talk about awful without a porsche).

Coach K lost JJ and Shelden at the same time, and that's extraordinarily bad. However, K managed to keep his team competitive and ranked in the top-20 for most of that 2006-2007 season. When put in the same situation, Roy has a year like this, or he completely dies like he did in 2009-2010.

[sporthenry]

Roy's a tough one. He seems like a top-5 coach at times, but others he seems overrated. I know that poll came out last year saying he is THE MOST overrated, but that's not true it's Calipari (talk about awful without a porsche).

Coach K lost JJ and Shelden at the same time, and that's extraordinarily bad. However, K managed to keep his team competitive and ranked in the top-20 for most of that 2006-2007 season. When put in the same situation, Roy has a year like this, or he completely dies like he did in 2009-2010.

Actually, Calipari wasn't even mentioned in the overrated poll. And after reading more about the dribble drive and seeing some of his practices on Gameday, I actually think Calipari gets a bad wrap as a coach. He is still a sleaze but a good coach. And the one year he won a title, he did it with arguably his worst car. Not Wall, not Rose, not even Brandon Knight but Marquis Teague.

As far as Roy, I do agree that he needs a PG to run the break. He may not have to be elite, but if he can't get them out in transition, the team seems to fail. Roy wants to play at a fast pace and wants more possessions b/c he thinks more possessions will allow his better talent to prove itself with more iterations.

But this is why K is great. He can win either way. In 2010, Duke was 249th in pace on Kenpom. Now it doesn't go back to 2001 but I would believe Duke would have been one of the faster paced teams. The two years UNC has won, they were the #8 team in pace. Both comparatively and absolutely, Duke was the slowest paced team to win a title since Kenpom started in 2003 and UCONN was the only team that was close at 240 and about equally as slow.

[davekay1971]

Roy's a tough one. He seems like a top-5 coach at times, but others he seems overrated. I know that poll came out last year saying he is THE MOST overrated, but that's not true it's Calipari (talk about awful without a porsche)..

I have similar problems evaluating Williams as a coach. Granted that he has only coached at blue blood programs with significant advantages in recruiting and funding, but we've seen coaches fail in those circumstances, and Roy certainly has not failed. His record at Kansas, including wins, winning percentage, conference championships, and even NCAA tournament record, was impressive. Remember the concern on this board when he arrived at UNC? We were worried that his coaching acumen and recruiting, combined with UNC's name and resources, would turn into a monster. Then he seemed to prove our worries well founded from the time he took over the program to 2009.

Then 2010 through now happened.

Looking fairly, going back to the Kansas years, Roy hasn't always had a Porsche for a point guard. Yet he never had seasons like 2010 or 2013 (hopefully) either. Frankly, there were years at Kansas where Roy did win, quite a bit, without a bumper crop of NBA talent on the floor.

I have theories, of course

1) Roy has gotten less flexible as a coach and less willing to adapt system to talent. 2010, frankly, he was terrible at doing that. 2013, also pretty terrible in that regard.

2) Roy may not have always had NBA talent at the point, but he's also never had a point guard as bad as Larry Drew II, and Paige, being a freshman, is only marginally better for Roy's system than Drew was.

3) Roy's system in recent years isn't the same as it was in Kansas. I can't remember who it was, but one poster astutely noted that Roy's system in Kansas was like UNC West - a replica of Dean's system. Roy's Loyola-Marymount impression started more recently, and was phenomenally successful with Felton and Lawson (and, last year, Marshall) running the point. Now, without Dean to advise him, is he adhering to a system that he bought into at UNC that isn't appropriate for the talent on hand?

[Bob Green]

Too bad Roy doesn't read DBR. If he did, Roy would know to blame Roy for UNC's struggles.

[BigWayne]

The woofies are all over the comments on that article attributing UNC's woes to having to go to class for a change. Pretty entertaining.

[sporthenry]

2) Roy may not have always had NBA talent at the point, but he's also never had a point guard as bad as Larry Drew II, and Paige, being a freshman, is only marginally better for Roy's system than Drew was.

Well Marshall might not be an NBA talent and LD II is averaging 6.5 point and 7.9 assists and just hit the game winner versus Washington. In his latest bracketology, UCLA was an 8 seed while UNC was an 11 seed. Not saying that Drew II doesn't have talent around him at UCLA but he is clearly not a problem at UCLA and is actually a solution there.

