University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Burial Ground
February 7, 2005 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 7, 2005
By Adam Lucas
TALLAHASSEE--It is fitting that it would end here.
Florida State's football team has gained significant publicity by burying the sod of defeated opponents in their "sod cemetery."
Sunday afternoon, within sight of Doak Campbell Stadium, Carolina did a little basketball burial of their own.
It's become fashionable to the point of being maddening to assess the 2004-05 Tar Heels with last year's team as a reference point. You know the type: Last year, Sean May wouldn't have run the floor like that. Last year, Rashad McCants wouldn't have made that pass. Last year, Raymond Felton wouldn't have made that three-pointer.
That was a worthy comparison through 10 games. We'll even be generous and give you 15 games. But after their Super Sunday whipping of FSU, 81-60, this year's Tar Heels now stand 19-2, 8-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. It's time to dump the last shovelful of dirt on last year.
"Last year is last year," senior Jackie Manuel said with just a little hint of exasperation. "This is a different team. You can't compare last year to this year anymore. It's two different teams, and this year everybody is older and more mature."
That's the key, just as Roy Williams identified in the postgame. Asked to pontificate on the significance of the upcoming Duke game (in case you haven't heard, it's Wednesday night at 9 p.m.), he dismissed it as you would expect a head coach to do. But then he added something about his team: "This has gotten to be a very mature bunch."
And that's what makes them so much fun to watch--and must make them extremely frustrating to opponents. Florida State began the second half like a team about to spring an upset. Von Wafer freed himself from Manuel's sticky grasp just long enough to hit a pair of three-pointers (the rare looks Manuel granted him on a 5-for-12 shooting performance, the second straight big-time defensive performance from the Florida native) and then even Diego Romero tossed in a trifecta.
Suddenly, someone had plugged in the electricity at the Donald Tucker Center. The 8,681 fans who had delayed their Super Bowl plans were humming, Wafer was flashing a toothy smile, and this seemed an awful lot like a home team about to coast home on momentum.
There is a school of thought about these Tar Heels that says you want to force them into a halfcourt game. Stop their transition, make them run sets, and maybe you can beat them. That school of thought took a beating on the next Carolina possession, as Williams called--without the benefit of a timeout, something he eschews with a veteran team--one of the squad's bread-and-butter sets, Felton initiated it, and Rashad McCants finished it with an emphatic two-handed alley-oop slam. It was only good for two points on the scoreboard, but it was worth much more for momentum. Nine minutes later, the Heels were putting the finishing touches on a 25-6 run that stretched their lead to an insurmountable 20 points.
Much of that lead was built by relentless effort on the offensive glass, as the Tar Heels dominated the offensive boards 14-2 in the final 20 minutes. Freshman Marvin Williams tied for the team high in that category with four, but that's not what everyone wanted to talk about after the game. What they wanted to talk about was his first half demolition of 6-foot-10, 250-pound Alexander Johnson on a fast break. The slam dunk, punctuated with a foul and a one-hand stuff, was so good that when it was replayed on the arena video boards, even the pro-Seminole crowd went, "Ooooohhhh."
Williams's explanation of the play was, if possible, even better than the dunk itself.
"I don't know what to say," he said with a sheepish smile, pulling on the coat and tie that have almost become his trademark on the road. "Jackie made a great defensive play and got a steal, so I just took off running. He made a great pass and I just dunked it. I didn't see (Johnson) until the last second and then I just tried to make a play."
In case you missed it, that's a freshman dunker deflecting the credit onto a senior defender. That's why this year's team works, why they've rapidly obliterated last year and now have their sights set on loftier goals.
But if you want to keep talking about last year, they don't mind.
"Keep talking about last year," Manuel said, "and we're going to keep winning. That's how we're going to do 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.
