University of North Carolina Athletics
Brownlow: Welcome Smiles After Win
November 19, 2007 | Women's Basketball
Nov. 19, 2007
By Lauren Brownlow
Even before her teammate and good friend Alex Miller went out with a knee injury Friday night against Coppin State, Erlana Larkins just looked frustrated. She shot 1-for-7 from the field and scored just four points, was constantly banged around in the post and was stripped of the ball quite a few times, turning it over four times. After the game, Sylvia Hatchell said that her star needed to get focused.
Larkins heeded the call with a 15-point, eight-rebound, five-assist, three-steal, one-block effort in a 97-72 win over Syracuse. But she was not impressed with her own stat line or even that she was able to bounce back after a tough outing. She was grinning from ear to ear over the performance of an emerging superstar on this team - Rashanda McCants.
Rashanda may be "her brother with hair," as Larkins affectionately referred to her, but she lacks Rashad's brash and dynamic persona. She is one of the only people in the history of basketball that would seem almost shocked when she heard that she had a new career high in both points (27) and rebounds (14). It was her first career double-double and she has now broken her career high in points three times this season and rebounds twice this season in just five games. But McCants just gave all the credit to her teammates.
"As practice goes on, I'm working on more and more things, being more aggressive. I like feeding the ball to Erlana," she said. Larkins patted her on the head affectionately and smiled. "She should have double-doubles and triple-doubles in assists because she's the best passer I've ever seen. So I really just work off of her and she just kind of motivates me, her and LaToya (Pringle). So I just try to kind of keep our team going."
McCants did that in the first 20 minutes. If the game had ended at halftime, McCants would have already set her new career high with 20 points. She brought Carolina out to a 54-29 lead, which is fortunate since Syracuse played them to a 43-43 tie in the second half. Jessica Breland added to her team's fun as well. If such a thing is possible, Breland had a career-high 19 points in 21 minutes against Coppin State in the team's last outing, a fact that was overshadowed by Alex Miller's injury. But Breland followed up that effort with ten points, six rebounds, two assists, two blocks and a steal in 18 minutes.
When asked about the emergence of her teammates, Larkins pumped her fist and said, "Yes - praise the Lord. No, I'm just kidding. It's great. Everybody's just coming along and it's really good for us. It's really good that everybody is coming along early. That just shows a lot about our team and how we're getting to know one another and the time that it took us to get to know one another on such a short basis. It's great to see that we played like this coming off losing Alex. I just think that gave our team a little bit more confidence."
This team is now without any player with significant point guard experience and the job is in the hands of freshmen Cetera DeGraffenreid for the moment. DeGraffenreid's numbers were not gaudy - nine points on 4-of-12 shooting, four assists, two turnovers and a steal - but the way that the freshman found teammates in transition, moved the ball around in the halfcourt offense and generally controlled the tempo on both ends of the court was certainly encouraging.
But during and after the Coppin State game, there was no joy. Players were frustrated at each other and at themselves during the game. After the game, there were no smiles. They had lost their emotional leader on the floor, a cog that, while she didn't say much, led by example with her ferocity and competitiveness.
Larkins admitted that when Miller went down in a heap and she had to help carry her into the locker room, she nearly fell apart and cried. But this team needs to move on, and part of what made Sunday's win so gratifying was that the team began that process. "Alex is one of my good friends outside of basketball, so it was bad to see her go down. But at the same time, there's nothing we can do about it. We just have to move on and `the kiddies', as we call them, they did a great job out there. So I just hope they continue that throughout the year."
She grinned after she said it, and it was certainly contagious. The Tar Heels won a sloppy, physical game in which both teams combined for 52 fouls and they were unable to establish a real flow. Despite that, the game was full of Tar Heels high-fiving each other, slapping each other's backsides, laughing off late-game mistakes and sharing inside jokes on the sideline. For the first time, this team finally seemed like what they all claimed to be - a group of players that sincerely love playing with each other.
Lauren Brownlow is the managing editor of Tar Heel Monthly.
