Lucas: Deep Water

By Adam Lucas

Jonas Sahratian's job description is pretty simple: he teaches players how to do what they believe is impossible.

Every year Sahratian, Carolina's strength and conditioning coordinator, is presented with a new crop of Tar Heels. This year's group is particularly large; in addition to six freshmen, the roster also has a pair of transfers. And every year, Sahratian knows those newcomers' limits are far beyond what they actually believe. His job, especially in the weeks before practice begins on Oct. 2, is to show them how to exceed their own expectations.

"Especially with the young guys, we have to teach them they can do more than they think they can," Sahratian says. "They can push harder. They haven't been taken to that place yet, and a couple of them have to be taken to the deep water to teach them how to swim."

The Tar Heels will go through a fifth team conditioning session today, a series that culminates with the annual mile run. It's pretty simple: to play basketball for Roy Williams, you have to be able to run. Some players, like Luke Maye, are naturally gifted runners and thrive in the conditioning environment. Others require some acclimation.

Sophomore Brandon Robinson remembers being a little intimidated last year at this time, during what turned out to be an eye-opening experience.

"I've learned so much about myself over the past year," Robinson says. "Jonas has pushed me like I've never been pushed. He's showed me I can go places where I had never gone physically mentally. The stuff we do is hard, and you have to learn to not give up. It's all about continuing to work hard."

With such a young group, it helps to have a couple of veteran leaders who are consistently good examples. Sahratian keeps a white board in his office in the Smith Center weight room. Earlier this summer, Theo Pinson and Joel Berry were reminiscing about the grueling offseasons they've endured during their Carolina basketball careers.

The work, they agreed, had been intense. But the payoff—in the form of back to back national title games and the 2017 national championship—had been well worth it. The next day, the senior duo wrote a message on Sahratian's white board: "You're not going to whoop our butts to not make it back!"

Every day this summer, Pinson and Berry touched the board before beginning their workout. Their point was clear: they were planning to work just as hard as in past summers. And they were planning on that effort enabling them to finish the season the same way they did in 2017.

"This isn't just a year for us to celebrate the whole time," Pinson said. "It's a year for us to get better in the weight room. We're not going to go through that struggle and that grind and not get back there. We know it's going to hurt, but we're doing it for a reason."

Sahratian is always looking for ways to make the summer workouts more productive. This year's wrinkle: he's been talking to a rugby strength and conditioning coach who has worked with the Japanese national team. Some of those ideas helped Sahratian craft a summer plan that created more of an unstable environment when the players are running.

Listening to the veteran strength coach talk about the changes, it's clear he loves it, even if it's not always clear to the neophyte what he's talking about (He's prone to saying things like, "We want guys to be able to control their bodies with multiple planes of distortion.").

Players aren't necessarily interested in the science. They want to know whether it helps them on the court, and the answer is clear. "What we've been doing has helped me a lot with finishing through contact," Robinson says. "You can feel a difference when you're taking some bumps when you're trying to finish a straight line drive."

This, of course, is the best kind of positive feedback for Sahratian.

"It's always good when we see it carry over," he says. "It's speed work, but it also transfers to actual basketball."

Players Mentioned

Luke Maye

Theo Pinson

Brandon Robinson

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