University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Heels Have Edge
December 29, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 29, 2004
By Adam Lucas
Typically, the word "contrite" isn't one you'd use to describe a postgame Carolina basketball locker room.
"Boisterous," maybe, or perhaps "raucous."
But after Tuesday night's 96-75 victory over UNC-Wilmington, contrite definitely fit. Three different Tar Heels--Sean May, Melvin Scott, and Marvin Williams--racked up technical fouls, the first time Roy Williams could recall in his coaching career that he'd had a trio of technicals.
"I apologized to Coach and I apologized to my teammates," May said.
For the players involved, the fallout will come at tomorrow's practice, when they're likely to spend plenty of time running sprints. Exactly how much running will be done will be determined by Williams's late night film review session as he assesses how egregious each foul was. In an ominous move, the team was informed after the game that Wednesday's practice had been moved from its usual late afternoon slot to a bright and early 8:30 a.m.
Here's some honesty, though: isn't it kind of nice to see Jawad Williams--who bit his tongue near the end of the game and was unavailable for postgame comment--playing with a bit of an edge to his game? He wasn't one of the players nailed with a technical, but he was almost always in the middle of the fray, and he never once backed down. That's the kind of presence he hasn't always provided during his previous three years.
It's fashionable right now to call him a George Lynch-type player. Hopefully, the 2004-05 Tar Heels will have the same ending Lynch's senior team had. But as of this moment, Williams is a bigger offensive threat than Lynch was. He had his usual game Tuesday, shooting 9-of-12 from the field, hitting 3-of-4 from three-point range, pulling down four rebounds, scoring 25 points in 24 minutes, and contributing three assists against just one turnover with two blocks.
Ho-hum. For Williams, that stat line is old news. He's playing the best basketball of his career, and it's no coincidence that he's playing on the best Carolina team of his career. He's the unquestioned leader of the squad, the guy capable of yanking his teammates together in a huddle to straighten out some attitudes and the guy who, when he loses a contact (as he did in the first half), all four teammates on the court immediately hit the floor to try and locate it.
The second half chippiness was in stark contrast to the first half (although Wilmington coach Brad Brownell pointing at Roy Williams early in the first stanza foretold what was to come later in the game), when Carolina raced to a 19-3 lead and played some of their prettiest basketball of the season.
"That's the best we've been this year sharing the basketball," Williams said. "At halftime that might have been the most pleased I've been at any game this year."
The final stats: 28 assists on 30 field goals, nearly flawless sharing of the ball.
One of those assists came from Rashad McCants, who may have created a monster. His scoring proficiency has grown so commonplace that when he musters "only" 9 points (while coming off a battle with the flu), as he did against the Seahawks, he's bound to have to answer questions about what was wrong with his game.
"I don't understand it," he said. "If I don't score 20 or 30, I had a `bad' game. Our team won by 20 points. That's all that matters."
That's not exactly all that matters--the way they did it matters, too. At some point, Carolina will have to win an ACC game that looks a lot like Tuesday's affair, with bodies bouncing off the hardwood, eyes flashing, and backs bowing.
The Heels can consider Wilmington a dress rehearsal. Even if they have to pay the price for it Wednesday morning.
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.
