North Carolina Tar Heels: the Roy Williams Formula
- Play the Championship Game (by extension, the Final Four) in an Arena much closer to the opponent than Chapel Hill
This is more obviously true for 2005 and 2009 teams, but also true for 2017. The 2005 Heels beat Illinois in St. Louis. The 2009 Heels beat Michigan State in Detroit against a partisan crowd. The 2017 Heels played Gonzaga, a West Coast team, in Glendale. The Heels evidently provided Sun Devils students tickets to the game because they could not fill their allotment.
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So those are the eight rules for winning a title under Roy Williams. Even with these commonalities, each team had a different character and each title game was different. 2017 was close but ugly. 2009 was not close, but pretty. 2005 was close and probably yielded the best game experience of the three.
So what does his mean for 2018? Well, the Heels are not in Maui. They have a junior class consisting of Kenny Williams and Luke Maye. It is not an election year. So if you need all of the rules, you cannot get them until 2020-1 or the Heels’ next Maui appearance.
On the other hand, Berry and Bradley could delay the pros and return, and Bradley has opted into the draft process without an agent for now. Brandon Huffman or Sterling Manley might prove to be the impact freshman big man the team needs. Yet it is impossible for all the elements to be there next year.
Again the stars could all align in 2021, since the Maui fields are only announced for the next two years. That would mean that this year’s freshmen would become the steady role players on that team and next year’s recruiting class would provide the thunder.