University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: A Dose Of Reality
November 14, 2002 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 14, 2002
By Adam Lucas
And now for a dose of reality.
Carolina's basketball team came out Wednesday night and did perhaps the best thing they could have done to temper the giddiness that was approaching schoolgirl levels in Chapel Hill -- they lost to Team Nike 76-72.
The game determined only one thing for sure: Lennie Rosenbluth and the rest of the 1957 Tar Heels can breathe easier, because this year's squad won't be going undefeated.
Other than that, the loss wasn't nearly as telling as some doomsayers will make it out to be. The situation now is no different than it was after Saturday's euphoric win over EA Sports. If anything, it was comforting to see that this team is very likely to perform exactly as expected. They will have some games where they look like the powerhouse they are likely to be in two years, and they will have some games where they couldn't beat the Washington Generals.
"There's going to be days like this with this young team," Matt Doherty said after the game.
The team got even younger when the coaching staff made the decision to hold Rashad McCants and Jackie Manuel out of the game in an effort to get them completely healthy for Monday night's season opener against Penn State. McCants is nursing a shoulder injury and Manuel is still hobbled by a groin pull. Both have missed the last three days of practice.
Their absence forced some creative lineups throughout the game, including David Noel sliding between the shooting guard and small forward spot. The new responsibilities showed, as he finished with four turnovers.
That was second on the team behind Raymond Felton, who finished with six turnovers but added 22 points. His stat line personified what is likely to be the story team-wide throughout this season for these Tar Heels -- sometimes spectacular (22 points, 4-6 from three-point range), occasionally average (six turnovers), and at times disheartening (2-for-8 from the free throw line).
Lost in the loss will probably be the exceptional performance of Sean May, who continued to prove that all the handwringing over the lack of a big man in Chapel Hill can be solved just by getting the ball to number 42. Playing against legitimate post competition, including former Cincinnati player Donald Little and Temple center Bill Cunningham, May dropped in 23 points and 11 rebounds and led a Tar Heel post attack that actually outrebounded the opposition 39-35.
May continuously showed that he knows how to get himself open in the post, and that upon receiving the ball he knows what to do with it. His best move was a Hakeem Olajuwon-like shimmy that left a Team Nike defender standing with mouth agape.
May's interior play wasn't enough to salvage the game, as Carolina played the last five minutes of the contest like, well, a young team. They rushed a couple of shots and with the coaching staff screaming to foul, allowed 10 valuable seconds to elapse before fouling Little with 16 seconds to play and a two-point deficit. The 32 percent second-half field goal shooting might have been cured by the presence of McCants, who has an uncanny knack for putting the ball in the basket, but missing two key players from the rotation just served to show how fragile this team will be.
The loss certainly didn't merit the type of serious postgame questioning unleashed by the media, all of whom wanted to know if this loss would "damage the confidence" or "bruise the ego" of this fragile team.
Fortunately, sophomore guard Melvin Scott isn't much for psycho-analysis. The Tar Heel most likely to tell you exactly what's on his mind, he summed up the evening perfectly.
"Saturday we came out and beat a team that beat us last year by 30, and so everybody was like, 'Ooohh, we're back.' That's cool," Scott said. "But now we lose a game, and it's, 'Aw, man, what's wrong?' Nothing's wrong. You just have to learn from this. I'm not nervous. I'm not thinking about last year. We'll just watch film and learn what we have to do for Monday when the season starts."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.
