University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Killing With Kindness
December 30, 2007 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 30, 2007
By Adam Lucas
Something was missing. Admit it. Even as the 2007-08 edition of the Tar Heels piled up the victories, ripping off a dozen straight wins to get off to the seventh-best start in almost a century of hoops, you never fully bought into the idea of this team as a juggernaut.
Sure, they were good. But were they, well, mean enough? Any discussion about this team always seemed to come with a qualifier.
Yes, they were ranked first, but...
OK, they won on the road, but...
They seem like a great bunch of guys, but...
This, then, will be a news bulletin:
Twenty-one thousand and forty-six Tar Heel fans packed into the Smith Center Sunday night and, for the first time this season, departed with unbridled optimism and a gnawing sense of giddiness.
Mark Dec. 30, 2007. In the wake of a 90-58 win, that's officially the night that this became one of those teams. You know the type. The kind that when you're walking back to the car after the game, you mumble, "Hey, if we play like that the rest of the year..."
Of course, you don't finish the sentence, because that would be bad luck. You just raise your eyebrows and nod knowingly. We know what you're trying to say.
You're saying no one else has a player like Tyler Hansbrough. You're saying Deon Thompson is coming around. You're saying no one can catch Ty Lawson and Danny Green is lightning in a bottle.
You're saying this team just might, if it keeps improving, just might, maybe, be able to...
Hold on. Don't say it just yet.
There's something else about this team that Carolina fans are just starting to realize. A road-heavy schedule that kept the Tar Heels away from the Smith Center for a month in the early season shielded it from view, but after four games of a five-game homestand, something else is starting to become clear:
This is a very likable team.
It's easy to be likable when you're good, of course. But this team possesses a quirky, sly personality that's especially infectious when they're playing at home.
It starts before tipoff, when Green begins his 30-second dance routine to the strains of "Jump Around." If you can tear your eyes away from the junior sharpshooter, you'll notice the rest of the Smith Center is bobbing and smiling, too. This is Carolina Basketball, circa 2008, and if you watch closely sometimes you can even see the usually stoic Steve Robinson nodding his head to the beat.
The rhythm is even spreading to the center jump circle, where before the last three home games Thompson has let loose with a little shimmy of his own. The California sophomore says he's playing with more confidence and putting less pressure on himself and it shows in his results--11 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 blocks against the Crusaders.
On this team, however, no one rides too high. Hansbrough, the national player of the year candidate, is perhaps the most teased player on the squad. He relished the opportunity to turn the tables on a teammate.
"Deon's playing really well and that opens up a lot in the post," he said.
What's causing that improved play, Tyler?
The big man grinned and you could see him choosing between a politically correct answer and taking his chance at a well-placed arrow. Thankfully, he chose the latter.
"Well," Hansbrough said slowly, "his girlfriend's been here. I just hope he keeps playing this way after she leaves."
That's the thing about this particular Carolina team. There's not a single player on the roster you wouldn't take home for dinner. Sometimes, that can cause some worry. After all, the 2005 title team had a streak of meanness. Can Marcus Ginyard be mean? Can Lawson take off his neon yellow Sponge Bob socks (he wore them throughout warm-ups) long enough to be mean?
Ask Valparaiso. And try to find any word other than "merciless" to describe the way the Tar Heels scored 51 points in 15 minutes in the second half. Do the math. That pace translates to a 64-point half.
"Well, we do have a lot of threats," Will Graves said matter-of-factly after tossing in four three-pointers. "Everybody on this team can score. Fifty-one points in 15 minutes is a lot, but I see it every day in practice."
Lest you think Graves was nonplussed about his Smith Center unveiling as a Carolina marksman--it's not new to his teammates, because Graves's hot shooting is another daily practice fixture--his answer was interrupted by the vibration of his cell phone. It was his twenty-eighth text message since the end of the game.
"It feels good," he said with a broad grin.
Maybe that's the trademark of these 2008 Tar Heels. They dance, they shoot, they run, they rebound, and they whip you. Then they smile and wish you good luck. This is a team that plays rock-paper-scissors to determine who takes the ball out of bounds. Really. That's how Thompson and Mike Copeland settled the duties--while standing on the low block waiting for Valpo's Howard Little to shoot a free throw--late in Sunday's game (Thompson went with scissors and won).
The Tar Heels were leaving the floor after Sunday's game, bouncing through the tunnel after another 30-plus-point victory. We've become almost immune to these, because it's the fifth such home win this season and 24th (yes, twenty-fourth) such win since Roy Williams returned to Carolina. So most of the rowdy patrons--find another place where 21,000 people come out on a rainy Sunday night to watch a nonconference game--were unfolding their coats and missed perhaps the perfect symbolic moment of this year's team.
The vanquishing Tar Heels filed through the tunnel, some leaping to offer high fives to fans leaning over the rail. They almost disappeared...and then Ginyard suddenly stopped. What did he want to do? Release one more "Woooooo!" to the rafters? Check his stats? Bask in his image on the video board?
Nope. He just wanted to give his mother a hug.
Adam Lucas most recently collaborated on a behind-the-scenes look at Carolina Basketball with Wes Miller. The Road To Blue Heaven is available now. 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.
