Reggie Bullock told his teammates that it's up to the players to turn around North Carolina's season. ROBERT WILLETT
CHAPEL HILL — It’s becoming something of a sporting cliché in recent times: the players-only meeting. We hear about these in all sports, and they seem to come around whenever a team encounters a rough patch. North Carolina has suffered through some difficult times, indeed, so far.
The Tar Heels lost for the fourth time when they came apart during the second half of their 61-52 defeat at Virginia on Sunday. On Monday, Roy Williams gathered his players for film study and meetings, and Williams during his radio show earlier this week said the Heels spent more than three hours together.
That doesn’t include the time players spent meeting on their own. After Williams finished with the team, Reggie Bullock, the junior guard, called a players-only meeting. I had a chance to speak with Bullock on Tuesday, and he described what he said:
“I called a meeting with the players and we was just talking. I was just basically saying, coach can tell us all these things he wants, but it’s up to us to go out there and do it. He’s coached championship teams, he knows what it takes to be a champion, he knows what it takes to coach great players.
“And it’s just up to us to go out there and do it. And I was just telling them, something’s got to change, and we have to change now. And we just have to keep playing better. And I think it starts with leaders like me, Dexter and McAdoo, to be able to turn this ship around.”
UNC hosts Miami on Thursday night. Will the players-only meeting lead to some change? Stay tuned …
