University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Felton Engineers Solid Performance
January 11, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 11, 2004
By Adam Lucas
It had become an essential part of every postgame debriefing. Before Tar Heel fans can put the latest game to rest, they have to have the answers to three critical questions:
When is Damion Grant going to play?
What kind of mood is Rashad McCants in?
When is Raymond Felton going to start scoring?
After Sunday night's 103-88 win over Georgia Tech, the first time since the magical season of 1993 that the Heels have posted back-to-back 100-point games in ACC play, all three questions can be definitively answered.
Carolina's seven-footer hopes to return to action during the upcoming week. McCants was happier than Richard Simmons at a wig-makers' convention. And Felton, well, Felton can score most any time he wants to.
Earlier this week, Sean May was assessing the mental health of this team and the apparent troubles they were having applying what Roy Williams was teaching them. "This team doesn't have that person who gets us ready to attack all the time for 40 minutes," he said. "I think that guy is Ray. He has so many things to control throughout the game."
Against the Jackets, Felton did exactly that. Most importantly, he perfectly orchestrated an attack that ran when it should run and slowed it down a notch when the slower pace was appropriate. It was like watching a football defense that blitzed at all the right times. Midway through the first half, Felton pushed the ball upcourt for a Rashad McCants layup, zipping past several Tech defenders for the assist. On the very next possession, Jawad Williams had numbers on the fast break but wisely chose to pull the ball back out, and the possession ended in a Felton three-pointer that opened a 15-point bulge with 10 minutes left in the half.
"Offensively, we were trying to attack but make good decisions," said Roy Williams, who called it Felton's best game of the year. It was the head coach's first opportunity to see in person the Raymond Felton that Carolina fans already knew. Keep in mind that Williams was in Lawrence when Felton was putting together his terrific ending to his freshman campaign, when he handed out 59 assists over the final six games of the 02-03 season. Williams had heard plenty about the potential of his lead guard, but he hadn't really seen it until Sunday night.
In addition to his near triple-double of 25 points, seven rebounds, and nine assists, Felton also provided the game's biggest dose of drama when he went down in a heap at the beginning of the second half. The injury, which happened without any contact and looked potentially disastrous, caused a Smith Center crowd of 21,750 to instantly fall silent. But the sophomore point guard eventually got back to his feet, and when he came back into the game, he announced his return with typical Felton flair: by taking the ball 90 feet against Tech's Mario West for a scoop layup.
The Latta native was so hot that when the Jackets' Will Bynum decided to start talking a little trash to Felton late in the second half, you almost wished the game could be extended for a few minutes just to see what magic tricks Felton might conjure up.
But a bevy of second-half foul calls had already extended the game well past the two-hour mark, so an extended performance wasn't possible. That gives the Heels less than 72 hours before they will play the most important game of the season, a road contest Wednesday night in College Park, which has been a very unfriendly location in recent years. Carolina needs to steal back a road conference win to compensate for the home loss to Wake, and they need to go on the road and beat a good opponent.
There is a tendency in Chapel Hill to take wins over Georgia Tech at home for granted, because it's happened every year for almost a decade. But this wasn't just any Tech team--it was the 8th-ranked squad in the country. For some reason, a margin that was double-figures for most of the second half felt consistently paper thin until the final seconds ticked off the clock. Paul Hewitt has one of the more athletic teams the Heels will see this year, and the Jacket guards spent most of the game darting past defenders and dashing into the lane, something the Heels will focus on in practice this week.
This win doesn't solve all the problems, just like last weekend's loss to Kentucky didn't mean that there were no positives about this team. There is still some work to be done, especially defensively.
"We still do some of the craziest things," Williams said. "We're a work in progress."
A work that, for one night at least, was perfectly engineered by a slight six-footer from Latta.
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.
