University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Wink
January 27, 2010 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Jan. 27, 2010
By Adam Lucas
RALEIGH--When John Henson airballed a free throw midway through the first half--and let's be honest, this wasn't even a good-looking airball, it was both short and as wide right as a Florida State field goal--the miss received the predictable response from a rowdy crowd of 19,700 at the RBC Center.
Every time Henson reentered the game, he was greeted with a singsong "Airball" chant. The rest of his first half was undistinguished, as he had the same number of points and rebounds as Wanda at halftime.
While Henson watched from the bench early in the second half, NC State built a 43-38 lead behind the hot shooting of Javier Gonzalez. Carolina had been here before on several occasions on the road this season, teetering on the edge against an opponent rapidly building confidence. The Wolfpack didn't look particularly enthused, even though administrators rolled out the old noise meter from Reynolds Coliseum (with the wooden switchboard that controls it sitting right behind it, the Tobacco Road equivalent of pulling the jolly red suit off Santa Claus). But as they built their five-point lead, you could sense them starting to believe.
Carolina stymied that run with a combination of solid defense and crisp execution. The Tar Heels regained the lead as part of an 18-2 run. About halfway through that run, Henson found himself guarding the inbounds pass on the baseline under the Wolfpack basket. As the officials prepared the ball for play, the UNC freshman was staring straight at three State students clad primarily in white bathrobes. These particular young scholars were quite vociferous in informing Henson of his free throw problems, among other shortcomings that involved some very creative variations of the word "suck."
In other words, it was a typical hostile ACC road crowd. As you might have heard, the Tar Heels have had some problems with those types of crowds. Which made what Henson did next entirely unexpected and more than a little encouraging: He craned his neck so they'd be sure to see him, and then he winked at them. It was such an assured, veteran gesture that it was disarming. So was what he did next: he went out and picked up a rebound, a layup, and a block over the next one minute of game action.
"They were talking about my game, so I gave them a little wink," Henson said. "I just wanted to mess with them a little bit."
The Tar Heels messed with the Pack more than just a little bit, including highlight reel defense on State's two best players, Tracy Smith and Javier Gonzalez. Thanks to the tough fronting of Ed Davis and Travis Wear--at one point, Davis and Smith were banging hard enough off the ball to draw boos from the RBC crowd, a welcome sight for Tar Heel post men who have occasionally been accused of playing too tenderly in the paint--Smith went 16 minutes between field goals during a stretch that spanned the first and second half.
Gonzalez had 17 points with 17 minutes remaining in the game but missed his last four field goals and ended the game with "only" 19 thanks to the combined efforts of Larry Drew II and Dexter Strickland.
As it turns out, the recipe for stopping a streaking shooter isn't so difficult after all.
"I just did what Coach told me to do," Strickland said. "I tried to stay in front of him. I went over the screens and contested every shot. It wasn't just me, it was team defense from everybody out there."
The freshman gave the credit for the defensive effort to intense practices on Saturday and Sunday, sessions that frequently matched the starting five against the five freshmen in a series of competitive situations.
"You know what we saw in those practices?" said Deon Thompson, the senior who was vocal and active from the very first basket of the game, when he punctuated his first hoop by shouting, "And one!" "We saw that the young guys competed. That's what we needed."
It was the perfect combination of youthful energy and wizened experience. Give credit, too, to Williams for making certain his team understood the rivalry nature of the game. Several of the out-of-state freshmen said their coach's intensity over the last couple days helped them understand the true nature of playing against NC State; the Tar Heels have won 13 of the last 14 against the Wolfpack.
By the time Marcus Ginyard drew a charge with an 11-point Tar Heel lead and seven minutes remaining, Thompson and Will Graves reacted as if Ginyard had just made the NCAA championship-winning basket, hoisting their teammate off the ground with boisterous slaps on the back.
"We're new to all this," Strickland said in a happy Carolina locker room, one that was getting its first taste of how much fun road victories can be. "We're 18 and 19 years old. To get a win against a crowd like that is big, because they were crazy."
How crazy?
"I was taking the ball out and they were really getting on me," Strickland said. "They were calling me by my name and everything."
What did you do?
"I winked at them," he said with a grin. "We were just having fun out there."
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.
