University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Plain And Simple
December 2, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 2, 2006
By Adam Lucas
Carolina played Kentucky Saturday afternoon.
Maybe you heard. But maybe you didn't, and that alone is unusual. Carolina and Kentucky, two of college basketball's all-time titans, tangle in Chapel Hill and the college basketball world doesn't tremble? Something is amiss.
Wes Miller has been around for some classic Carolina-Kentucky games that have been seminal moments of several seasons. When Carolina lost at Rupp Arena during the 2003-04 season, they did it in a fashion that foreshadowed the struggles they would have throughout the year. When they beat the Wildcats the next season in front of a Smith Center crowd Roy Williams would say was one of the best crowds he'd ever heard, it was an early example of the type of team play that would carry that team to the national title. And last year's scrappy win in Lexington was the first sign of a young team that wasn't willing to believe the preseason prognostications of doom.
And then there's this year. It would be hard to imagine Saturday's 75-63 victory foreshadowing anything other than the remaining month of December that is stocked with six games--five of them at home and none of them against ranked teams.
"This one had a different feel than other Carolina-Kentucky games," Miller said. "There were never any big runs, and it didn't have the same intensity a normal one of these games has. Part of it was because it was a grind-it-out game with a lot of fouls, and it wasn't as fast a pace as we're used to playing. But it's still a big game. It's still Carolina-Kentucky."
It's hard to know what went wrong first: a flat team deflating the crowd or a non-sellout arena of 21,147 failing to ignite the team. Either way, it wasn't pretty. There were turnovers (the teams combined for 31), there was poor Carolina shooting (37.3% for the game), and there was a five-for-five substitution by Roy Williams after his Tar Heels failed to dive for a loose ball.
The most entertaining part of the game was Roy Williams's postgame press conference. Well into his fourth season at Carolina, he's still capable of captivating a room with his plainspoken honesty. Coming from anyone else, some of his statements might prompt a wince. Coming from him, though, they spark laughter.
On a reporter's assertion that Reyshawn Terry "really seemed into it defensively:"
"I think he was sorry defensively."
This was delivered with a more good-natured tone than it looks on the page. But his point was clear. The reporter tried to clarify his statement by saying, "But he was active."
"If they're not active, they ought to be in a dadgum casket," Williams said. "We only play 30 games a year. If you're not active, get your butt over there with me."
He went on to describe his team's effort to retrieve a loose ball as "tiptoeing through the tulips." The comment did turn illuminating, however, when he revealed the reason his teams perform the patter-patter/dive on the floor pregame routine is because they're sending a message that all loose balls belong to them.
A different reporter phrased his question/statement thusly: "When (Terry) does score, it makes you awfully tough to beat." Williams replied as follows:
"That's the reason they call that big thing up in the sky a scoreboard. It does help your team if you score."
Again, it's almost impossible to convey the difference in the way the words read and the way they were received in the room. Both writers ended their exchange with the coach chuckling while wearing broad smiles. Maybe it's charisma, maybe it's personality, or maybe it's just that speaking plainly is refreshing in today's media world.
The comments don't chafe players because he never says anything to the media he wouldn't say directly to his team, so nothing they hear ever surprises them. Terry already knew he hadn't played well defensively. The five players yanked from the game for failing to dive on the loose ball already knew they'd made an error.
Terry also knew, of course, that he'd made some gigantic shots. He had the most active game of his senior season, picking up 9 rebounds to go with his 16 points, showing some leadership, and even thanking the passer after Ty Lawson fed him for a 3-pointer with 13 minutes remaining.
"Before the game, I noticed how focused he was," Lawson said. "Normally he is playful. But he didn't say anything today. He just had a towel over his head listening to music."
"I had to be that guy who had a lot of energy and got our team going from the start," Terry said. "We just came off a hot win against Ohio State. There were a lot of people thinking about whether we would be mentally into it. I had to go out and get the younger guys ready. I definitely felt like that was my role."
In Carolina shorthand, that's simply known as being a senior.
Saturday's game will be variously described as ugly, boring, and halting.
But that's too complicated for Williams, who will call it something else. He won't use flowing adjectives or fancy phrases. To him, it will be plain and simple.
He'll just call it a win.
Adam Lucas's third book on Carolina basketball, The Best Game Ever, chronicles the 1957 national championship season and is available now. His previous books include Going Home Again, focusing on Roy Williams's return to Carolina, and Led By Their Dreams, a collaboration with Steve Kirschner and Matt Bowers on the 2005 championship team.
