University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: In the Pit
February 28, 2005 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 28, 2005
By Adam Lucas
COLLEGE PARK--They said all the right things. Made all the right "taking it one game at a time" comments. Paid their respects to Maryland's solid comeback after it looked like the Terps had flipped over on their shells and wouldn't be able to make it a game.
From all appearances, as Carolina's players and coaches tried to exit the Comcast Center after Sunday night's 85-83 win in order to hurry and beat potentially inclement weather back to Chapel Hill, it was a businesslike win.
But crack the door to the locker room a few minutes earlier, when it was just Roy Williams, his staff, and his team together with their newly minted 24-3 overall record, and it was a different scene: a bouncing, yelling, high-fiving mosh pit. It's a ritual reserved for only the biggest road wins--the Heels didn't do it after Tuesday's win over NC State.
That various members of the squad had to move especially gingerly in the pit spoke to exactly how gritty this win was--Marvin Williams was favoring his toe, Jawad Williams (whose three-pointer to give the Heels an 83-81 lead was the perfect cap to his College Park career, as he's always received more grief there than anywhere in the league because he spurned the Terps during the recruiting process) was battling a sore knee, and Rashad McCants, we can only assume, was bouncing along in his apartment back in Chapel Hill. Carolina has come out of a crucial two-game road stretch having made the remainder of the ACC season very easy: win two games, and they're outright regular season champions.
Barring a couple of blowouts this week, Roy Williams is unlikely to secure many votes for ACC Coach of the Year (but with two wins this week, he'll get mine). They'll go instead to Frank Haith, Seth Greenberg, or Mike Krzyzewski. But to be around this team on a regular basis is to realize Williams is in a zone on the sidelines at the moment. Over the past couple of weeks, he's exhibited the perfect balance between coaching on feel and relying on his precision drilled players.
The Tar Heels have had 86 practices this year. But Williams's explanation for sticking with Melvin Scott against the Terps was simple and completely unrelated to anything that has happened in those practices: he thought Scott would play well in his final trip to his home state. The guard paid him back by hitting a critical three-pointer to give the Heels a 69-65 lead. That's feel.
And then there's the way he drills his team, every single day, on needing that "one big stop" defensively. It's one of the foundations of every Carolina practice; players are so familiar with the phrase that it's what they talked about when they came out of the huddle with seven seconds remaining and Maryland needing a basket to tie the game. That's precision.
Don't overlook his game management, either: Williams juggled Raymond Felton and Quentin Thomas perfectly, waiting for Terp point guard John Gilchrist to leave the game and then removing Felton just in time for media timeouts, allowing him a couple minutes of extra rest while the clock wasn't moving. As soon as Gilchrist prepared to check back in, Williams was peering down the bench looking for his starting point guard, a refreshed Felton who contributed 10 assists.
What happens when precision meets feel is that there is absolutely no hesitation anywhere on the court. Over the past week, everyone on the team--including David Noel, who has been indispensable both offensively and defensively--has seemed completely comfortable with their role. Passes arrive to the right man at the right second. Help rotates over defensively exactly when it's needed. There's not a stat you can point to that proves the point, but those on the team can feel it.
"We're finding all the right buttons to push together," Sean May said. "We're gelling right now."
That's good news for everyone concerned that the Tar Heels might have peaked during the incredible string of blowouts in late December and early January. Those games were fun to watch, dunkfests that filled the nightly highlight shows. But these past two games have been games that fill the trophy cases.
And create some mighty enjoyable mosh pits.
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.
