University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: The Walking Wounded
February 13, 2008 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 13, 2008
By Adam Lucas
CHARLOTTESVILLE--All you had to do to understand what kind of night it was going to be for Carolina on Tuesday night was watch the Tar Heels get off the bus.
Here came Ty Lawson with a walking boot on his foot.
Next was Marcus Ginyard with a walking boot on his foot.
Then, here's Tyler Hansbrough wearing flip-flops. Why? We'll get to that.
The Tar Heels captured a 75-74 victory on their first visit to pristine John Paul Jones Arena. That's all you need to know about the game. That's all anyone will ever remember. Ten years from now, you'll be searching through the record books and wondering, "75-74, what happened in that game?"
Here's what happened: Carolina played without its starting point guard. Carolina played without its second-string point guard. Carolina's third-string point guard earned his third foul with 3:44 left in the first half and picked up his fourth foul less than four minutes into the second half. The fourth-string point guard--way back in October when you were wondering if there were enough point guard minutes for three players, did you even know there was a fourth-string point guard?--didn't practice yesterday and now has a sprained ankle to go with his turf toe.
Monday at a limited practice in the Smith Center, Roy Williams wanted his team to start the afternoon with a typical fast-break drill. That drill has been done at every UNC practice since October of 2003. It's as routine as your morning cup of coffee. But it requires three lines of players, with multiple players in each line. As Williams barked out the drill, he paused.
"Wait," he said. "Do we have enough guys to do this?"
It was a fair question. Of the nine players who began the season in the expected rotation, only five practiced yesterday. Before the Tar Heels broke their practice huddle at the Smith Center's center jump circle, they went around in a circle, player-by-player, and announced who was healthy and who was gimpy. When a player--say, Wayne Ellington--declared he had no major aches or pains, a couple teammates applauded.
Lawson, Frasor, and Ginyard you probably already know about. What about Hansbrough?
The future Player of the Year isn't just trying to develop a new laid-back beachcomber image with his choice of footwear. He spent Monday getting treatment on his right big toe.
Wait a minute. "Getting treatment" doesn't do it justice. Let Hansbrough describe how his toe was drilled and then drained. First, a warning: this gets a little graphic.
"They have a little burner they stick in there that gets all the blood out," Hansbrough said. "I'll tell you what, though. The part that hurts is when they numb it with a needle at the base of the toe. They took a chunk out of it."
Tuesday night, in the wake of 23 points, seven rebounds, and a series of collisions in the paint, his toe was a bizarre whitish-yellow.
Across the locker room, Ginyard was trying to find a way to balance a bag of ice on one foot with a boot on the other. Sunday night, he sprained his ankle so badly against Clemson that he could not return. This presented a problem he had not previously considered.
"I was close to needing crutches on Sunday night," he said. "But I didn't want to look like that. Plus, I didn't know how I was going to crutch out of there on two bad legs. I think you have to have one good leg to use crutches."
Good point.
Ginyard played 35 minutes spinning between guarding Sean Singletary and playing point guard because of Quentin Thomas's foul trouble. If he hadn't played, well...
"I knew he was going to play," Danny Green said. "We needed him, so he played."
Despite all the bruises--don't forget, Deon Thompson played the second half on a hyperextended knee--the game turned on one beautiful possession. The Tar Heels had the ball with 50 seconds left and a 2-point lead. For twenty seconds, they probed the Cavalier defense. On several occasions this year, Carolina has been unable to get the ball to Hansbrough and then settled for a rushed shot. This time, they weren't settling.
Finally, as the shot clock was melting away, Ginyard fed Hansbrough on the baseline. There were two defenders on the Poplar Bluff product but only one was leaning on him, which means someone must have missed an assignment. Hansbrough caught the ball, gathered himself, and fired in a shot that was half hook shot, half turnaround--and all net.
"We like to think it's a jump hook but it's not," Williams said. "It's a shot put, jump hook, Hansbrough special."
The head coach was almost apologetic, perhaps wishing he had a catchy name to bestow on the clincher.
He needn't have worried. In this game of discolored toes and knee braces and walking boots, a finale with a poetic moniker would have been out of place.
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.
