Williams, Tar Heels high on running game

NEWARK -- If North Carolina coach Roy Williams has his way in Friday's NCAA East Regional semifinal against Marquette, there will be no tar on his Heels. "A lot of teams have tried to slow us down," Williams said. "Some have been successful, too, though not as many as would have liked."

UNC, after all, is 28-7, compared to Marquette's 22-14.

The fact that UNC's team flight was delayed for roughly three hours before takeoff Tuesday doesn't count in this slowdown discussion. Besides, junior center Tyler Zeller said, "It wasn't too bad. The plane was very nice, screens that had movies, TV, games to play. We had fun with it."

While Marquette coach Buzz Williams worries about Carolina getting a large chunk of points off fast breaks following turnovers, as well as Carolina's rebounding strength triggering successful dashes to the other end, Roy Williams was thinking more about his team's style than the opponent's.

"I've always said I'd rather win playing in the 80s and 90s," Roy Williams said, "because fans like it, players like it, but more so, I like to coach that way. But we have to be able to win in the 50s and 60s, and we even won a game this year when we scored 48" -- 48-46 over Boston College -- "and I didn't think that would ever be possible for one of my teams.

"Everybody wants to play the tempo that's best for their team; that's what it's all about. They'll try to take away some of our easy baskets; that's something we face all the time. We just have to focus on getting what we want.

"That thing they say with football: We took what they gave us. I don't want to take what you give us. I want to take what I want. If you play zone, it doesn't mean I have to shoot from outside. I'm still going to try to get the ball inside. I still want to take what I want."

Carolina will try to do so with the younger, less experienced team. Its top five scorers are freshman Harrison Barnes, three sophomores and Zeller -- and freshman point guard Kendall Marshall had 13 assists in the win over Washington. But that, too, essentially was shrugged off by Williams. "The kids are so much more worldly now," he said. "They're not in awe of being in the NCAA Tournament, not in awe of playing on national television, because they played on national television when they were in high school. They've traveled, they've done all those things.

"I've said many times, what you really want to have is experienced talent, but if you had to choose one it would be talent."

With speed, of course.