University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Just A Game
March 21, 2009 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
March 21, 2009
By Adam Lucas
GREENSBORO--At some point in your life, someone will try to sell you on the idea that the way to properly enjoy the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament is to go to Las Vegas or watch it on a buddy's 60-inch LCD flat screen. You know the deal--drinks, snacks, every game on every channel. This, they will say, is the only way to experience the tournament.
They will be wrong.
The way to experience the tournament is with 22,479 other hoarse individuals who have been standing since early in the second half, some of them standing in the aisles on the very top row of the upper deck. It is with two teams like Carolina and LSU playing--both would probably agree--one of their best games of the season with win-or-go-home consequences. It is with Marcus Thornton throwing in an impossible three-pointer from the corner ("I didn't even think he'd get it off," Danny Green said) and Ty Lawson playing on nine toes and somehow spinning the ball off the backboard and through the rim for a three-point play. It is with Roy Williams clinching his fists, bending his knees and screaming, "Come on!" as he begs his team for one last defensive stop.
"That," Bobby Frasor said of Carolina's 84-70 victory, "was awesome."
For 40 minutes on Saturday, no one cared about bracketology or the bubble or corporate champions or any of the red tape that surrounds this event. Yes, the NCAA tournament is essentially a giant cash grab for the NCAA. But when it's done perfectly by two worthy teams, it's the best sporting event around. No administrators or commercials or sponsors. Just a game. On this evening, it was just about the game, and it was tremendous. It was the kind of game that makes you feel sorry for people who don't understand sports, because it's hard to imagine being able to replicate that range of emotions in any other environment.
It doesn't even sound right to call it a 14-point victory, because that implies that somehow it wasn't close. It was close. Heart-poundingly close. Sometimes, in games like this, one team gets hot because their opponent is making errors. That wasn't the case on Saturday night. This was a case of both teams performing to peak capabilities at the most important time of the season.
"It was a special game," said Tyler Hansbrough, who will be able to remember it for several days, because he's sporting a bright red gash over his left eyelid.
There's not much point in reviewing the game's biggest plays, because they were all big. LSU scored 25 points in the first eight minutes of the second half, torching the Tar Heels and allowing a section of Duke students--who have now seen two Carolina victories in person this year--to start boisterously rooting for the Tigers.
At that point, it started feeling like a high school game. Not in a bad way, but in the very best way. You know the type. It's like that scene from "Hoosiers" where one side of the gym goes crazy for one team, and then the fans on the other side answer with an equally raucous cheer. Where you forget about absolutely everything else and can only concentrate on Wayne. Ellington. Please. Making. This. Shot.
When LSU sprinted out of halftime with a quick 13-3 run to take the lead, Roy Williams called a timeout and looked at Frasor, Hansbrough, and Danny Green.
"Hey," he said. "If you guys want to end your careers tonight, keep playing like you're playing."
"Right then, we got hungry," Hansbrough said. "We weren't ready to be done. Guys started stepping up and diving on the floor and playing a lot more aggressive."
"That hit me right in the stomach," Frasor said. "You don't want to end your career winning one game in the NCAA tournament when you're a number-one seed. At that point, you start mentally preparing yourself as best you can because every possession becomes so important."
That's exactly how it felt inside the Greensboro Coliseum. Every time one team brought the ball across midcourt, you wanted to make sure you were watching for fear of missing something memorable. Blink, and you might have missed Lawson's ridiculous crossover dribble. Turn away, and you might miss Thornton draining two consecutive three-pointers to tie the score at 63. Look down for even a moment, and you might miss Ellington saving a loose ball before it trickled out of bounds, redirecting it to Green, and the senior knocking down a three-pointer to force an LSU timeout.
"That was a legendary play," Frasor said.
The whole game was legendary. Sure, maybe it was "only" a second-round game, but Williams thought it was enough of a battle that he gave the entire squad Sunday off, an extreme rarity at this point in the season. After Saturday, they had earned it.
"I was telling someone yesterday that the games so far had been boring," Frasor said. "There hadn't been any excitement. And then there were those great games on Friday night and now this game that I got to play in. You grew up watching these games as a kid. To be a part of it, to get to go to the Sweet 16, it's a dream come true."
The best part? It only gets better from here.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
