University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Unseen Game Looks Familiar
March 24, 2003 | Men's Basketball
March 24, 2003
By Adam Lucas
If you weren't one of the 20,235 fans inside the Smith Center on Monday night, you might consider yourself unfortunate to have not been able to see Carolina's 90-74 victory over Wyoming in the second round of the NIT.
Don't despair. We've got a handy guide for you to make your own version of the game tape. Start by using the first 20 minutes of the season-opening game against Penn State. That should give you a pretty good idea of Monday night's first half, which ended with a 47-30 Tar Heel advantage.
The Heels turned in a sizzling first stanza, making almost 60 percent of their three-pointers and nearly 55 percent of their field goals overall. They turned the ball over just five times, handed out 14 assists on 18 field goals, and generally looked identical to the team that overwhelmed the Nittany Lions back in November.
The next few minutes of your game tape are going to be a little trickier. What you'll need to do is splice together the following three ingredients: a dash of Harlem Globetrotters highlights, some snippets from your latest game of Sony PlayStation basketball, and a "best of" video from those guys who do the halftime shows in which they jump on trampolines and do all sorts of crazy dunks.
That's how good Carolina was in the first five minutes of the second half against Wyoming. You got the very distinct feeling that they could do absolutely anything they wanted to do. When the Cowboys scored, it seemed to be for the sole purpose of allowing the crowd to catch their breath.
Blink, and you missed a highlight. Sure, you already knew that Raymond Felton had an astounding 15 points and 14 assists, but did you know that he also had more blocks than turnovers?
Yes, the player they list at 6-0 ˝ finished with three blocks and just two turnovers. One of those blocks came in the second half, when he rejected a Wyoming three-pointer and led to a transition trifecta for Melvin Scott.
"I know you've got to keep your eyes wide open," Scott said. "He won't even look at you and he'll throw the ball. It can wind up in your face."
Jawad Williams and David Noel have learned how to catch those passes, especially above the rim. Over the past few weeks, Felton has developed a Cota-to-Carter (kids, ask your parents) type connection with that pair of teammates. It's to the point now that it takes only a glance, a sliver of daylight, before Felton is tossing the ball skyward and Noel or Williams is soaring to jam the alley-oop through the basket.
"It's just timing," Felton said. "You drive to the basket and you see your guy moving towards the basket. His guy helps towards you, and it's all about timing. You just throw it up there and let them get it."
The kicker to the whole play may be how easy he makes it sound, and how easy his receivers make it look.
If you're just watching David Noel on offense, though, you're missing half the show. His post defense continues to be exceptional, as he limited Wyoming's Uche Nsonwu-Amadi to a respectable 17 points and eight rebounds. Noel gives away four inches in height and 44 pounds in that matchup, but it doesn't particularly seem to matter to him.
Oh, and about that homemade game tape. After the Globetrotters highlights, you need to toss in about five minutes of the first half of this year's game against Virginia in Charlottesville. Carolina got a little impatient offensively and the Cowboys took advantage, using their 2-3 zone and a more efficient offense to trim the deficit to three points. Not coincidentally, the big Wyoming run came just after the Smith Center crowd turned in a rousing rendition of the wave, further proving the notion that that particular so-called cheer should be forever banished from Chapel Hill.
You never got the sense, however, that the game was in doubt. The over 20,000 maniacs got a little edgy, but the game never seemed to be teetering. The Heels closed the game out in high style, with Rashad McCants egging on the boisterous crowd and students heading towards the ticket office to purchase tickets for Wednesday night's home game against Georgetown.
It will, no matter the outcome, be the last chance to see this team in Chapel Hill. It will also be this team's last chance to play to their fans. For four months, this team has played to their fans better than perhaps any team in Carolina history. And as the clock wound down against Wyoming, with the student-let crowd going crazy and McCants flashing an ear-to-ear smile, it didn't much feel like the NIT.
It felt like, for just a second, something different.
"It felt like I was in heaven," Scott said.
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.