Now LD wasn't great at running Roy's system but he is 31st in assist rate and obviously has turned himself into a solid PG. Couple that with Frasor effectively running Roy's offense and I think he needs a specific type of PG and it seems like Paige isn't it either. It'll be interesting to see if Paige is still used or if Britt comes in and runs the offense.

[flyingdutchdevil]

That Roy Williams has had success as a coach continues to dumbfound me. The man simply cannot succeed unless he has a Porsche at point guard. When he's got a Kia, all he's got are excuses.

Actually, Kendall Marshall is a KIA: not flashy, incredibly reliable (10-year warranty, anyone?), and a better car in practice than on paper.

RoyWill has no idea what to do with Jaguars (looks great on paper, disappointing for long periods of time, unreliable, terrible compared to the competition) or Land/Range Rovers (not correctly utilized by most people, reviewers love it but drivers don't understand its true potential).

[davekay1971]

The woofies are all over the comments on that article attributing UNC's woes to having to go to class for a change. Pretty entertaining.

There's something to that.

http://www.thebiglead.com/index.php/...udies-in-2009/

This is an article that many have probably read, and there's lots of conjecture and speculation, but here's the trail...

Wayne Welden is brought from Kansas to UNC by Roy Williams, who openly credits him as being invaluable to the program's success. After Welden's arrival in Chapel Hill, AA Studies becomes a popular course selection for UNC basketball players. Then, in June 2009, Welden leaves his role, and the UNC Men's basketball players suddenly stop enrolling in AA Studies courses. Then the scandal breaks. And suddenly, from Summer 2009 on, UNC Men's basketball hasn't been the juggernaut it was during Roy's first years.

Obviously there are plenty of reasons why from 2010 until now, UNC hasn't been quite as successful as it was before. And there are plenty of reasons why Roy hasn't won the recruiting battles with the rate he did before. But, hey, the timing is interesting, and, as an open UNC hater, it sure is fun to speculate...

[rocketeli]

Goshdarnit Roy, way to throw your current point guard (Paige I guess) under the bus.

[sagegrouse]

Coach K lost JJ and Shelden at the same time, and that's extraordinarily bad. However, K managed to keep his team competitive and ranked in the top-20 for most of that 2006-2007 season. When put in the same situation, Roy has a year like this, or he completely dies like he did in 2009-2010.

K's nest coaching job IMHO (the H is silent) was in 1999-2000. An all-time great Duke team lost: Brand, Trajan, Avery, Maggette, Burgess, and Domzalski. That's 65 percentof the minutes and 74 percent of the points. That newly composed team went 18-1 in ACC games. Of course, newbies like JWill, Boozer and Dunleavy came on strong.

sagegrouse

[CDu]

I have theories, of course

1) Roy has gotten less flexible as a coach and less willing to adapt system to talent. 2010, frankly, he was terrible at doing that. 2013, also pretty terrible in that regard.

This I can totally see being true. I recall Williams' early Kansas teams as run-and-gun-at-all-cost teams, and Adonis Jordan and Kevin Pritchard weren't exactly blow-by PGs. Vaughn and Hinrich were faster (and better), but neither would qualify as a blow-by guard, either. So he seemed to make things work in a different way back then.

2) Roy may not have always had NBA talent at the point, but he's also never had a point guard as bad as Larry Drew II, and Paige, being a freshman, is only marginally better for Roy's system than Drew was.

I don't think it's fair to bash Drew TOO much. He always had a good A/TO ratio. He wasn't nearly as good as Marshall in running UNC's offense, but he's done quite well at UCLA. So perhaps that's more of a system issue than a talent issue.

3) Roy's system in recent years isn't the same as it was in Kansas. I can't remember who it was, but one poster astutely noted that Roy's system in Kansas was like UNC West - a replica of Dean's system. Roy's Loyola-Marymount impression started more recently, and was phenomenally successful with Felton and Lawson (and, last year, Marshall) running the point. Now, without Dean to advise him, is he adhering to a system that he bought into at UNC that isn't appropriate for the talent on hand?

I'd certaily buy that. None of his PGs at Kansas were exceptionally explosive off the dribble, though Vaughn and Hinrich were certainly very capable on the break (and both have had long NBA careers). Perhaps he got a taste of the fast life with Felton (and then Lawson), and decided that he would ride or die with that approach from here on.

