University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: In The Flow
March 19, 2009 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
March 19, 2009
By Adam Lucas
GREENSBORO--There hasn't been much time to pay attention to Wayne Ellington lately. Not with Toe Watch, and Tyler Record Watch, and Danny's Confidence Watch.
At best, then, Ellington has been the fourth-most popular storyline surrounding Carolina Basketball. But if you're willing to dig down that far, you've probably noticed something very encouraging: Carolina's junior shooting guard is in the middle of a terrific stretch of basketball--the kind of basketball that turns good teams into title teams in March and April.
It began at Virginia Tech with some solid defense on Malcolm Delaney. It continued with 7-of-10 shooting against Duke. And then it really took off in Atlanta, when everyone was spending all their time taking measurements of Lawson's big toe. Ellington didn't make all his shots at the Georgia Dome--he shot 8-of-17 against Florida State, including a late miss of a key three-pointer--but it was more about the way he looked on the floor than the actual result of his shots.
There have been times in his Carolina career that he has looked like he's trying to fit in, that he's conscious of not getting in anyone's way. Now, he seems to intuitively know the way. He's always taken big end-of-game shots for the Tar Heels, but with Lawson and Hansbrough always around, he's never really been that player the team looks for throughout the game when the shot clock is waning and something needs to happen. He's never been the man.
Right now, he looks like the man. On a team with several future NBA players, on Thursday he was the best player on the floor. And just as important, he looks like he knows it.
"When I've got it going, I'm pretty confident," Ellington said. "I feel like I'm going to make every one, and it doesn't matter which shot I take."
What's impressive, though, is that despite knowing he's hot, he's not hunting his shot. Ellington attempted 16 field goals against Radford, which sounds like a sizable number. In fact, it's the second-most shots he's taken all year, behind only that FSU game in Atlanta.
But all 16 of them, beginning with a layup off the opening tip, were reasonable shots. He scored 10 of Carolina's first 24 points, and by then the rout was on.
"It helps to get easy ones," he said. "I got that layup, and that helps get you in a rhythm. You lose yourself. You're not looking for your shot, and that makes it easier to knock down."
Consider this stretch early in the second half. First, Ellington ran the break, pushed the ball past the tired Highlanders, and threw a no-look pass to Ed Davis for a dunk. On the next possession, he swished a 17-foot jumper from the wing. On the next possession, Radford inexplicably left him wide open from the opposite wing, allowing him to drop in a three-pointer.
Add in the fact that Ellington also found time to grab eight rebounds, and you've got the kind of play teams have to get from the perimeter in order to make a deep NCAA tournament run (if there's a yip, it's that he's 5 of his last 14 at the free throw line, but he's still shooting 77.8% for the season).
He did all this without once changing expression, which might be part of why his recent hot streak has been so underappreciated. He doesn't wave his arms around or get in the face of the unfortunate soul trying to guard him. He just plays--and the poker face holds after makes and misses, which might be his biggest improvement. He's shooting 58.4% from the field in his last five games, including 52 percent from the 3-point line, but to watch him you'd never notice a difference in his countenance from when he was struggling from the field earlier this year.
Finally, late in Thursday's game, he did break character and roar with a touch of over-the-top exuberance. Of course, by then he was safely on the Carolina bench and he was merely celebrating Mike Copeland's two-handed thunder dunk.
At a press conference earlier this week, a reporter asked the Philadelphia native about his missed shot at the end of the Georgetown game in 2007. It was a startling question, simply because that seems like a totally different player in a totally different era.
"It feels," Ellington said Thursday, "like a thousand years ago."
When the Tar Heels returned from Atlanta, Roy Williams held a handful of individual meetings with certain players, just a check-up to make sure everyone was focused on the three weeks yet to come.
Ellington wasn't one of the players asked to report for a meeting.
"No meeting," he said with a smile. "I think that means I'm fine, right?"
It means you're more than fine. It means you're in the flow.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
