University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: A Familiar Feeling
February 16, 2008 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 16, 2008
By Adam Lucas
Just to give you fair warning, be advised that this column will be about something you haven't heard much about lately. It's not going to be about turf toe or sprained ankles or hyperextended knees. There will be no mention of the flu or back spasms. Marc Davis, although a great guy, will not be quoted even one time.
No, this column is about a very unusual topic: the actual players on the University of North Carolina basketball team who play in games. On Saturday afternoon--it was a slight stunner to remember that the ACC still plays games on Saturday afternoon, and isn't it glorious?--those players put together a 92-53 victory over a Virginia Tech team that already had five conference wins.
No overtime was needed. There was no dramatic last-second defensive stop. When the final seconds elapsed, all the Tar Heel starters were sitting on the bench. No one on the roster played more than 29 minutes.
Credit senior manager Preston Puckett for some impressive foresight.
"There's a 2006 feeling in our locker room right now," he said an hour before the game. "I think this could be a blowout."
Preston, got any stock picks?
Referencing 2006 is sacred territory around this particular group of Tar Heels. Roy Williams has called it perhaps the most enjoyable season of his coaching career. Those who were on that team have spent the better part of two seasons trying to recapture that unique combination of camaraderie and productivity. Those who weren't on that team, well, they're probably a little tired of hearing about it.
It wasn't so much fun because of the wins, although there were a lot of them. It was fun because at some point very early in the season, everyone stopped thinking about who wasn't on the team and started focusing on the very talented players who were still wearing the argyle.
Something similar happened Saturday.
"To be honest with you, I got tired of thinking about who wasn't able to play a couple games ago," said Mike Copeland, who contributed two points, two rebounds, and two assists in 15 minutes. "I know other people were still talking about it, but we weren't. That's the good thing about our team. There's never been a time when we've said, `Dang, we lost a bunch of guys and we can't do this.'"
You didn't have to say that, Mike. The rest of us did it for you.
But all of a sudden, look where the Tar Heels are: they have a 24-2 record. They're in the nation's top five. And the point guard has 32 assists over his last five games and an assist/turnover ratio in that same span of 2.00. To put that into perspective, only four players in the Atlantic Coast Conference currently have an A:TO ratio of better than 2.00.
Quentin Thomas also added an explosive left-handed dunk that capped a play on which he breezed by three Hokies. You can be excused if you did a doubletake. Was that really Quentin Thomas?
"I've seen him do that before," Marcus Ginyard said. "I've seen him do some pretty impressive things."
That was the theme of the afternoon. While everyone else was marveling at how the Tar Heels suddenly turned into a team, the players seemed surprisingly nonchalant.
"I just try to be where the ball is," Will Graves said by way of explanation for what was perhaps his best all-around game in Chapel Hill. "They say good players have a knack for the ball. I want to be a good player, so I want to have a knack for the ball."
Apparently, it's just that simple.
It led to perhaps the most satisfying afternoon of basketball in half a month. The Tar Heels were on the floor early, often, and--a little surprisingly--even late. Tyler Hansbrough tried to thief the Hokie inbound pass late in the second half. The fact that Carolina was holding an 80-42 lead didn't seem to occur to Hansbrough. All Roy Williams could do was clap his hands, smile, and shake his head in amazement. That smile is likely to remain after he watches the film and sees almost his entire roster hitting the floor for loose balls. Even Marc Campbell hit the deck with about two minutes remaining. A few seconds later, Patrick Moody took a charge, Carolina's fifth charge taken of the game.
"That kind of play comes from within," Graves said. "You see one player do it and it rubs off on the others."
Exactly.
Speaking of which, David Noel was walking down a Smith Center back hallway after the game. It was fitting that he'd be there, of course, because he was the heartbeat of that 2006 team that provided so many thrills.
He was impressed with what he had just seen. "Man, they are blowing people out," he said with a smile.
They are? Nah, you're mistaken, David. They can't. They've got too many injuries and not enough shooters and aren't deep enough and...
Oh. 92-53. Never mind.
"We had a little more fight today, and the '06 team had a lot of that," Marcus Ginyard said. "You hope that the guys who weren't here for that team pick up a little bit of that effort and competitiveness at a time. And come the end of the year, hopefully we'll all be playing with that intensity."
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.
