University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: May's Home Game is Road Test
November 30, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 30, 2004
By Adam Lucas
There may have been other stories happening in the world on October 28, 2001. But in Bloomington, Indiana, none were as important as the college decision of one 17-year-old Hoosier native.
Sean May's decision to attend North Carolina instead of Indiana was front page news in the local paper that day, a day May tried to persuade his mother to let him stay home from school because of anticipated fallout from fanatical IU supporters. Imagine Phil Ford's son or Michael Jordan's son narrowing his college choices to Carolina and another school and then picking the other. It's possible the reaction in Chapel Hill might not be too gentle.
That's what May faced on that fall day.
"Everyone thought I was going to Indiana," he said. "But it was on the front page of the paper, and when I went into school a lot of my friends didn't want to talk to me. A lot of teachers who spoke to me every day didn't talk to me the rest of that year."
A framed copy of that newspaper now hangs in his mother's home. But the 17,257 fans in attendance tomorrow night at Assembly Hall (tipoff is 9 p.m. on ESPN) aren't likely to need clippings to remind them of May's heritage. They're well acquainted with his family tree, beginning with father Scott, a former Hoosier All-American.
The younger May had a close relationship with former IU coach Bob Knight and always assumed he would eventually play for Indiana, even going so far as to encourage other top prospects to commit to IU. But when the school deposed Knight, May lost the person with whom he had the closest relationship on the basketball staff, and he began to consider other schools.
Although his commitment to Carolina sparked some harsh feelings in Bloomington, he's been a regular visitor to Assembly Hall pickup games over the past several summers, so he's very familiar with most of the Hoosier roster. In fact, Assembly Hall is where he got his first initiation into top-level basketball--former IU player Kirk Haston summoned a slightly chunky eighth-grader who hadn't always been sure he wanted to be a basketball player into one game when the squads were uneven.
May was in Bloomington for nearly three weeks this summer, so he's well acquainted with every nook and cranny of the arena. The hope, then, is that he'll be able to make his teammates more familiar with the building. Because although the game is a big one for him personally, it's even bigger for the Tar Heels, a team that has gone just 8-25 in true road games over the past three seasons.
IU's home arena isn't the best place to cure that problem--the Hoosiers owned a 56-game winning streak there from 1991-95 and have had only one losing home record in their 33 seasons in the building.
Roy Williams was one of the most successful road coaches in the nation when he was at Kansas, but he says the secret to winning away from home isn't complicated.
"Good players," he said. "I love going on the road, I really do. We didn't do it as well as we wanted to last year. We had a nice win at Wake and a nice win at State."
He's got some of those good players this year, although some of them are banged up. Melvin Scott has a tender hip and Raymond Felton's severe wrist sprain, which he suffered against Iowa, is likely to cause him pain for several more weeks. Felton said he was in constant pain against the Hawkeyes.
"I'm very impressed with his toughness," Williams said. "I do believe a lot of people would not have played at all against Iowa, there's no question in my mind."
Since the injury, Felton has only amassed 21 assists against four turnovers. The Tar Heels will need a similar effort against the veteran Hoosier backcourt, which features juniors Bracey Wright and Marshall Strickland.
Both those players, not surprisingly, are friends of Sean May. But as he enters a game when he's going to be constantly reminded of his college decision, he says he's completely at peace with his choice.
"Right now I can say I made the best decision in the world," he said. "I couldn't be happier with where I am right now...I thought Indiana was the basketball mecca of the world and no one cared about basketball more than Indiana fans. But I get to Chapel Hill, and it's three steps ahead. There are no fans like Carolina fans."
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.
