Lucas: The Strong Man

By Adam Lucas

BLACKSBURG, Va.—We've seen everything from Joel Berry II over the last four years.

We've seen him make big three-pointers. We've seen him create key turnovers. We've seen him lead his team to a national championship.

Until Monday night, in 128 career games, we'd never seen this from Joel Berry: after his fifth turnover of the night against Virginia Tech, with his team down double digits, Berry's shoulders visibly sagged as he ran back on defense.

Berry has been an absolute rock for four years. In some ways, his body language was more shocking than Carolina's 80-69 loss to the Hokies, a defeat that leaves them 1-3 on the road in the league.

It was reminiscent of another Tar Heel senior who suffered a similar setback in this same state. In 2006, David Noel met the media after a Carolina loss at Virginia and was near tears. Noel was the senior leader of a young team that was talented, but raw. Roy Williams would eventually call him one of the best leaders he'd ever coached, but on that day, in that locker room, it was weighing on the Durham native. He was a great leader precisely because he cared, precisely because it weighed on him every single moment.

That's how Berry looked at that moment on the Cassell Coliseum court. He's won a title. His jersey is going into the rafters. But he came back, joined by classmate and best friend Theo Pinson, because he loves Carolina so much that he couldn't imagine giving up his senior season.

And in return, he received…this stinker of a game. Ugh. Leading a winning team is fun. Leading a team that's struggling—and even though Carolina had won four games in a row, the Tar Heels haven't played consistently well in ACC play—is much weightier. Berry takes responsibility for every single part of Carolina's performance. When he plays well, he can't fully enjoy it because he also has accountability for the team. And when he doesn't play well, the problems are doubled.

Leadership is hard. That's why finding a good one is so special. Every college senior in the world thinks about their future at some point during the spring semester of their last year. Why would Berry be different? And at the same time, he's balancing learning the personality nuances of a team that's different than last year's veteran-dominated squad, and he feels responsible for all of them. For just one almost imperceptible moment on Monday night, it was too much for him, and he showed it. Here is some news: Joel Berry is human.

But here's the thing, though. Noel's senior season didn't end that day in University Hall. By just over a month later, he and his team were one of the hottest teams in the country, a group that posted one of the most memorable regular season wins of the Williams era, a senior day victory at Duke.

No matter how much you don't believe in the 2018 Tar Heels tonight, no matter how much you think they're lacking in personnel or coaching or toughness or defense or offense or any of the dozens of problems people will identify over this long upcoming week, this year's team is still capable of that same kind of turnaround. Really, they are. They showed it during the first month of the season, when they were a delight to watch. That version of this team seemed to relish the idea that other teams were underestimating them. What, Arkansas wants revenge for last year's NCAA Tournament ouster? Bring them on. Tennessee wants to sell out their building for the biggest game of the season? They'll be watching a loss.

It's hard to sustain that type of chip for six months, and the Tar Heels are going through a down cycle. If there is to be a return to form, it will start, as it so often does, with effort. In that first month, Carolina was the first team on the floor for every loose ball. They took charges and they scrapped for steals and sprinted back every single time. Every time down the court on defense, five players competed and talked and covered for each other. They've lost some of that initiative, and Virginia Tech outplayed them in the intangibles on Monday night. Carolina took several possessions off defensively, and they were exploited.

"I feel like I'm spending too much time coaching energy level and that's bothering me," Williams said. "I've got to do a better job."

Many will take that as an indictment of this particular team. It's not. It's a generational comment. Williams has made that exact same remark virtually every season since Tyler Hansbrough departed Chapel Hill, which is getting uncomfortably close to a decade ago.

Kenny Williams drew two charges and Luke Maye skied to battle for a 50-50 ball in the first half against Kerry Blackshear, an effort so unexpected that Blackshear was visibly perturbed that Maye even tried. Other than that, however, the Hokies were quicker and tougher and, well, more energetic. No one wants to hear this, and it does not at all excuse the entire effort, but league results over the last few years suggest playing the back half on the road of the two-games-in-48-hours arrangement often leads to results like this.

That would be more welcome news if the Tar Heels hadn't had similar performances with more rest in recent weeks. Regardless of scheduling (and there's a three games in five days stretch coming up in two weeks), Carolina simply needs to play with more aggression. Multiple times on Monday, after both makes and misses, Virginia Tech ran right back up the Tar Heel backs. Carolina had just four fast break points, all of which came in a one-minute span in the second half.

And after Maye scrapped near the corner for that ball with Blackshear, it was Buzz Williams' team that was first on the floor for virtually every other loose ball.

"We're taking that split second of not getting on the floor," Berry said. "If you try to go for a ball by standing up and reaching down to get it, that's when it becomes a 50-50 ball. Usually, the person who dives on the floor ends up with the ball. We have to stop thinking about it. We have to react, go in and dive. Those are effort plays that don't show up on the stat sheet."

Because of a lack of nearby suitable airports, Virginia Tech is the longest bus ride of the season for the Tar Heels. It's 201 miles from Cassell Coliseum to the Smith Center, meaning the team will spend three hours together stewing on this particular defeat. After the late return, they've got a scheduled off day Tuesday, and then have three days of practice before a home game with NC State.

The bus ride home and the extended practice time might be among the most important stretch of the season. It's time for this team to decide what they are. Don't expect to hear about a fiery bus speech. It's not time for that. But it's time.

"It's better to let a loss like this settle down," Berry said with the wisdom of four years. "Emotions are running high. You don't want to rub anybody the wrong way. We need to take the bus ride and sit back and think about things we could've done better. If anybody says anything, it's usually me, and I'm not going to do that this time. This is one of those times you have to give people space. The guys need to realize we all have to change. We need to sit back and think about it, and then come back ready to do something about it at practice."

Players Mentioned

Joel Berry II

Luke Maye

Theo Pinson

Kenny Williams

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