On the other side of the loss to No. 2 Syracuse, the North Carolina men’s basketball team looked at a week of empty dates.
There would be no shot at quick redemption, no immediate chance to rinse a bad taste.
But coach Roy Williams doesn’t mind the break in action. For the 63-year-old coach, the week is a chance to re-evaluate and heal his bruised team.
“If I were a player, I’d hate it. I’d want to get back out there and play somebody,” Williams said Saturday. “As a coach I like it because we’ve got to give them some time to rest their body and get some injuries to heal up a little bit.
“As a coach, it does give us some time to work on a few things. But as a player, I’d hate it. I’d be so damn competitive that I’d want to get back out there and kill somebody every day.”
Even though, as a player, forward James Michael McAdoo would like a shot at redemption, the junior agrees with his coach that the Tar Heels’ best shot at improvement might come from the confines of the Smith Center.
“Of course you want to get out there and play, but we’ve had our opportunities, we’ve had our chances,” he said Saturday. “You kind of just have to play to the cards dealt to you and learn from this, these three losses.”
Faced with an extensive list of problems after falling to the ACC’s basement, Williams isn’t concentrating his efforts on correcting one area.
“This would be the equivalent of taking your car in for a tune-up where they check everything,” he said in the ACC coaches teleconference.