University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Greed is Gone
December 21, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 21, 2004
By Adam Lucas
On the list of world's easiest jobs, there are a few basketball-related entries. Raymond Felton's dribble consultant, for example, or Jackie Manuel's sleeve shortener.
Something to add to that list: University of Vermont basketball beat writer.
Catamounts head coach Tom Brennan came into the postgame press conference following Carolina's 93-65 win over his team and began a virtual seven-minute stand-up comedy routine that had the eyes of even the most crusty local media member glazing over. It was pretty simple: hold up your tape recorder, wait for Brennan to speak, transcribe quotes, story is finished.
He began his speech this way: "Well, ladies and gentlemen, some days you are pigeons and some days you are statues. Today, we were statues."
We'll pause here to give you a minute to think about it.
Brennan proceeded to rave about virtually everything associated with University of North Carolina basketball, from Jawad Williams ("Let me get this right, the other Williams is supposed to be the lottery pick? Jawad Williams isn't the lottery pick? Yeah, you guys really have a lot of problems here.") to Roy Williams ("Coach Williams was just as gracious as he could be. It's a classy operation. You don't even mind getting pounded here because they treat you so well before they do it.") to Marvin Williams ("I just can't believe that the one guy is going to be a lottery pick and he can't even play."). He repeatedly called the Tar Heels "the best team in the country."
But nestled inside Brennan's wisecracks was perhaps the truest observation anyone has made so far this year about the 2004-05 North Carolina Tar Heels.
"You know what I like about them? There's no greed there. There doesn't seem to be one bit of greed on that team. To have a great team, you have to have guys who aren't greedy. That's really important and they seem to have that kind of chemistry."
That, folks, is profound. Carolina had virtually the same very good basketball players last season that they have this season. But they also occasionally had a touch of that greed Brennan was talking about, and it turned what could have been maybe a 24-6 season into 19-11.
Greed is players forcing shots. Greed is players keeping constant track of their points and shots taken. Greed is players barking at each other.
This year, it's gone. There's no concrete explanation for what made it disappear. Credit some of it to Jackie Manuel, Melvin Scott, and Jawad Williams, three players who have seen the worst and the best in their four years and wanted to make sure they went out on top. Credit some of it to Raymond Felton, who has energized his team defensively on the perimeter. Credit some of it to Sean May, who sacrificed enough in the offseason to get into good enough shape that midway through Tuesday night's second half he still had the stamina to unleash a one-handed dunk from a flat-footed position, something he never could have done in previous years. Credit some of it to Rashad McCants, who got all of his 19 points within the flow of the offense and is one of the keys to why this team is communicating on the floor much better than in the past. Credit some of it to Melvin Scott, who has struggled at times through the first 10 games but has yet to utter a dissenting word.
Credit some of it, in fact, to every player wearing the Julian argyles.
And credit some of it--OK, a lot of it--to Roy Williams. He's made such progress with this team that when asked how his squad could get better, he could only list generalities: "Every area of the game we can get a heck of a lot better." That's typical coachspeak. As the Tar Heels learned last year, Royspeak when he's unhappy is much more specific--"We have to stop the ball, we have to frickin' guard people, I wish I could put a finger on why we're not into it at certain times." All those statements are actual Williams quotes from last season. None have been uttered this year.
"For a coach of Coach Brennan's stature to say something like that about us is a great compliment," David Noel said. "This year we're showing we like to play team ball."
And Carolina fans are learning they like to watch it.
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.
