Roy Williams Is Gonna ‘Enjoy The Crap Out Of This One’
April 7, 2009 – 10:50 am by Tas Melas
After North Carolina got away with playing a poor game against Villanova, many people got the feeling they would come out and run the running Spartans in to the ground. They did that and a whole lot more; I’m not sure why they even played this one. All I know is that NC has several players that are better off because they had this championship experience. Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, Danny Green and Tyler Hansbrough all made the decision to return after last year’s semifinal loss to Kansas, and they have definitely grown since. Sometimes, you can just beat a team emotionally, and yesterday the Spartans were thrown to the ground, stomped on, and then had the weight of a Magic Johnson fall on them ’cause they just couldn’t fight back. It reminded me of Boston beating the Lakers in game 6 of last year’s NBA Finals. North Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams joined Mike and Mike on ESPN Radio to discuss his pre-game speech, the difference between the wins in ’05 and ’09, what Hansbrough means to him, and why the kids came back.
On whether or not the kids returned simply to win it all:
“That’s not the reason the kids came back. It was one of the reasons but it was not the biggest reason. Tyler Hansbrough came back because he just loved college athletics, he didn’t care to do anything else. Wayne Ellington, Danny Green and Ty Lawson were not satisfied with their position in the draft and that’s the reason that they chose to come back, by far.”
If what he said inspired the Heels’ great start:
“Well, that probably gives coaching too much credit ’cause I told the kids, ‘Hey, somebody’s gonna win tonight, why not let it be us?’ It was pretty simple and I did say, ‘Hey, let’s go play our butts off right from the start.’ And, I think we did that – our offensive execution was great, but the ball goes in the basket last night. When it goes in, it all looks so much better.”
Roy Williams on the difference between ’05 and ’09, Tyler Hansbrough, and the full interview after the jump.
On the difference in celebrations between ’05 and ’09:
“In ’05, we won it on a Monday night, got back on Tuesday, Wednesday morning at 6am I went recruiting. And, I’m gonna do that this Thursday morning, but Wednesday night I came back and Sean May and his dad called and they decided they were going to the NBA also. I knew that Marvin, Raymond and Rashad were gonna go, at that point, we just had to go crazy and see how hard we could work because we weren’t gonna have anybody coming back on the next team. That time we didn’t get a chance to celebrate till September 19th… we’re gonna enjoy the crap outta this one a little bit more, I can tell you. It’s just fun and we never allowed ourselves to enjoy it.”
What Hansbrough’s return meant:
“He said something for college basketball, that if you don’t want to go, it’s okay to stay. It’s okay to stay if you’re a kid, it’s okay to stay in college, and things can still work out for you. He’s still gonna be a number one draft choice, he’s gonna go down as probably the most prolific player to ever play at the University of North Carolina – leading scorer, leading rebounder, and so many of those things. I also think he’s a wonderful example for college kids because if he had fell on his face, every agent in America would have been running around with a smile on their face, trying to talk to kids and make sure they didn’t come back.”
Listen to Roy Williams on ESPN Radio with Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg
Tags: College Basketball, Michigan State Spartans, NCAA, NCAA Tournament, North Carolina Tar Heels
