University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Manuel Enjoys Getting Defensive
February 18, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 18, 2004
By Adam Lucas
When he's pondering a question, Jackie Manuel tends to bite his lower lip. It's an endearing trait, one that makes you believe he's actually giving some thought to the query rather than reciting a canned response.
The topic of conversation is Duke's J.J. Redick. More specifically, Redick's shooting prowess and the dangerous way he needs just a sliver of daylight to pull the trigger on his deadly jumper. Before Carolina met the Devils on Feb. 5 in the Smith Center, Redick had made 58.6 percent of his three-pointers in his most recent seven games and was being widely hailed as one of the greatest shooters in the college game.
Against the Tar Heels, however, when he was frequently guarded by Manuel, Redick his just two of his nine trifectas and 3 of 12 shots overall. The question to Manuel is simple: how were you able to close that window of daylight for Redick? How were you able to make up the distance between the time Redick caught the ball and when he wanted to release his jumper?
Manuel considers this question. He gives a half smile. Bites the lip.
"Long arms," he says with a chuckle. "I've been blessed with long arms and quickness."
It is exactly the kind of response you would expect from the modest 20-year-old with Psalm 27:1 tattooed on his right arm. He is not prone to self-congratulation, does not particularly like to draw attention to himself, and spent his first two years in Chapel Hill going largely unnoticed except when he would go through one of his turnover spells, which led to him entering this season with more career turnovers than assists.
Such careless disregard for the basketball seemed to make him an unlikely target to quickly become a Roy Williams favorite. But after a summer sit-down with the new head coach, he came back for his junior season with a redefined game. Last season through 22 games, he had 60 turnovers. This year, he has 18, the fewest of any player in Carolina's seven-man rotation.
The defensive mistakes have also been minimal this season. Instead, he has habitually brought a dash of energy when he rises from the Carolina bench and shucks his warmup jacket. Against Duke, the Heels had yet to make a field goal when Manuel entered the game with 90 seconds gone. Within a minute, he had helped caused two steals, blocked a Redick shot, and created two baskets off those turnovers.
"He blocked a couple of my shots early, and after that it was in the back of my head," Redick said. "I started rushing things, and I never really caught the ball in rhythm. He is one of the quickest at recovering to my shot. He's probably the toughest defender I've faced."
Manuel, of course, shrugged off the compliment with his remark about long arms. But playing good defense isn't simply about athletic ability and physical gifts. It's also about understanding what your team is trying to accomplish defensively, about knowing when and where your teammates do and don't need your help.
"You have to have the foot speed and the quickness to stay in front of a guy to be a good defender," Williams says. "But if you want to be a complete defender, if you want to be a great defender, you have to see the big picture. The communication with teammates and the ability to talk in an effective manner on the court is part of it."
Those intangibles aren't a recent addition to Manuel's game.
"You have to understand those defensive principles," he says. "I caught on to those in high school. I was playing defense like this in high school but people really don't talk about defense in high school. Actually, you could take it back even further than that, back to Pee Wee League, because I was even playing defense then."
He might have been playing defense even as a youngster (somewhere, there's a kid whose hoop dreams were probably shattered by a long-armed 9-year-old named Jackie Manuel who wouldn't stop blocking his shot), but it went unnoticed even past high school. Manuel was a solid defender for the Tar Heels last season but got very little recognition. Much like the way baseball's Gold Glove awards usually go to the best hitters, defensive attention usually only comes after a player proves he can score.
Manuel has done that this year, with explosive plays like his one-handed dunk over ACC Player of the Year candidate Julius Hodge earlier this season. His 56.9 field goal percentage, which leads the team, would rank him in the top 15 in Carolina's all-time season records. As the scoring has increased, so has the amount of recognition. A local paper named him to their midseason list of hardest-working defenders, and although there's no formal ACC Defensive Player of the Year Award, he's already become one of the players opposing wings least want to see matching up with them.
"I do think it's the case that if you don't score, you don't really get the defensive attention," he says. "Everyone likes defensive accolades and wants to be recognized. But the most important thing to me is winning."
That sounds suspiciously like his head coach, a man who never has been described as a good loser. And it's yet another reason why, after their midsummer meeting, they've almost seemed to share the same brain.
"More than anybody else on the team, Jackie Manuel has bought into what makes North Carolina's team do well," Williams says. "He's bought into all the little things. He's bought into complete intensity when he's out there. He's playing with a sense of urgency...He tries to do everything he's asked to do. On the defensive end of the floor, even when he makes a mistake, it's because he is trying to do too much. It's never a failure of omission."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.
