Black text = What Roy said before the BC game

Red text = What Roy wanted to say before the BC game

On doing the radio show each week…

What fascinates me, what intrigues me, what entertains me about it…that would be nothing, nothing and nothing. The people who call in are some of the dumbest individuals on the face of the planet. But it’s one of those necessary evils I guess. Sort of like Coach K. Actually, I guess now that I think about it, K is just an evil…I wouldn’t classify him as “necessary.” I try to have fun with it, but it’s something I’d rather not be doing, and there’s no question about that. Would you want to have to listen to a series of idiots on the telephone for an hour a week? The crowd at Spice Street, they do a great job. They laugh at the people on the phone who don’t have any sense. They laugh at my jokes. I mostly like them because they laugh at my jokes. I’ve got a huge crowd that comes every Monday night and we have fun. Unless we’re coming off of a loss, then there’s very little fun involved. Kind of like practice, now that I think about it.

But if you think about it, how many people would want to have an open line to people that they don’t know, can’t see – if they’re a North Carolina, NC State or Duke fan – question what they’re doing for a living? Unless Dean Smith is calling the show to give me his two cents, I don’t think too many of the people calling in have anything smart to say. It is what it is. It’s a bunch of baloney. It’s something that we do as part of the radio/TV package. I’m actually kind of surprised people still listen to the radio with TV being around as long as it has been, but I guess that’s a testament to Woody Durham. If you asked me if there was anything that I do weekly that I would like to get rid of, there’s no question, it would probably be something like that. I hear that’s what Carolina Water Cooler is doing…just up and getting rid of their radio show so they can focus more on their writing and whatnot. Because I could relax, I could go to dinner with my wife, I could sleep, I could watch tape, I could practice an hour longer… Obviously when I say “I” could practice an hour longer, I mean I could coach practice a little longer. I don’t do a lot of running or anything in practice. Don’t get me wrong, I could…I’m not Rick Majerus. I just have more fun watching the kids do it.

How do you start preparing this far back for the tournament?

Gosh, I think there’s so many ways to do it. I’m not going to list them all here; evil…I mean, Coach K, might be listening. There’s no question, in my mind, that you have to be playing well once it starts. Sort of the opposite of how a team like Wake Forest typically enters the tournament. I guess Wake is a bad example this year, since they probably won’t be in it, but you get my point. I hate to admit this, but I’ve been very fortunate. If I’d been unfortunate I’d be able to toot my own horn. Darn my good fortune. I’ve been to the Final Four five different times, and we’ve never won our conference tournament. That’s something I plan on rectifying this season. But we were playing pretty well all of those times. I say “pretty well” because we didn’t win the National Championship. Except in 2005. Even that team I think I could have had playing a little better if I’d had another season with them. So, just being able to play well that first day, you gain some momentum and then play well that second day. Remember Oakland and Iowa State? That actually might have been a little better than “playing well,” but I’ll take it. Then you have four days of practice and guys start talking about wanting to play next week. Then you take the rims off the basket and they really get anxious to play in a game again.

On Ty Lawson’s play down the stretch versus Virginia Tech, and if Coach Williams still has confidence in him…

Of course I still have confidence in him. What is this, the radio show? What kind of dumb question was that? Go back and look at tape from 2004. Actually, you won’t know what you’re looking at, so let me save you the trouble… Raymond had it in his hands a few times, and he was a sophomore. And we lost. Many a time. Too many times for me to sit here and re-live them all. In 2005, he had it in his hands at Duke, but he played pretty darn well after that. Would have been nice if he’d started playing pretty darn well one game earlier, but ah well, that season turned out pretty well. So I don’t think that anything that happened (in the last game) is going to make me lose confidence in him – in any way, shape or form. He’s still going to get the majority of the minutes at the point guard spot, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t worry about that part of it. We’ve got two other very capable point guards if I ever do start worrying. Ty made a mistake at the end of regulation. I told him about it. He didn’t penetrate and make the play that he should have made. He won’t do that again. The last play when he comes down the court after the missed free throws…he might have held the ball a split second too long, but if we’ve got a slow clock operator, we win the game. I’m not saying if we were Duke we’d have one less loss…that would make us cheaters. I’m saying if Duke were us, they’d have one more loss.

Regardless of what has gone on anywhere else in the civilized and uncivilized world – if the clock operator is four-tenths to five-tenths slow, Wayne Ellington makes one of the most unbelievable shots ever to win a game. When I say civilized I mean the Dean Dome. When I say uncivilized I mean Cameron Indoor. I wouldn’t have explained that to you, but you sound like somebody that’s called the radio show before.