CHAPEL HILL — Most coaches will throw their hands in the air when venting their displeasure, but there are exceptions.

Some take off their jackets or loosen their ties. The late Jerry Tarkanian used to bite into a towel.

South Carolina’s Frank Martin makes use of his Kryptonian laser glare to vaporize those who offend his sensibilities.

North Carolina’s Roy Williams? He throws his hands down. The degree and situation in which Williams does this is often indicative of just where the Tar Heels are on the seasonal spectrum of success.

Saturday against Georgia Tech, Williams was hands-downing backup guard Jalek Felton.

Translation: North Carolina is going to be OK.

These Tar Heels are a paler shade of last season’s national champions but during their 80-68 win against the Yellow Jackets, they were doing the things that are hallmarks of a team that could make a deep tournament run.

Finding an opponent’s weakness and attacking relentlessly is good. Doing that while also neutralizing an opponent’s strength is a recipe for championships. North Carolina did that Saturday against Georgia Tech. Not all the time, but enough so that there was never any doubt about the outcome despite the game being unnecessarily close for unnecessarily long.

“This could possibly be the best-shooting team I’ve ever had, but we didn’t show it today,” Williams said in a curt repetition of something he said a number of times in a number of ways after the game.

THE WEAKNESS

Georgia Tech can’t rebound and the Yellow Jackets certainly don’t appear as if they can run a coherent offense. Specifically, they can’t rebound on the offensive end. North Carolina outrebounded Georgia Tech 27-6 at that end of the floor and 46-25 overall. As a result, North Carolina devastated the Yellow Jackets by outscoring them 26-4 on second-chance opportunities.

“We’re pushing our guys — I think you’ve heard me say it for 15 years how important I think rebounding the ball is — and we work on it every day. We’re doing a decent job, knock on wood. It’s a huge emphasize for us and usually you do well in the things you emphasize the most.”

At that, Williams knocked on the faux-wood table before rapping the side of his self-assuming wooden head.

For a time, Georgia Tech made a meal out of a North Carolina flaw — interior defense. It stands to reason if a lightly regarded player like Abdoulaya Gueye can constantly back down the Tar Heels inside, then someone like Duke’s Marvin Bagley is going to score 743 points against the likes of Luke Maye, Theo Pinson and Company.

The Tar Heels eventually shored up that shortcoming.

“We tried in the second half to throw a second defender at the post,” Pinson said. “Especially when they get it down there to (Gueye) because he was basically scoring every time. Just throw different looks at them.”

Gueye finished with 12 points, twice his season average, while Georgia Tech matched North Carolina’s 38 total points in the paint. Those points wound up being fairly harmless thanks to North Carolina’s problem-solving at the other end of the court.

THE STRENGTH

Josh Pastner’s wackadoodle defense is a chimera of switches and zone flips. In fact, the Yellow Jackets will occasionally change their defense during the same possession.

It’s a frenetic and befuddling philosophy that has sunk a wide array of unsuspecting foes in Pastner’s two years at Tech. For a time, it chewed away at the Tar Heels during the first half, resulting in one point 10 turnovers in 12 possessions.

”Their defense is good. It’s good, period,” Williams said. “It’s also unusual. The guys are looking around trying to figure out where the guy guarding them is coming from and that’s disruptive.”

Williams’ crew turned those hands down upside down by turning to one of its own strengths — the freelance offense.

“We knew it was coming but we handled it better than we did last year,” Pinson said. “You’ve just got to be a basketball player and read it but the thing with us is, it’s tougher because we go to our freelance offense and it’s not scripted. We’re just out there moving and it’s harder to defend that.”

Pinson went on the attack, as did Maye. The duo combined for 28 points and 21 rebounds, including eight on the offensive end. Maye had several clean-up baskets after crashing the lane behind another Tar Heel driving to the goal. Pinson’s 10 rebounds tied a career high and he also managed four assists.

Joel Berry scuffled to a 3-of- 17 night shooting the ball, but Maye and Sterling Manley were often there to clean up the misses. Manley dazzled with nine points in 12 minutes.

THE RESULT

In the end, the Tar Heels comfortably led most of the way and by as much as 15 points.

That left Williams plenty of times to throw his hands down at Jalek Felton, who appears to be Berry’s understudy. Seventh Woods’ time in Chapel Hill increasingly seems to be vanishing into the mist of myth and folklore.

When Felton blew a defensive assignment and immediately chucked an ill-fated 3-point attempt, down Roy’s hands went.

“He tried to make up for it. You can’t make up a play immediately,” Williams said. “If you give up two you can’t just get back. This is the big leagues.”

Exploiting weaknesses and blunting strengths has resulted in a modest four-game winning streak that will be on the line Monday at Virginia Tech. If Williams laments the water levels in his team’s squirt bottles post-game, you’ll know that win streak has reached five.