University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Heels Ready for Business Trip
November 16, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 16, 2004
By Adam Lucas
Roy Williams lists his schedule like he's reciting dental appointments.
"We get there Saturday at 2:00. We leave for practice at 3:30. We have to be back at 6:30 and we've got some deal at 7:00. Sunday we have a coaches' administrative meeting at 7 a.m. and a press conference at 8...We'll practice Sunday afternoon and we have a banquet that night.
"We'll play Monday at 4:30, and win or lose we grade film afterwards so we can show the results to the team the next day. We'll play Tuesday, we'll grade film afterwards, and we'll show that tape the next morning. Then we'll play again afterwards."
He won't get much sympathy, however. Everything on that itinerary will take place in the tropical surroundings of Maui, beginning when the Tar Heels land on the island Saturday afternoon after playing a Friday evening contest against Santa Clara in Oakland.
It's a basketball-heavy schedule that includes seven games in the first 15 days of the season--five of those seven games away from the Smith Center. Unfriendly confines weren't kind to the Heels last year, as they amassed a 7-9 record last season away from Chapel Hill.
Most of the fan attention has been devoted to the star-studded Maui Invitational, where Carolina will be joined by Stanford, Tennessee, Louisville, and Texas, plus first-round opponent BYU. But before he worries about the Maui field, Williams has to figure out how he's going to get through Friday night's game against the Broncos without Raymond Felton.
The starting point guard's one-game NCAA penalty will place him on the bench for the first time in his basketball career. Middle school, high school, AAU, college--the durable Felton has never missed a full game.
Williams says his replacement in the starting lineup is yet to be determined. Sean May didn't seem so sure, implying that rookie Quentin Thomas will get the start. May doesn't have the final decision, however. And the head coach is much less concerned about who starts than about who plays the majority of the minutes.
"I would guess we'll play all three (Thomas, Wes Miller, and Melvin Scott)," Williams said. "Whoever plays the best will play the most."
Already without Felton, the Tar Heels don't want to go into the Oakland Arena without this week's Sports Illustrated coverboy, Rashad McCants. The junior went through about a third of practice on Monday and was hoping to be a full participant on Tuesday. Although he's still experiencing some pain in his shoulder--the injury is not related to the shoulder injury he sustained as a freshman--he's likely to play against Santa Clara.
It was just 360 days ago that Williams sat in the press room of the Smith Center prior to the season opener against Old Dominion and answered seemingly endless questions about his feelings about returning to Carolina. Much has changed since then, from the tenor of the questions to the way he feels about his team. They even earned a rare compliment from their head coach after a recent practice.
"I left practice a couple Saturdays ago and thought, `We're going to be pretty doggone good,'" Williams said. "Not one practice did I ever have that kind of feeling last year."
Beginning Friday night, they'll get the chance to prove exactly how good they'll be, if they can squeeze in time for some basketball games between the meetings, banquets, and practices. Eventually, on Thursday, they'll get almost a full day to themselves, and some players plan to take the opportunity to snorkel near the hotel.
For some, though, they're not wasting much time this week looking at travel brochures.
"I'm not worried about having fun," Sean May said. "It's about basketball. We've been waiting three long weeks for this."
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.
