University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: The Sound Of Success
November 9, 2007 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 9, 2007
By Adam Lucas
As Carolina cruised to a 107-52 exhibition win over Lenoir-Rhyne, the most encouraging part of the game wasn't something you saw. Sure, there was Danny Green with nice energy off the bench and Tyler Hansbrough with his usual solid effort and a whopping 50-24 rebounding advantage.
But to really get the feel for this game--and to get the feel for the last week for these Tar Heels--you had to close your eyes. The most compelling part of the game wasn't visible at all...it was audible.
It was Green noticing a mismatch defensively and communicating with Deon Thompson to make sure they switched assignments and covered the right man. It was Marcus Ginyard trailing Marcus Hodges down the right sideline and shouting to Bobby Frasor how he wanted to play the possession.
"Stay there, Bob!" Ginyard said. "Stay right there!"
Frasor stayed, Ginyard closed in from the opposite side, and the two Tar Heels combined on a trap that eventually forced a turnover.
Carolina mixed in a variety of halfcourt and three-quarter court traps, alternating on almost every possession and creating 25 Lenoir-Rhyne turnovers. That's the kind of defense Roy Williams eventually had to shelve with last year's team, because it was leading to layups instead of turnovers.
It helps to have athletic players with long arms to correctly execute a trapping defense. But it's much more important to have a savvy, talkative bunch that understands how to communicate in order to play it well.
"When we don't talk in our traps, the other team gets easy baskets," Frasor said. "Someone will be wide open. If two guys are trapping the ball and the other guys aren't rotating, everything breaks down. We have to play from behind the entire possession."
Jackie Manuel probably said it best. The former Carolina defensive wizard took in a couple practices recently and made this astute observation: "When we trapped, it wasn't a defensive play for us," he said of the 2005 national champions. "That was an offensive play for us."
He's right. When you saw the signal for the trap come from the bench that season, you knew something good was about to happen. When you saw it come last season, the excitement was tinged with a little bit of fear.
This is not to say that this group of Tar Heels magically solved their defensive issues over the offseason. Communication--or the lack thereof--has been a major point of emphasis this week, including Thursday's somewhat rowdy session that Deon Thompson said had a simple result: "Coach made us afraid of him."
"He was upset because some of the time we weren't talking," Green said.
Williams made such an impression that when asked the consequences of bad defensive communication, Green didn't think of something that happens in a game, like a layup or an uncontested three-pointer. He thought of practice.
"Either we get better or we run," he said. "Coach doesn't like to call those threats. He calls them promises."
Call this a promise, too: if the Tar Heels communicate the way they did Friday night, they'll have a much better chance of reaching their potential. It was there, subtly, all night. It was half the players on the bench picking up the defensive call from the point guard and making the same signal, just to make sure the five players on the floor were aware of the correct defense. It was Frasor and Quentin Thomas exchanging a knowing split-second glance as the Bears brought the ball up the court...and seconds later exploding into yet another trap that forced yet another turnover.
"The more we play together the more we'll get used to communicating," Green said. "If we do it every day in practice, we'll do it in every game and it will come naturally to us. That will be our defensive peak."
We'll look forward to seeing it.
Or, perhaps, hearing it.
Adam Lucas most recently collaborated on a behind-the-scenes look at Carolina Basketball with Wes Miller. The Road To Blue Heaven will be released on October 1. Lucas's other books on Carolina basketball include The Best Game Ever, which chronicles the 1957 national championship season, Going Home Again, which focuses 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.
