Williams says Tar Heels won't splinter

North Carolina coach Roy Williams knows his team has to improve in both practice and during games to dig out of its 2-4 ACC start. But he said Monday that he’s not worried that his team, which is quickly slipping off the NCAA tournament berth bubble, will pull apart in any way.

“I don’t really see that as a problem whatever; I don’t think they’ll get splintered,’’ he said during the ACC conference call. “I think they’re a group of kids that do like each other, do enjoy each other’s company. I don’t see any factions drifting off one way, and another group drifting of another way. I don’t’ see any cliques on the team by any means. We’ve got to invest a little bit more, and maybe if we invest a little bit more, those habits will be there on game night. Because right now, they’re not habits. … To me, maybe I’m naïve, but I don’t really have any concerns about any cliques forming.”

Some other questions and answers from the weekly call:

Q: What are the issues you’re most concerned with? Leadership? Attention to detail? Taking in information?

A: I think it’s everything. If I could pick out one thing, it would be easier to attack. But we worked on trying to guard the dribble and stop dribble penetration, and we didn’t do a very good job with that. We wanted to try to move the ball quickly and have good spacing, and [get] quality shots for us, and make sure the quality of their shots were not very good. We wanted to dominate the backboards, and I’m not sure any of those things happened. So it’s not just one thing, we have some work to do. There’s no question about it.

Q: Is there something with this team that gives you hope that you can get through this?

A: Well, I always have hope, there’s no question about that. It’s the only way I know to go about doing it, is to work as hard as we possibly can. The kids have the day off; that’s the way we originally planned it, and I started to change it, but they’ll have some private time, and we’ll have some great practices on Tuesday and Wednesday and face a big-time challenge, a big-time test, on Thursday.

Q: Said last night that the things you’ve done your entire career in coaching aren’t working with this group. What are some examples of those things that aren’t working?

A: It’s the total practice. The day before, we go crazy about not getting great defensive balance, but last night in the game, we didn’t have defensive balance. We’ve had 61 practices now, and the things I’ve preached the previous 21 years seemed to work, and the things I preach this year that are the same as those 21 haven’t worked. So I’ve got to find a different way to do it; find something different. I think every year, you make different changes. Some of them subtle, some of them bigger changes. We’re not runnin the ball like I like to run it. We’re playing zone, we’ve changed three or four different offenses that we’ve tried to use, rather than sticking with one that I’ve done most of my career. Right now, it hasn’t worked as well as we’d like for it to work. I’m at my wit’s end, but at the same time, I still have to keep trying to thing of something; I still have to keep working, and I still have to make sure they keep working. If not, we don’t have any chance whatsoever. So we’re going to twink around with it a little bit, and see if we can change a few other things, and get kids to buy into it a little more, and take it from the practice court to game night.

Q: Have you ever been this deep in a season when you were still trying to figure out what to tweak as far as coaching?

A: No. Never have. But I’ve lived a pretty charmed life. Kids have always just bought into what we said,a nd it seemed to work. It hasn’t’ seemed to work as well this year, so we just have to keep trying.

Q: What do you feel like you need to get better to help this team?

A: I’ve coach basically the same way for 21 years, just making little changes to fit our personnel. And it seemed to work – and it hasn’t seemed to work with this group. And I’ve got to find a way to get it to work. The changes we make, whether big or little, has to fit this team. And the other thing is, the care, the attention to detail, how focused we are and what it means to go from the practice court to the game night, I’ve got to figure out a way to invest more in it.