University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Battered Heels Beat Seahawks
March 5, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 28, 2003
By Adam Lucas
MYRTLE BEACH -- When it was announced earlier this year that Carolina would meet UNC-Wilmington in Myrtle Beach, there was some grumbling from Seahawk fans that they would have preferred to play the game during the 2002-03 season.
Last year, of course, Carolina struggled in the NIT while UNC-W gave Maryland fits in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. This year, the situations were expected to be reversed.
Ever the accommodating host, however, the Tar Heels almost gave Wilmington their chance, as the team that spent most of the time on the floor Sunday afternoon looked an awful lot like the 2002-03 Carolina squad. Sean May suffered a severely sprained ankle early in the game that limited him to zero points in 12 minutes, forcing Roy Williams to consider the same dilemma that flummoxed the Heels for most of the year last season when May went out with a broken foot--how to fill the void in the middle.
One option, some quick slight of hand by the head coach, was dismissed.
"I'm not Mr. Miyagi where I can clap my hands together and rub them and make those guys healthy all of a sudden," Williams said, referring to one of the main characters from the 80s hit movie "The Karate Kid."
Williams also declined to use the crane kick, but some of Carolina's offensive execution in the first half probably made him wish he could deliver a well-placed boot. Instead, he filled May's absence with a healthy dose of Byron Sanders (10 minutes), Justin Bohlander (12 minutes), and David Noel (27 minutes).
With Jawad Williams woozy for most of the first half after taking an elbow to the head--at one point after reentering the game, Carolina's junior leader couldn't remember where he was supposed to go during offensive sets--the Tar Heels used some mishmash lineups that resulted in 25 percent field goal shooting in the opening stanza. Their offensive struggles seemed to mirror the entire atmosphere of the game, which was allegedly a home game for the Heels, but it's a safe bet that it's the last home game they'll ever play beneath Hooters banners and in an arena where the game officials can't locate a copy of the national anthem.
Another aspect of last year's team reared its head late in the first half when Roy Williams sent Rashad McCants to the locker room. The incident will probably receive significant attention in the days to come, but McCants handled it extremely maturely after the game--failing to take the bait from a handful of reporters who seemed eager to get him to say something he'd later regret--and the head coach immediately neutralized any controversy.
"This is not a big thing," Williams said. "I got upset at Rashad and Jesse (Holley) because I thought they should have been cheering on the bench, so I sent them to the locker room. I said, 'If you aren't going to cheer, then go to the locker room.'"
As it turned out, Holley had been incorrectly fingered, as he had just sat down when Williams spied the sitting duo.
Lost in the first half drama was the fact that the Tar Heels played a significantly better second half, more than doubling their field goal percentage from the first 20 minutes and blowing out to almost a 20-point lead in less than eight minutes.
y the time there were only two minutes left, it looked exactly how it was supposed to look: Jawad Williams was recording back-to-back dunks, Raymond Felton was receiving a nice hand from the home folks after being replaced by Holley with 1:24 remaining, and Myrtle Beach fans getting a rare glimpse of one of the nation's top ten teams were massing behind the Carolina bench to try and solicit autographs.
From last year to this year, all in less than 40 minutes. And without the aid of Mr. Miyagi.
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.
