Go, go, go. That’s essentially what the gesture means. Three quick, counter-clockwise rotations of Roy Williams' left hand from his vantage point on the sideline.
The North Carolina men’s basketball coach always wants his team to push the tempo so it can get into its run-and-gun offense and find the light at the end of the tunnel by catching opponents sleeping.
But sometimes it’s too late to hurry. Sometimes teams fall into slumbers of lackadaisicalness that give rise to mental miscues. These lapses slow things down, rendering runs hard to come by and deficits even harder at which to chip away.
It was too late for UNC (21-10, 11-7 ACC) to hurry in this moment — 19 seconds remaining in the team’s 84-77 loss to No. 3 Duke (28-3, 15-3) on Saturday night. The No. 19 Tar Heels trailed by five, the game virtually over already. But Williams still twirled his hand, still urging freshman wing Justin Jackson to go, go, go.
Stop and go, stop and go, Jackson went, never pushing the ball full speed until he eventually just picked up his dribble after half court.
That’s kind of how the night went for the Tar Heels, who were stopped in their tracks in the second half.
“It comes down to just wanting it more,” said Jackson, who finished the night with 14 points. “They made plays down the stretch that we didn’t and that’s why we lost. It’s as simple as that. The first half we came out and we played pretty hard. The second half, the start of it, we played hard and got lackadaisical. Whenever you’re lackadaisical against a team like that, they take advantage of it.”
Duke took advantage at the 14:40 mark of the second half, to be exact. The Blue Devils pieced together a 14-2 run against a UNC team that claimed a 33-31 halftime lead.
During the run that spanned 3:20, Duke took its first lead after trailing for more than 18 minutes over the course of both halves. After the Blue Devils did so with 11:53 left in the game, they never again trailed.
