University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Highlight-Filled Game Impresses Visitors
December 19, 2002 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 19, 2002
By Adam Lucas
One of Carolina's biggest fans, someone who has spent a lifetime in basketball, was offering his postgame take on the Tar Heels' 80-54 win over Vermont Thursday night.
"Carolina plays like everybody on the team is the 12th man," the fan said. "They play like they're all dying. That's how hard they play. Carolina has always been a model...It's a classy team with a classy coach and a great team."
He continued, "They could've easily gotten 100 out there. One of the things Matt Doherty learned from Coach Smith was grace. He could've buried (Vermont) any way he wanted to. The way he subbed those guys out in the first half showed a lot of grace. In 30 years, that's as graceful a thing as I've ever seen."
The identity of the above fan? None other than Vermont head coach Tom Brennan. The talkative Catamounts head coach hosts his own radio show back home, and it wasn't hard to see why as he went through his ten-minute postgame stand-up routine, er, press conference. He left the Smith Center just as impressed as the crowd of 16,258, all of whom saw a game that played more like a package of SportsCenter highlights than a free-flowing basketball game.
If you blinked, it's likely that you missed something spectacular. In the first half, it was Raymond Felton flipping the ball in the air seemingly to no one, until Jawad Williams soared in for an alley-oop slam dunk. The official floor burn tally in the first half was six, as the Heels, grateful to have made it through exams and finally able to take on some outside opposition after 12 days off, dove all over the floor for loose balls.
The second-half highlights were led by David Noel, who threw down a double-pump dunk on a fast break that was rated a "10" by Felton. The scary part? There's better than that somewhere in the Noel arsenal.
"He can go between his legs," Felton said. "And he can dunk from the free throw line. He can do just about anything. He's got bounce."
"I'd probably give it about an 8," said Noel, who dunked for the first time when he was 14. "My teammates said it was a 10, but I don't know. I had never done it before in a game. I was going to do a one-handed dunk but I was afraid the ball would slip out of my hand."
The way things were going for Carolina, it's unlikely.
Leading the showcase was sophomore Jackie Manuel. Last season, in the dregs of an 8-20 campaign, he was asked what one word best described his basketball talent.
"Unstoppable," he said. Given a questioning glance, he expounded, "No, really. You haven't seen it yet this year, but when everything's clicking, unstoppable is the word."
Everything was clicking against the Catamounts, who left their best two players at home with injuries. The spidery guard had the type of defensive performance we've come to expect from him--five steals and seven rebounds and generally making life miserable for Vermont on their way to 34% shooting for the game--but he also found his offensive touch, stroking three early three-pointers on his way to a 14-point performance.
The Tar Heels fired up 21 three-pointers in the first half as Sean May never really got on track, including the sure-handed freshman missing passes he'd usually grab. He left the game in the second half to a pat on the back from head coach Matt Doherty and a quick chat on the bench.
"He knew I was upset at myself more than anything," said May, who sported a gash on his face as evidence of the banging in the paint. "He told me he knew it wasn't my night when one of the players with the best hands he had ever seen let that pass slip through my hands. But he said for our guys to pick up the slack and win by that margin was great, and he was right."
Carolina now will have just two days before taking on Florida State, a welcome short turnaround time that will prevent the desk jockeys around the state and country from dreaming up the latest hot rumor about Carolina basketball.
For the players, who still can't quite fathom that other people take the lives of college kids more seriously than do the involved parties themselves, it's almost enjoyable.
"Anytime you lose a game, people always want to conjure up something," senior guard Jonathan Holmes said. "People will come up to you and ask this or that, but we don't pay attention to it. We don't put any weight on it. We just kind of laugh it off. When you're at a high-profile program people are always looking for something to come up with."
"Everyone's happy," May said. "We're 6-2. How could you be unhappy?"
Sage advice from an 18-year-old. Another happy camper was Brennan, who had just one final request before he finished his postgame act.
"I'd like to come back again sometime," he said. "Can anyone get me tickets for the Duke game?"
Hey, get in line.
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.
