WINSTON-SALEM — Following his team’s less-than-aesthetically-pleasing 68-53 victory against Wake Forest, North Carolina coach Roy Williams began his postgame press conference with the kind of smooth execution his team lacked here on Tuesday night.

“You guys smell something burning?” Williams asked.

Someone mumbled that maybe it was popcorn. After a pause, Williams said, “I knew it wasn’t the nets.”

Williams insisted he wasn’t trying to be his own “set-up man” but his one-liner fit after a game in which both teams missed, on average, seven of every 10 shots they took.