Joel Berry Interview (3/4/20)

We are now being joined by the most recent Tar Heel Great to have his name up into the rafters at the Smith Center.

It happened last month. It is Joel Berry, who of course plays for the Greensboro Swarm here in the Triad. And Joel, there are a lot of things I want to talk to you about, but let's get to the one most associated with our show. You're going to be in studio with us next Monday to play our assistant producer Sawyer Dillon, who streams himself playing video games. He beat Chad Ojocinco.

No wait, he tied Chad Ojocinco in FIFA Soccer not too long ago. You guys are going to be going head to head in studio. Thank you for the time, but how confident are you taking on Sawyer next Monday? Yes sir, I'm pretty confident in my game. I show respect to everybody, but I'm pretty confident in what I can do with my ability.

So I think I'm ready. That's a Roy Williams-ism right there, Robert. Respect your opponent. Always do so. I don't know if Sawyer's paying you much respect though. He's not here today, but he sent us this. He's on the road. I think he's overlooking you. He's in New York, just spending time ahead of his big matchup with you on Monday.

But he sent this in specifically for you. Hey, what's up, Joel? Looking forward to our game on Monday. I just have one quick question though. What should the Mercy rule be? Because I know if you're down by 25 or 30 in the third quarter, we might want to call it. But it's up to you. I can run up the score on you or we can just call it at 20, 15, 10, whatever you're thinking.

Also, are we doing three random teams or are we picking our teams? That's the only other thing I need to know before I get the dub on Monday. God, he's so awful at talking trash, but how do you respond to that? Oh man, he's being a little cocky right now. But you know what, that's good. I like the confidence.

I'm going to let him have it and then we can follow up on those questions when we see each other in person. But I love the confidence. That'll make me come and play a little bit harder. Was there ever a time Joel Berry was a trash talker on the floor? I'm a pretty quiet guy. If you get up under my skin, then that's one thing. But I usually let my fire come out in my play. Yeah, I usually stay quiet.

But if you rub me the wrong way, then that's when it's going wrong. Who's the guy in the ACC you face that you remember thinking? This guy talks a lot. The one guy I remember that was very disrespectful to me was, I think his name was Josh from Georgia Tech.

A Kogi? No, I think I might be getting his name wrong. He was a point guard. I think he's still there.

I'll check on that. Yeah, but he's a point guard from Georgia Tech. I think I fell down in the game and he kind of stepped over at me and said something. That's the kind of thing that ticked me off.

That's the main one that I remember. But everybody else is just part of the game. It happens.

But it got a little disrespectful on his part. Was it Jose Alvarado? Yeah, Jose Alvarado. That's who it is. Yes, sir.

All right. See Jose Alvarado, he's had his fair share of run-ins with a lot of people. He still plays at Georgia Tech, as you mentioned. Joel Berry is joining us here on Sports Hub. Tryatt, your guys in Chapel Hill, man. They've won three straight games, beat Wake Forest last night.

They're going to be in your town, though, next week. They're going to be playing in the ACC tournament. They've got to win the whole damn thing in order to make it to the NCAAs. Do you think your boys are scary next week?

You think they're a scary team? I think they're putting their – it seems like they're putting it together at the right time. I think that was always Coach Williams. Always his thing was in the middle of the season, you don't have your ups and downs. You're going to battle injuries. But what's most important is trying to put it all together towards the end of the season.

That's when you need to be playing your best basketball. I think they're starting to come together as a team. Coach always said that you start off the year as a freshman. But once you get towards the end of the season, you're not a freshman anymore.

Those excuses that will be used at the beginning don't apply at the end. So I think they're starting to put it together. I think I remember my freshman year, we played on the first day and had to play all the way through the tournament and made it to the last day and end up losing to Virginia in the championship.

So hopefully they can put their same mind together and it seems like they can do that. It's Joel Berry with us here from the Swarm, former Tar Heel great. I remember last month when your number was being put into the rafters. Roy, he was calling for a microphone as he was walking off of the floor. They wanted to do things quickly. It was halftime of the Duke game, a very important game for the Tar Heels. But Roy wanted to say something and he grabbed the microphone. He was brief for about 15, 20 seconds, but he said that he called you a rascal. He called you this guy who, I mean, that's a term of endearment. I mean, that's something that I think you learn with Coach Williams. When he calls you a little rascal or somebody who could be a pain in the neck, that's a good thing when Roy Williams is referring to you that way, isn't it?

Right, exactly, yeah. That's what he always called me. The other name he always gave me was tough little nut. I just think that's because of just how I post the game and always came and just brought that toughness to the team. So it's a great honor to be called that. I mean, you can have your opinions about it, but it's an honor when a coach of his status gives you a name like that.

I don't think when you go on a recruiting visit to a place like North Carolina, you expect to have a banner go up with your name on it. I could be wrong on that because I'm not nearly as talented as you are, but when you see names like Jordan up there and Worthy and Ford and now Barry's up there, I mean, what goes through you as you look up in the rafters that day at halftime of the Duke game and you see your name amongst all those other greats? Yeah, it kind of hasn't hit me yet and I don't think it will until I get older.

Walking up one day would be able to show my kids and be able to show them that. The first time I walked in there and I saw that, I just thought it was always cool and I told myself that day that I wanted to put my name up there. It's a blessing and an honor to be able to be up there with Jordan and Phil Ford and Tyler Hansgro, but it's even more of an honor to have the guys that I even played with like Marcus Page and Justin Jackson to be up there. So that just goes to how good of a group we had and the guys that I played with.

So it's just a blessing to be up there and that's just something that I wanted to do and I was able to accomplish that. Joel, I'm sure your heart was broken when you saw Trey Jones made the play he made at the end of regulation of that game, but you should know that I've been afflicted with pain because of it too. I lost a bet to somebody who said they could recreate that play in 15 minutes or less and he did it in 10 minutes and 15 seconds.

So yesterday I finally had the bet completely paid off. I had to put Christmas lights, a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer nose, and deer antlers on my car for two weeks in February because someone recreated that shot. So you're a Tar Heel and I'm sure that hurts. It hurt me that someone was able to recreate the Trey Jones shot. I gotta ask you though, as a point guard yourself, how many times do you think if you were given to recreate that play would it take for you to do it? Man, I would say I've never seen that. I've seen guys throw it and it might hit the front and bounce off or they air ball it, but I've never seen a guy hit it off the rim that way and be able to get it back and be able to get a winning shot. That's something that I don't think I could recreate and I don't think too many people can do that.

So whoever you made that bet with, I think they just got lucky that day because that was pretty hard. Last thing for you, B. Dot, he's walking here into the studio now.

He does stuff with the Greensboro Swarm and of course you play for the Swarm. How would you assess his game? How do you think B. Dot would be on the floor? Be honest now, come on, he doesn't want you to sugarcoat it.

B. Dot kind of reminds me of Will Barton from the Denver Nuggets. His body type and his face kind of remind me of him so I think his game would kind of be like that. His head is now inflated completely. Joel, we look forward to seeing you next Monday in studio. Thanks for doing this. Yes, sir. I look forward to seeing you guys and thank you again.