When Pitt comes to North Carolina, coach Roy Williams seeks more than historic win

Roy Williams has presided over 1,119 college basketball games — not counting 11 seasons when he was a Dean Smith assistant at North Carolina.

He needs one victory to pass Smith and stand fourth among Division I men’s coaches, behind Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim and Bob Knight. Historic victory No. 880 could come against Pitt on Wednesday night at Smith Center.

Yet, what Williams saw Saturday was something he had seldom seen since he first gathered a team around him 47 years ago at Charles D. Owen High School in Black Mountain, N.C. He said the 96-83 loss to Georgia Tech was “one of the worst games I’ve ever had a team play.”

The unranked Tar Heels, who have gone to nine Final Fours and won three national championships under Williams, have hit hard times, with an 8-6 record, 1-2 in the ACC. North Carolina won its first five games, but knee injuries to three players took a toll, and the Tar Heels have lost six of their past nine games.

They are without:

• Star point guard Cole Anthony, who went down while he was second among freshmen in the nation with a 19.1 scoring average.

• Sterling Manley, a 6-foot-11, 250-pound junior center.

• Anthony Harris, a four-star freshman guard.

Several other players were injured by the time preseason practice began, forcing Williams to bring up a player from the junior varsity. He told the Associated Press, “The day before practice started, I didn’t even know the guy’s name.”

Williams said replacing Anthony is “probably the biggest problem I’ve got.”

Freshman Jeremiah Francis, who missed his final two seasons in high school because of knee injuries, is struggling as Anthony’s replacement.

“I’m just so mad at him,” Williams said. “We call a defense in a timeout. We go out and they bring the ball down the court, and he does the wrong thing. I am so frustrated, so mad at him.

“(I) take him out, and I’m sitting there thinking, ‘God, almighty, the kid didn’t play for two years, and you’re being demanding like this.’ It is a difficult thing for me, and he’s handling it really, really well. But I’m also pushing him as hard as I can push because we can’t make excuses. Nobody’s going to feel sorry for North Carolina.”

Does any of this matter to Pitt coach Jeff Capel? Actually, the last thing Pitt (10-4, 1-2) needs to do is let its guard down after losing 69-65 to Wake Forest on Saturday.

“Look, they’re still talented. They’re still North Carolina,” Capel said. “They still have really, really good players.

“They’re just having to adjust with some injuries to some key guys. If anyone had injuries to key guys, especially at that position, point guard position, you can seem out of sorts at times.”

Capel said 6-9 North Carolina forward Garrison Brooks, who is averaging 13.9 points and 8.7 rebounds, is “arguably as good as any big in our league right now. He and (Vernon) Carey from Duke.”

“He’s really grown as a player and is playing at an incredibly high level.”

That’s of little consolation to Williams, whose loss to Georgia Tech (7-7) was as surprising as it was distressing.

“Friday’s practice (the day before the game) was the best practice we had all year,” he said. “I even told the team this was the best, straight, half-court man-to-man defense we played all year long. And then we laid an egg on Saturday.”

North Carolina played a difficult nonconference schedule that included a 78-74 victory against No. 9 Oregon and losses to ranked teams Gonzaga (No. 1), Ohio State (No. 11), Virginia (No. 18) and Michigan (No. 19) plus unranked Wofford of the Southern Conference.

Williams followed Virginia coach Tony Bennett on the ACC coaches conference call Monday and suggested defense has been part of the Tar Heels’ problem.

In North Carolina’s most recent losses — Georgia Tech and Gonzaga — the Tar Heels allowed 190 points.

“I wish I was 1/100th of the coach on the defensive end that Tony is,” Williams said. “We’ve had some teams defensively that were really, really good and, I’ll shock the world here, I even coached a team that led the nation in defensive field goal percentage.

“If you watched that game on Saturday, we don’t even know how to spell it.”

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