University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Fun Afternoon at the Smith Center
January 7, 2003 | Lucas
Nov. 9, 2002
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By Adam Lucas
It didn't take Matt Doherty long to sum up what nearly 13,000 Carolina fans were saying after Saturday evening's heartening 109-97 victory over EA Sports.
"That's fun basketball," the head coach said. "And that's Carolina basketball."
With that sentence, he crystallized what had the Smith Center so excited. Watching Tar Heel basketball last year simply wasn't very much fun. It was like an Arena Football team that preferred the running game while every other team was throwing 70 passes per game.
Carolina has a pass-slinging quarterback this year, and his name is Raymond Felton. Felton led a 28-assist performance that almost resembled a Globetrotters game at some points. He'll get most of the credit, but this is one of the best passing Tar Heels teams in quite some time. Every position, from one to five, is capable of throwing above-average passes. Even Sean May, who might have surprised some Carolina fans who expected a banging post man, showed a deft touch with the basketball.
May finished with 22 points in just 23 minutes of action--he was limited by doctor's orders to 24 minutes.
Walk-on David Noel didn't score like he did in last week's Blue-White game, but he provides a physical presence that makes up for some Carolina deficiencies at other positions in that department. He also handed out three assists against zero turnovers and grabbed four rebounds.
"We made some good plays, and it wasn't just Raymond," Doherty said. "That was great team basketball."
Granted, it didn't take much to wow a Carolina crowd that had just suffered through a 42-12 football whipping at the hands of the Clemson Tigers. Just a couple minutes into the hoops game, a Felton dribbling exhibition prompted "Oooohs" from the crowd. It's possible that last year's 8-20 record, while painful at the time, may have sparked Tar Heel fans to stop taking basketball excellence for granted and start enjoying it.
Things seem to be happening to the basketball team almost in inverse proportion to the football Tar Heels. At Kenan Stadium Saturday afternoon, everything went wrong--the seniors were sent out without winning a home game this season, Michael Waddell fractured his fibula and is likely lost for the season, and Clemson had their way with a Carolina defense that is, as has been said ad nauseum, young.
Give credit to the fans who showed up and for the most part stuck around, but this year's gridiron squad simply doesn't have the capability to bounce back when something bad happens. Usually this season, it's been a turnover. On Saturday, it was a botched pass interference call that went against Sam Aiken on a deep reception. Instead of Carolina taking back the second-quarter momentum with a long pass and a 9-7 lead, Clemson capitalized and never looked back in dominating the game.
Meanwhile, at the Smith Center, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who wasn't giddy after a win over an EA Sports team that previously gave Alabama a 97-94 scare and defeated later Tar Heel opponents Old Dominion and Penn State.
This year's squad is probably not as good as we think it is right now. Carolina has a strange makeup that includes players who play taller than their listed height-David Noel and Rashad McCants-and some who play smaller-Jawad Williams and Jackie Manuel. But what they also appear to have, even this early in the season, is terrific team chemistry. And that made it fun for everyone on Saturday. Even the head coach, who too often last year had to fight his team instead of coach them.
"All my guys are coachable," Doherty said. "That makes it a pleasure to go to practice."
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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.
