University of North Carolina Athletics
Brownlow: Just Run
December 31, 2009 | Women's Basketball
Dec. 31, 2009
By Lauren Brownlow
The intricacies of basketball can be mind-boggling. But it can be almost just as mind-boggling how simple the game can be at times. Value the ball. Follow through on your shot. Box out. And in the Carolina system, there are two words you hear from the bench more than the rest: "Rebound!" and "Run!" (or "Go!", "Push!", and so on).
So as a 6-6 freshman expected to get by on her height, Waltiea Rolle - who did not touch a basketball until she was in the ninth grade - knows what to do.
"I just go. That's basically what I've got to do. That's it," Rolle said, shrugging.
A reporter pressed her, almost incredulously: "You just run?"
"Right," she said. "Just run."
It's almost like in the movie Forrest Gump, when the simple-minded protagonist played football for the University of Alabama and his instructions were merely to run. But there's a reason Usain Bolt doesn't play in the NFL.
Rolle's mile time beat many of her guard teammates (6:21) prior to the year, including She'la White (6:28) who jetted down the court with four seconds left in the first half in time to find Italee Lucas for a score. But as with most freshmen, it took Rolle time to adjust to game speed.
There had been times this season when Rolle and fellow tall freshman Cierra Robertson-Warren were bringing the ball too low and getting it knocked away or needing to come out nearly as soon as they came in, trying to keep up. That's not the case anymore. They have gone from struggling to hang on to the ball to diagnosing defenses.
"Our post game, except for Martina (Wood), is freshmen and sophomores, but they're learning each other. When (Rolle) was on the baseline down there against the zone, I thought she did a really good job finding some people," Coach Hatchell said. "They are starting to read things and make decisions a little bit better. It's amazing, the improvements that we've made over the last few weeks."
But what is perhaps the most impressive about this young team is that as simple as basketball is, it seems like a calculus problem when close baskets aren't falling. Lay-ups were rolling in and around and out of the new - and tight - rims, bank shots were a little too strong and follow after follow shots were bouncing away harmlessly to East Tennessee State.
In fact, East Tennessee State led by two with nine minutes to go in the first half. Carolina had one stretch when it made just 5-of-15 two-pointers and it ended the half making 11-of-25 shots in the paint.
"At halftime, I just told them, `Look, we're doing a lot of good things out there. Let's just make the shots.' I told them, `Take your time and finish the shots.' Some of them were just turning and throwing it up instead of turning and making the shots," Hatchell said.
It can be hard when the balls aren't bouncing your way in a game. Carolina got back to the basics quickly - up just two points, Italee Lucas found Rolle on an inbounds play when she caught it high and drained a soft jumper.
Sure, the fact that she was too tall for opponents to reach her made it easier. But her form and her release made the play, one that Carolina has run for years, work to perfection.
And that's just about the only adjustment that the Carolina guards have had to make with these taller post players. "Every time we pass, throw it up high. That's what they tell us all the time, but we learned that pretty quickly in practice at the beginning of the season to just throw it up high," White said of passing to Rolle.
"Whenever she's running the floor, we know just to lob it up. Nobody is really able to get that high because she's already up there."
She, just like Robertson-Warren, is indeed already up there. But she's also already beaten half her team and all opposing post players down the court. She even managed to keep up with a backcourt of White, Lucas and Cetera DeGraffenreid.
"Yeah, they are pretty fast, but I know I've got to get down there," Rolle said. "So I just go."