[Duvall]

K's nest coaching job IMHO (the H is silent) was in 1999-2000. An all-time great Duke team lost: Brand, Trajan, Avery, Maggette, Burgess, and Domzalski. That's 65 percentof the minutes and 74 percent of the points. That newly composed team went 18-1 in ACC games. Of course, newbies like JWill, Boozer and Dunleavy came on strong.

sagegrouse

Of course, it may not be *entirely* fair to compare McAdoo and Bullock to Battier and Carrawell, or Paige, Tokoto and James to Williams, Dunleavy and Boozer. Krzyzewski had a bit of an advantage there (though one of his own making).

[Chicago 1995]

I have similar problems evaluating Williams as a coach. Granted that he has only coached at blue blood programs with significant advantages in recruiting and funding, but we've seen coaches fail in those circumstances, and Roy certainly has not failed. His record at Kansas, including wins, winning percentage, conference championships, and even NCAA tournament record, was impressive. Remember the concern on this board when he arrived at UNC? We were worried that his coaching acumen and recruiting, combined with UNC's name and resources, would turn into a monster. Then he seemed to prove our worries well founded from the time he took over the program to 2009.

Then 2010 through now happened.

Looking fairly, going back to the Kansas years, Roy hasn't always had a Porsche for a point guard. Yet he never had seasons like 2010 or 2013 (hopefully) either. Frankly, there were years at Kansas where Roy did win, quite a bit, without a bumper crop of NBA talent on the floor.

I have theories, of course

1) Roy has gotten less flexible as a coach and less willing to adapt system to talent. 2010, frankly, he was terrible at doing that. 2013, also pretty terrible in that regard.

2) Roy may not have always had NBA talent at the point, but he's also never had a point guard as bad as Larry Drew II, and Paige, being a freshman, is only marginally better for Roy's system than Drew was.

3) Roy's system in recent years isn't the same as it was in Kansas. I can't remember who it was, but one poster astutely noted that Roy's system in Kansas was like UNC West - a replica of Dean's system. Roy's Loyola-Marymount impression started more recently, and was phenomenally successful with Felton and Lawson (and, last year, Marshall) running the point. Now, without Dean to advise him, is he adhering to a system that he bought into at UNC that isn't appropriate for the talent on hand?

Kansas played pretty fast at the end of Roy's tenure there. The 1997 team that was pretty much clearly the Number 1 team in the country with Vaughn, Lafrentz and Pierce played very up tempo and was very successful doing it. That was probably Roy's best KU team. His second best team was the team that lost to UMD in the National Semi's in 2002, and that team also played really up tempo with Hinrich, Collison and Gooden. Both of those teams -- like UNC teams since -- were average defensive teams that were powerhouses on offense, and were better off to increase the tempo and number of possessions. Roy's become more inflexible, I think, but it's going back to the 90s even that he started down this path.

[MCFinARL]

K's nest coaching job IMHO (the H is silent) was in 1999-2000. An all-time great Duke team lost: Brand, Trajan, Avery, Maggette, Burgess, and Domzalski. That's 65 percentof the minutes and 74 percent of the points. That newly composed team went 18-1 in ACC games. Of course, newbies like JWill, Boozer and Dunleavy came on strong.

sagegrouse

I assume you meant "best," but actually, "nest" is sort of appropriate.

[Olympic Fan]

Roy's a tough one. He seems like a top-5 coach at times, but others he seems overrated. I know that poll came out last year saying he is THE MOST overrated, but that's not true it's Calipari (talk about awful without a porsche).

Coach K lost JJ and Shelden at the same time, and that's extraordinarily bad. However, K managed to keep his team competitive and ranked in the top-20 for most of that 2006-2007 season. When put in the same situation, Roy has a year like this, or he completely dies like he did in 2009-2010.

Darn, I can't believe I'm going to defend Roy, but ... Duke losting JJ and Shelden (and Dockery and Melchionni) after 2006 was nothing to what Roy lost after 2005. He lost the top seven players off his national championship team.

He had eighth man Jason Terry, walk-on David Noel and a bunch of freshmen. True, one of the freshman was Tyler Hansbrough, but still he was a freshman. His point guard that year was Bobby Frasier -- a freshman combo guard ... hardly a Porsche.

Roy led UNC to a 23-8 record, a 12-4 ACC finish (including a win at Duke on senior day for JJ, Shelden and company) and a No. 10 final AP ranking.

That was better than Duke did in 2007 with less losses and a better core coming back.

He couldn't match that success after suffering similar loses after 2009 (actually he returned one starter, his sixth man and his backup point guard off that team). And he hasn't done as well after losing four NBA draft picks off of last year's team.

In fact, the dropoff in his coaching ability since 2009 does look awfully suspicious since that's when the AFAM lifeline dried up. Hmmm.