University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Doherty, McKinney Change Approach
October 23, 2001 | Men's Basketball
Oct. 23, 2001
By Adam Lucas
TarHeelBlue.com
Matt Doherty's second North Carolina team will be less conditioned physically at the opening of the 2001-02 season than they were at the beginning of the 2000-01 season.
This is not bad news. To the contrary, everyone involved is hoping the change will result in a deeper run into the postseason.
Doherty is a young enough coach to admit that he is still learning. Last year, he put strong emphasis on working his first Tar Heel team into shape before they opened the season against Winthrop. Players talked with wagging tongues about the strenuous workouts they endured in preseason practices.
The consensus was that Carolina was a lean, mean running machine. That was the consensus in November. But in March, the Heels occasionally looked tired and eventually ran out of gas against Penn State in the NCAA Tournament.
The Heels aren't exactly kicking back this preseason, but they have shelved some of the more intense parts of their workouts, like the dreaded sprint ladder, in an attempt to taper their conditioning leading up to March.
"We've made a conscious effort to be at maybe 75 percent shape at the start of practice and work into 100 percent shape by March," Doherty said. "I have to back off a little bit. We're not going to win the national championship in October. We're going to win it in March."
The man in charge of that program is new strength and conditioning coach Thomas McKinney, who came to Chapel Hill by way of Charlottesville and New York City. He was an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Virginia before accepting the position as head strength and conditioning coach for intercollegiate athletics at Columbia, where he served for four-and-a-half years.
In a way, Carolina's sterling academics led to McKinney getting the job. Morehead Scholar and forward Will Johnson spent the summer in New York City working in the financial district. While there, he asked McKinney if he could work out at Columbia's facilities.
When word came that the Tar Heels were looking for a new strength coach to replace longtime director Ben Cook, Johnson was able to recommend McKinney to the Carolina coaching staff.
McKinney had already expressed interest in the job during a dinner with football strength coach Jeff Connors at a conditioning conference.
"He mentioned to me that Coach Doherty was looking for someone, and I already knew Will Johnson," McKinney said. "After I applied it seemed like an eternity. I called Coach Doherty every day. I don't think anybody can name a better place for a strength and conditioning coach professionally."
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The new conditioning guru was officially hired in August, and he saw the number of charges under his direction go from 450 at Columbia to 15 at Carolina.
But those 15 happen to be some of the most scrutinized athletes in the nation. They include prospects as diverse as Kris Lang, who McKinney calls the most impressive specimen on the team, to seven-foot-five Neil Fingleton, who is still trying to ease his way back from what could have been debilitating back surgery.
"Kris's abilities are amazing," McKinney said. "When people see him at the Blue-White game, they are going to see a kid who is 6-foot-11 and runs the court extremely well. He's physically impressive.
"For Neil, people don't seem to understand that he underwent back surgery. I'd like to see someone get in his shoes and basically have to bend over the whole time, because nothing is built for you. We've been putting him on a treadmill in water, and he's been doing a great job with his sprints on the court."
Those sprints haven't been quite as numerous this fall as they were last year. With Doherty's expressed desire to be in peak condition for March rather than October, McKinney had to design his program to make sure the Tar Heels have something left in the tank once ACC games begin.
"Being in great shape in December last year didn't help us when we needed to be in great shape against Penn State," Brian Bersticker said. "We were in great, great shape last year at the beginning, but it's a long season, and the national championship is not going to be won tomorrow."
But the team's results will begin to be judged this week, when the squad holds its first public exhibition with Thursday night's Blue-White game. And while they're aiming for February and March, they also have to put forth a respectable showing before Christmas in order to make the post-Christmas games meaningful.
So, McKinney has scaled back the quantity of running the team has done while increasing the quality.
"Coach Doherty trusted me to run them a little less but a little more intensely," McKinney said. "We started to emphasize the quality versus the quantity of what we're doing, and the players really took to that. Whether you're running for 10 minutes of 15 minutes, we want the best effort you can give. We don't want a Carolina team that just wants to get through something. We want to hammer through."
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Adam Lucas is the co-publisher of Basketball America. He is a lifelong observer of UNC sports and can be reached at JAdamLucas@aol.com.
