Roy Williams Radio Show Quotes

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Did you miss what Roy Williams said on his radio program Monday night? Here are some excerpts from the live call-in show hosted by Woody Durham ...

On Deon Thompson:
“He did a great job for us. He probably gets tired of me, because I’m always pushing him. I went into the press conference and I was up at the podium and made an opening statement, and said what a nice job Alex [Stepheson] and Deon had done. And then they started interviewing the players and everybody was talking about what a good job Deon had done, and so I got a piece of paper from the moderator and I wrote down there a note and passed it to Marcus [Ginyard]. He looked at it and died laughing, and he handed it to Tyler [Hansbrough] and he started laughing and then he handed it to Deon. The note said, ‘Congratulations – you got one more rebound than Wanda.’

“And I’ll tell you this – I really believe that part of his problem has been my fault. And I really believe that. We work so hard on trying to get him to have the proper technique on his shot and to have good extension and to have a good follow-through. I put him on the same end everyday in pre-practice with Wayne Ellington, and I say, ‘Watch him. Do what he does.’ And so we finally got him doing that. And he’d stay around all of the time around the three-point line, one step in, go to the dribble between his legs and behind his back and then shoot the ball.

‘And he never does that in the game, but I kept just trying to get him to work on his form, and finally, after the ACC Tournament, I got the tapes of practice and I showed [him] the tapes when we did the pre-practice [meeting]. I said, ‘Alright, I want you to watch all of this.’ So we sat there and watched the whole thing. And I said, ‘How many shots have you shot that you shoot in a game? Not one.’ And so we tried to get him to focus on shooting shots that he shoots in a game and last week, I really think that he got a lot more accomplished.

“And Deon also – I’m not saying that he needs tender love and care, everybody does, so he’s not any different there – but he also just wants somebody to keep pushing him, keep pushing him and giving him challenges, and I didn’t do a good enough job with him the whole year. But hopefully Ole Roy is going to learn something every day.”

On Washington State
“It’ll be an interesting matchup. In the two games this week, we averaged 111 points, I think, and they gave up 40 in one game and 41 in another game. So that’s a pretty big contrast. Somebody’s got to give… We give up that much by clearing our throat. So we’ve got to see if we can score a few more than that against them… What we have to do is figure out how to score more than 40 points a game and how to see if we can speed them up when they’re on offense, because they hurt you with tempo and they hurt you with low-scoring games on both ends of the floor…They really do a lot of really good things. Tony [Bennett’s] done a great, great job.”

Do you believe Ty Lawson is back to 100 percent?
“No, I don’t. But I do believe he’s getting closer. [Sunday’s] game against Arkansas was the first game since early February that I’ve actually seen him explode past somebody. We set a screen for him, and he started to use the screen and crossed over and went to the basket and that’s the first time in six weeks since getting hurt. But he’s getting closer.”

Story on WSU head coach Tony Bennett:
“Wes Miller, who was one of the great kids that I’ve been fortunate enough to coach, was in London this past Christmas and decided that he didn’t want to go back, that he wants to get into coaching. So Wes and I sat down and picked out several schools around the country that he would interested in watching them practice and see them play. So we talked and one of the schools was Washington State. And so I wrote Tony a letter, and bottom line is, they welcomed Wes Miller in with open arms. He watched tape, he watched them practice, they were nice to him. When you’re doing that for somebody else just as a favor, it shows what kind of character you have. I was really pleased with Tony.”

On Will Graves:
“Will is getting better. The thing that I’ve been pushing him to do is to get a lot better defensively, and then with the basketball, to use his strength more. And one of his strengths is his outside shooting and another one is his strength, so to not be a pansy out there floating around, trying to do something. So we talk about that with him a great deal. The biggest thing is to try to do a great job defensively, and he really has bought into that idea. He’s tried to do better and better… He is getting better, and I said this before the season started, but before Will Graves leaves, he’s going to be a big-time player for us.”

"Roy Williams Live" airs Monday evenings on Tar Heel Sports Network affiliates.