University of North Carolina Athletics
Manuel Seeks Defensive Nightmares
December 18, 2003 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 18, 2003
By Adam Lucas
Jackie Manuel is a congenial 20-year-old, a slightly shy college junior unlikely to wish misfortune on anyone.
Turn the subject to defense, though, and his smile turns into a straightfaced stare. The West Palm Beach native has the long arms and lanky frame that are usually a trademark of tough defenders, and he's athletic enough to guard the best player in the opposing backcourt. On Dec. 2, Roy Williams matched Manuel against Illinois' 6-foot-0, 175-pound waterbug Dee Brown. Two weeks later, he drew the assignment against the leading returning scorer in the MAC, Akron's considerably bulkier 6-foot-4, 210-pound Derrick Tarver.
No matter the opponent, Manuel has a simple goal for the each of his defensive outings.
"I want the other guy to have nightmares," he says. "I want them to think about me once the game is over."
It's the sort of devilish pronouncement that seems out of character for the soft-spoken Manuel. But through the first month of the season, he's left several players with less than pleasant dreams. Brown shot just 3-of-17 from the field against Manuel and the Tar Heels, and before sitting out most of the second half with an ankle injury against Akron, Manuel limited Tarver to a 2-of-10 first half shooting performance. That effort was punctuated with an energy-boosting closing minute of the opening stanza, as he plucked the ball from Tarver and jammed home a one-handed dunk and then stole the ball again on the next possession in a midcourt pileup.
It's that type of excitement that Roy Williams counts on his junior guard to bring to the Tar Heels off the bench. It's been a learning experience for everyone on the squad since practice began in October, but Manuel, who had a disappointing end to his sophomore campaign, has adjusted quickly.
"I can't say enough about Jackie Manuel," Williams said after Carolina's season opener. "I told him yesterday that if he was better looking I would have kissed him because of the way he is playing in practice."
It's a situation that seemed unfathomable after Williams was first hired. One of his first moves as Carolina's head coach was to meet with Manuel, who shot 42 percent from the field last year and made less than 27 percent of his three-point attempts. Perhaps more troubling to the new head Tar Heel was that Manuel's shaky percentage didn't deter him from heaving up the trifectas, as his 72 attempts were fifth-most on the three-point happy Heels.
Based on those statistics, the coach's message to his player was simple.
"I told him he needed to do one of two things," Williams said. "He could either become a heck of a lot better shooter or don't shoot as many."
That's not an easy message for most high-profile college basketball players to hear. Scoring is what gets recognition, what earns time on SportsCenter highlights. And as every scorer knows, you can't score if you're not shooting.
It took about 24 hours for Manuel to adjust to the idea of his new role. But after a day of wondering if he wanted to be a part of a basketball team that didn't want him to shoot the basketball, he warmed to his new role. Always a staunch defender--Manuel was one of the few Carolina freshmen who was more eager to talk about his defense than his offense--he dedicated himself to wreaking havoc on the defensive end and taking advantage of the occasional offensive opportunity.
"I understand what is a good shot now and what isn't a good shot," he said. "The last two years, what I thought was a good shot really wasn't...At times I felt like I had to create things offensively and rush. As you get older, you realize that you can be patient, run a play, and get the ball inside."
His acceptance of the new strategy was noted even before the Tar Heels played their first game. As Carolina went through a practice 48 hours before matching up with Old Dominion, Manuel passed up a wide-open jump shot from the right side of the key, instead choosing to feed the ball inside to Sean May. Roy Williams blew his whistle to stop the action.
"Jackie, that's what I'm talking about," he said. "I can't have you on the floor if you're shooting 27 percent. But I can have you on the floor when you're passing the ball like that."
Save for a spotty few minutes against George Mason, Manuel spent the first six games of the year putting on a clinic on how to play Roy Williams-style basketball. He takes care of the basketball, sporting a nearly 2:1 assist/turnover ratio. He makes good shots and, more importantly, takes good shots, as he enters conference play making 76 percent of his field goals. Through six games, just one of his field goal attempts was from beyond the three-point line.
The offense is nice, of course, but it's not what he wants his opponents to remember. And as the nightmares increase for the opposition, Manuel's teammates are taking notice of what he contributes to this year's team.
"He deflects a lot of passes and pressures the ball really well," fellow junior Jawad Williams said. "He leads us by defense."
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.
