University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Scruffy Week Carries Over
January 6, 2004 | Lucas
Dec. 14, 2003
By Adam Lucas
If you think back to your college days, exam week always had a certain feel. It seemed that the sun never came out, you never wanted to change out of your sweatpants, and--speaking only from a guy's perspective here--shaving was an exception rather than the rule. In other words, it was a scruffy week.
The living, breathing, embodiment of scruffiness took place Sunday afternoon in the Smith Center. The Tar Heels claimed a 64-53 victory over Akron, but you couldn't prove it by the long faces in the locker room.
"There were times we were just out there running up and down the court," said Jackie Manuel. "We can't do that."
The only positive to come out of Sunday's game may be that many more fans now believe Roy Williams, who told reporters just Friday that his team was "on the edge" and was still very fragile. It might have sounded like sandbagging at the time, but Tar Heel fans will eventually learn that Williams is honest to a fault. If he's got a formidable team, he'll tell you. And if his team is on the edge, well, he'll tell you that, too.
He wouldn't want to hear this, but Williams deserves some credit for instilling an attitude of disappointment after a victory. Carolina's juniors could recall similar efforts--at home against Hampton and Davidson during 2001-02 and on the road at Iona last year, just to name three--that have ended in losses. This one, despite being heinous, was a win.
The truth is that most every team plays an ugly game during exams. One of UNC's most infamous home losses in history came during that time period, as Florida State swaggered into the Smith Center and emerged with an 86-74 win during the 91-92 season. Carolina practiced just twice this week, and on Sunday, it showed. That's why lethal opponents are rarely scheduled for the mid-December slot that falls in the middle of exams.
Akron didn't look formidable on paper, but the Zips were a difficult opponent to play during a week of minimal preparation. Their active matchup zone posed serious problems for the Tar Heels, who tried to shoot over it without much success, hitting just four of 21 three-pointers. Williams tells anyone who will listen that he doesn't like to play zone because it slows down the game. He got a perfect illustration on Sunday, as Akron held the Heels, who came into the game averaging 93.2 points per contest, almost 30 points under their average. Every time it appeared that Carolina had a fastbreak opportunity, two or three Zips would materialize under the basket to thwart any layup chances.
And even when the defenders weren't in position, the Heels had trouble making easy baskets. Carolina shot 37 percent in the first half and then got even worse in the second stanza, when they made less than a quarter of their 34 shots. The only player in the starting lineup to make better than 50 percent of his field goal opportunities was Raymond Felton, who hit 5 of 9 shots but committed five turnovers and occasionally seemed to be trying too hard to kick the Heels into gear.
The transmission never fired, however, due in part to the struggles of Sean May. Much of the Carolina offense runs through him, both as a scorer and a passer, but the zone limited his effectiveness in the high post and an off shooting night hampered him in the low post. He set a Smith Center record for rebounds with 21, but as Roy Williams noted after the game, it's a dubious achievement when many of those boards--May got 10 on the offensive end--come off your own missed shots.
Last week against George Mason, Felton got one of his school-record 18 assists when May pulled in an errant pass with one big paw and laid it softly into the basket. On Sunday, however, Felton drew the defense to him late in the game. He dropped a soft pass to May, and if last week's one-handed basket was a triple-axel on the degree of difficulty scale, this one barely even registered on the scale. But May, who just took an exam on Saturday, tried to lay the ball up instead of dunking it, and he looked back with a look of surprise as it rolled off the rim.
"You saw what kind of night it was with that last one," May said. "I should've gone up and dunked it but I tried to lay it up to see where I was. I guess it showed where I was."
Where he is right now is 6-0 on one of the top-10 teams in America, with three good days of practice (Monday, Thursday, and Friday) before a showdown with Wake Forest.
A game that the players fully realize must feature considerably less scruffiness.
"If we play like this against Wake?" Melvin Scott said, repeating a reporter's question. "We're going to get our butts beat."
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.
