University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Wow
November 9, 2009 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Nov. 9, 2009
By Adam Lucas
Wow.
No, you're not reading it right. You have to read it like Tyler Hansbrough would say it. You know, like this:
Wow.
Get used to it. Hansbrough said it six times in his commercial. That was only about a half's worth on Monday. Here's the delightfully scary thing about this year's edition of the Tar Heels, at least right now after an 88-72 opening-game victory: we don't know anything at all about them.
For that reason, it's not hard to elicit a wow. And we're not talking about the retro jerseys with the red trim, an homage to the 1957 national champions. Marcus Ginyard is playing point guard? Wow. The Tar Heels blocked eight shots? Wow. There's a 6-foot-10 guy playing small forward? Wow.
All of this, plus much more, is unexpected. Why should any of us know what to expect from these Tar Heels? After all, Roy Williams his own self said a couple weeks ago that he didn't know. And look, if he knew, he'd tell you, straight out in a press conference, probably with a few dadgums sprinkled in. After all, last year he said from the very beginning of practice that his team had a chance to be a national contender. This year, he hasn't said that. Even when outsiders ranked Carolina in the top five, Williams said he was "blown away" by that projection. That should tell you something.
If he's still learning about his team, then the rest of us definitely are. That's where the "wow" can be useful. It's the perfect word for this team. It conveys surprise and it can be good, sure. But it can also be a wow of disbelief, as in, wow, the Tar Heels need to take a little better care of the basketball. Twenty-two of Carolina's 26 turnovers were made by players contending for the rotation, and at times they looked more cautious than a 16-year-old taking a test wow when FIU turned up the defensive pressure.
But even with the 26 turnovers, FIU shot just 36.8% from the field. Even with Carolina handing them 26 transition opportunities that often lead to easy baskets, they barely made a third of their shots. Wow...there might be some defensive potential here.
Remember, too, that even though fans treated it almost like an exhibition, it was a big deal for a sizable group of freshmen who were playing for real for the first time.
"It was overwhelming...I definitely blanked out on more than one occasion when a play was called," said David Wear. "I just kept setting screens and moving around like I knew what I was doing."
On a night that was supposed to be dedicated to getting to know the freshmen, it was a returning Tar Heel who might have had the most eye-opening night. Surely you saw Justin Watts's dunk and blocked shot at the end of the game, the one that had Deon Thompson reenacting the rejection on the UNC bench. Sure, you can give it a wow.
But quietly, Watts had played an even better stretch early in the second half, when he was the first man off the bench. During that segment, he threw a nice lob pass to John Henson, who caught it somewhere around his hip and slammed it through. Then Watts stepped into a passing lane to knock the ball away from FIU. And finally, he capped the spurt by knifing into the lane and getting to the rim, where the only flaw of the last minute was that he missed the shot.
By the end of the evening, the riser section was chanting, "Jus-tin Wa-tts."
Wow.
"I heard them," Watts said. "They were in the background, but I heard them a little bit...I worked really hard with Jonas this summer. I stayed in the gym dribbling and shooting, and I worked with my dad a lot. I've tried to fine-tune my skills."
On a night of surprises, though, the best and biggest might have come midway through the second half, when Ginyard and Will Graves were chasing a loose ball near midcourt. Ginyard eventually corralled it near the Carolina basket, and your immediate thought was that he might drop the ball off to Graves for an easy hoop.
But he didn't. Ginyard gathered the ball, and he jumped...and he just rose, like the old Marcus who dunked that same way at NC State a couple seasons ago. He went up, and up, and eventually he slammed through a two-handed dunk like it was no problem.
"To be honest with you, it even surprised me," Ginyard said. "I didn't think I was going to dunk it. I kind of surprised myself. I went up, and I found myself high enough to flush it down."
Be honest: you had forgotten Ginyard could get off the floor that way. That leap had about a year's worth of stored potential energy. And I think we all know exactly what Ginyard's old housemate would say about the play:
Wow.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of five books on Carolina basketball, including the just-released book on the 2009 national title, One Fantastic Ride. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter.
