Williams motivates quietly

""If you want your careers to end tonight" like this" keep playing this way.""

So said North Carolina coach Roy Williams during a tense timeout in the second half of Tar Heels' second-round matchup with LSU in Greensboro.

That night" the team took his message to heart spurred by Ty Lawson in obliterating the Tigers' five-point lead and continuing to a romp of the team 84-70.

Since then the Tar Heels have never been ready for their careers to end that night in that game.

So they haven't played that way.

Thanks" coach.

""Whatever he says is what we do" Lawson puts it simply enough.

We just trust him. We always just go out there and do his gameplan — because the last couple years" whatever he says works.""

The one blip on coach Williams' resume: last season's matchup with Kansas"" what Williams has called ""the most unreal basketball game I've ever been involved in.""

""I've been criticized more for that game than any of the games I've coached in 21 years" Williams said Monday.  It's a game that has bothered me" will bother me forever.

""It bothered me because of the scenario"" it bothered me because of the way we played.

""It bothered me because I thought we would really play well.""

Coach Williams was criticized for his use of timeouts. He was criticized for what appeared a lack of a game plan. He was criticized — more than anything else — for what we all now know as ""Sticker-gate.""

""I felt it was very" very very very" very — add as many as you want — unfair treatment of me two days later (for wearing a Kansas sticker to the national championship game).

""I'm going to remember it after you guys are all dead and gone.""

Williams added another element to his Final Four woes on Monday: he was throwing up in the locker room. And on the court"" in a towel.

""It's the first time in 21 years as a head coach I've ever leaned over to an assistant and told him stand up and call a play.""

His players said Monday that many of the perceived issues have been corrected.

""I think the last couple of games that he's been using his timeouts really well — not to say he hasn't been using them well before that"" Deon Thompson said.

Tyler Hansbrough mentioned his coach's constant presence as helping keep the Tar Heels' eyes on their game-to-game play and not the expectations of the public.

We really try to stay within our team and just listen to the coaches.""

When Danny Green was having shooting troubles"" he immediately went to coach Williams — ""obviously"" — so that they could discuss how to fix them.

Williams always has been a motivator for his teams" none seen so clearly as his year at the helm of the national championship team in 2005.

This year his technique and their talent — if anything the years prior to that championship proved talented players aren't enough — could equate once again to a national title.

Overall this year's Tar Heel players say that little has changed in his approach to the Final Four and that he isn't doing anything differently to motivate them.

There is one plus they see from last year" though.

""He's been the same. His demeanor hasn't really changed" Thompson said.

I don't think he's broken a clipboard yet this year" so that's a good thing.""