University of North Carolina Athletics
Gateway to St. Louis: Chemistry
October 13, 2004 | General
Oct. 13, 2004
This year's Tar Heel Monthly basketball preview includes a five-part "Gateway to St. Louis" series focusing on the five keys for this year's team to reach the 2005 Final Four in St. Louis. One of those stories is reprinted below. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly and receive the basketball preview, click here.
By Adam Lucas
The question is simple: it's the season opener against Santa Clara and the game is tied with ten seconds to play. Carolina takes possession. Who should take the game-winning shot?
"The first option would probably be Rashad," Jackie Manuel says. "He has shown everybody he can hit tough shots."
"I'm pretty sure it would be Rashad," David Noel says. "He has made so many big shots for us. He thrives in that moment. When it comes down to it, I'm most comfortable with him taking that shot."
"I don't think there's any question after last year," sophomore point guard Wes Miller says. "Rashad proved himself time and time again."
This, Carolina basketball fans, is progress.
The Tar Heels' 2003-04 season was partially undone by a failure among the players to accept their roles. The most disagreement concerned who should be the go-to player. Roy Williams clearly had no such qualms, as he continually drew up key last-second plays for Rashad McCants, but among McCants's teammates, there was some occasional chafing at the prospect of deferring to the hot-shooting sophomore.
"That was the thing last year," Noel says. "Everybody was jealous of each other. There was a lot of little petty high school stuff. We have to get over that. We are grown men and this is a team. Once we get the concept, and I think we're working towards it now, that it doesn't matter who is taking the shots, we'll be great."
"As a coach, you don't understand that mentality," Roy Williams says. "It's a pro mentality--how many shots is so-and-so getting? It's a cancer and you have to get rid of it. Every individual has to get rid of it or two things are going to happen: we're not going to win as much and they're not going to enjoy their college experience as much."
It's telling that in almost any preseason discussion of Carolina's basketball potential, there is very little mention of raw talent. For the first time in several years, the pieces are in place for a national contender. Depth behind Raymond Felton has been addressed. Sean May is no longer the lone big man on campus. Quickness and athleticism abound.
Now, the talented individuals just have to become a team.
"Rashad taught me a great lesson"
Outside the team, there will probably be numerous preseason stories written about Rashad McCants and his mercurial personality. It will be the third straight year those stories are written, and any hopes the Tar Heels had of avoiding them vanished when McCants was a surprise cut from the USA Junior National team this summer.
"He was by far the best player at that camp," says Sean May, who also tried out for the team and made the final roster. "For him to get cut, something had to go on. He knows what happened."
But then May adds something else, something many outsiders don't understand.
"It was just Rashad being Rashad. People here know about it. The coaches there weren't used to it."
That's the little-known secret: McCants's personality is no longer an issue for this Carolina basketball team. It might have been during his freshman year. Might have even occasionally extended into his sophomore year. But by this point, it's simply old news to his teammates, many of whom have a much better relationship with him than they did even one year ago.
For outsiders like Kelvin Sampson, the Oklahoma head coach who headed the Junior National team, the first few days of exposure to a player who doesn't smile all the time and has little regard for political correctness can be a stunner. For his teammates, however, it's just not a big deal.
"Rashad taught me a great lesson," Jackie Manuel says. "We were playing pickup, and he was talking trash. It really made me mad. After the game I went and talked to him and said, `What was the point?' He said, `I just wanted to make you mad to see how you reacted.' From that day, I said he was never going to make me mad, no matter what he said. That's Rashad. He tests people to see how they react. If you react the way he wants you to react, he'll get the best of you. If you pay it no mind and let it go, he'll stop.
"I've learned a lot from him. To this day, I'm still taking stuff from him. He's a smart kid. He knows what he's doing. He knows the game."
McCants understandably is weary of addressing some of the same questions he's answered ever since his arrival in Chapel Hill. He's spent two full years answering questions like, "Are you a good teammate?" and "What is your relationship like with your teammates?" The irony is that many of the most hurtful things that have been said or written about him were done without the author ever taking the time to actually speak to the subject. McCants intimidates people. This is something he knows about himself, and he doesn't mind occasionally facilitating that image.
Get past some of the bravado, though, and there's an insightful, intelligent, thoughtful young man. When he first arrived at Carolina, friends described him as a jokester, as a loyal friend who would do anything to make others happy. Early in his Tar Heel career, that description seemed perplexing and not a little out of place. But as his teammates began to chip away his shell, they've seen more of the charming personality that, when turned on, can win over even the harshest skeptic.
During a relaxed moment in early fall, he voluntarily brought up the Junior National incident.
"The USA thing was a bad encounter," McCants says. "Some guys really didn't know me and had expectations before they met me. People have perceptions of you, and usually they follow those perceptions when they meet you.
"I don't want to get into that area of trying to get everyone to like me. At that point, I feel like I'm running for President. I don't want to feel like I have to make everybody want to vote for me. I just do what I do."
Last year's leading vote-getter for the All-ACC team is taking a course this semester in Social Psychology. When asked what he's gotten from the course, his eyes light up.
"It's been really interesting, especially considering some of the things that have gone on lately in my life," McCants says. "We've talked about things like reputation and perceptions, and how people see you one certain way. Then, when they meet you, they might see you differently. I found that very interesting as far as my situation and how I act."
Accepting roles
What the Tar Heels never seemed to fully grasp last season was that even if McCants was the designated big shot-taker, that didn't mean there were no other valuable responsibilities for the rest of his teammates. In 1993, senior George Lynch and junior Eric Montross happily watched Donald Williams carry the scoring load in the Final Four. Lynch pulled down 10 rebounds in the title game against Michigan; both players combined to shoulder the defensive responsibilities against Chris Webber and Juwan Howard. Meanwhile, junior Derrick Phelps was taking just six shots in the championship game--the fewest of any starter--but harassed Wolverine point guard Jalen Rose into six turnovers.
It was a similar story in 1982. Senior point guard Jimmy Black deferred the scoring to junior James Worthy and a gangly freshman named Michael Jordan. Worthy carried the Heels through most of that game, but when it came time to let fly with the game-winning shot, the ball went to Jordan--and judging from the smile when the members of that team gaze at their national championship rings, no one's spent any time since then grumbling that they should have been the designated scorer on that play.
None of the current Heels, of course, were born when Jordan sank that jumper from out on the left. But even the youngest among them understands the value of good chemistry.
"A team has good chemistry when every player on the court is working together at the same time," freshman Quentin Thomas says. "It's not all focused on one person. There are going to be times when one person gets hot and you're feeding him the ball. But you can't be selfish enough to think, `OK, he shot, not I have to shoot.'"
Most of the returning players have a solid feel for where they fit. If McCants is to be the scorer, that means Jawad Williams must assume a Lynch-like role--a role which, don't forget, resulted in Lynch's jersey hanging from the Smith Center rafters--and Felton must provide a steady hand from the point guard position.
"We don't need all this ticky-tack stuff messing us up on the court," Felton says. "We need someone who when things get tough, lets guys know we're not going to have that. I'm going to be that guy. We can't have a season like last year, and I think people look up to me enough as a player and as a person that I can be the guy who lets them know."
And as for McCants, as for the man who is close to being unanimously anointed as the squad's best clutch performer? When told of his teammate's comments, he flashes that trademark megawatt smile. "If my teammates have confidence in me like I have in them, we can go a long way," he says. "I'm willing to take the team on my back, just like Raymond is or Jawad is or Melvin is or Sean is. But everybody has to be confident enough to get on."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. His book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about the book, click here.
