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University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Atlas Sags
January 20, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 20, 2006
By Adam Lucas
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.--The downtrodden, beaten figure perched on the trainer's table in his gray sweatsuit bore no resemblance to the David Noel we know.
We are used to seeing him as the gregarious center of attention. We see him smile, see him soar, see him emote. In almost any instance--press conference, team meeting, timeout huddles--he is the one who speaks for the 2005-06 Tar Heels.
But in the wake of Carolina's 72-68 loss to Virginia Thursday night, that was not the David Noel we saw. This Noel, the one who quietly played with a nagging shoulder injury, was a rudderless ship.
"I'm at a loss for words," he said. "I have no idea what's really going on with this team right now. It's kind of tough. I don't really know what to say to these guys. It just hurts."
It hurts him, but it also hurts to watch him struggle. Until this very moment, he probably did not realize just how hard it was to be THE guy. Rarely in past years has one Carolina player had to so specifically be THE guy. Jawad Williams had Raymond Felton. Jason Capel had Joseph Forte. Antawn Jamison had Vince Carter. There was always a leadership co-pilot.
Noel doesn't have that luxury. He has demanded perfection of himself every single day since October 15. It can be tiring. He clearly carried his poor performance against Miami with him into the game in Charlottesville, and within the first couple minutes of action was already visibly frustrated. Ever since he was a freshman, his body language has always been some of the most telling on the team. Tonight that language said, well, it said exactly what he said after the game.
"Me personally, I feel like I can't do anything right," he said. "I missed a couple easy buckets early...I felt like I couldn't do anything right. When Coach took me out we got the lead back without me in the game so I felt like I should've stayed on the bench. But me being a senior leader, I came back in and tried my best."
Precisely because he is so plainspoken, he provides insight into the mind of a Carolina basketball player we're not used to hearing. In most cases, after games like this one--Noel finished 7-of-16 from the floor with 6 turnovers against 1 assist--you'll get the usual, "I'll come back strong next time," platitudes.
That's probably the way Noel will feel by Friday morning, and it wouldn't be surprising to see him have a stellar performance at Florida State on Sunday evening. But that's not the way he felt Thursday night, and the frustration--the most painful kind of frustration for an athlete, because it was directed at himself, not at his teammates--came pouring out.
"I'm frustrated as all get out," he said. "I just don't understand. I don't know. I'm at a loss for words."
You can read those words on this page and they are powerful. But the sheer anguish in his voice as he said them was potent. This is a man--he came in as a kid, but this team requires him to be a man--who was experiencing self-doubt for one of the first times in his athletic career. This is a man who has been good at everything for his entire life and has struggled in three straight games, dating back to some self-inflicted foul trouble in Blacksburg.
He has led this team of five freshmen since October 15. He has organized pickup games and moved in with Quentin Thomas--intuitively realizing that Thomas might need some positive reinforcement--and given the fiery halftime speeches and made the game-winning shot in the season opener and run the sprints and lifted the weights.
He has been the supportive shoulder. And now he needs one himself. That's an issue Carolina needs to solve, but it's also been somewhat stunning to the young players who aren't used to seeing their leader struggle. It is like watching Atlas's shoulders sag.
"It's been a shock to us these last two games," Marcus Ginyard said of watching Noel. "He's been there to lift us up so now we need to return the favor."
Although he'll blame himself for everything over the next few hours, Noel is hardly the only source of the current problems. Carolina doesn't just need a better David Noel. Carolina needs better everything--better on-the-ball defense, better offensive execution, better care of the basketball.
That's what Roy Williams will begin to implement starting at Friday afternoon's practice. The players don't trust themselves right now, but they do trust their head coach. What they'll discover is that he's been through this before. This might be the first time they've experienced self-doubt as a basketball player. But it is not the first time he has had a team feeling those emotions, and that's likely to be reassuring to them.
Reassuring is what you wanted to be for David Noel. You wanted to pat him on the back, put an arm around his shoulder, offer a kind word. The player on the team who gets along with everybody walked out of the locker room alone Thursday night, the frustration of the past two hours still evident on his face. Ginyard was asked who, specifically, had to step up to aid their struggling leader.
His answer was simple but blessed with the insight of youth.
"We all do."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.
