University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Win On The Islands
August 11, 2010 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Aug. 11, 2010
By Adam Lucas
NASSAU, Bahamas--There were times during Wednesday night's 130-87 victory over the Commonwealth Bank Giants that it was hard to remember this wasn't just an extension of the 2009-10 season.
Two of the on-court standouts were Tyler Zeller (22 points, 13 rebounds) and John Henson (a very active 11 points, 5 rebounds, and a shortchanged-by-the-stat-crew two blocks in 18 minutes), just as they were at the end of the 2010 postseason. And there were injuries, plenty of them, just like last season. Larry Drew II suffered an ankle injury Tuesday at practice, which forced him to sit out the game entirely. Will Graves is coming off ankle surgery and spent the final minutes with ice on his ankle, and Justin Watts has battled plantar fasciitis.
Add in foul trouble that claimed Kendall Marshall--on a phantom fifth foul on which he wasn't even involved in the play--and Henson, and when Roy Williams looked down his bench in the closing minutes of the easy victory, he had exactly zero viable substitution options. Especially now, with no walk-ons on the trip, the Tar Heels are a very thin team.
But they are also noticeably different from the club that closed April in the NIT finals. Why? They score. Seven different Tar Heels finished in double digits. Granted, Carolina was, as Williams says, "more gifted and talented" than the Commonwealth Bank Giants. But there were times last season when it didn't feel like the Tar Heels could post 130 in an empty gym.
It began right away, when Harrison Barnes (the first player waiting for the bus, 20 minutes early) made his first five field goal attempts--an assortment of midrange jumpers plus a three-pointer--and Reggie Bullock converted his first three shots. Marshall only sporadically looked to score but always looked ahead, finishing with a game-high five assists and just one turnover.
The game's best moment came long after it was obvious Carolina was going to win. Late in the first half, the Giants converted a high-flying alley-oop that set the crowd, estimated at about 300, buzzing. After a Tar Heel turnover, Barnes soared to forcefully reject a shot, keeping the ball in bounds to start the fast break. Carolina didn't capitalize, and on the other end the skywalking Jeremy Hutchinson, who finished with a game-high 29 points, slammed through a powerful dunk.
The jam prompted a significant amount of dancing in the Kendall Isaacs Gym stands. This seemed to greatly displease Barnes. With the "ooohhhhs" still filling the air, he authoritatively called for the ball on the right wing. When it was delivered to him, he never paused before firing in a three-pointer. Then he gave an almost imperceptible glance at the crowd, as if to notify them that their impertinence had been catalogued.
At that time, his team was leading by 29 points.
It was perhaps the most genteel show of nastiness in the history of organized basketball, and it will be a very welcome sign in Chapel Hill come October.
By the end, the Giants were gassed and the only drama remaining was whether the opposing coach's son would successfully navigate his way onto the court. With about two minutes left, the preschool age tyke was dashing around the scorer's table. Suddenly, he slipped through the hole between the table and the UNC bench. An alert Williams, who constantly reminds his team to "help a teammate," was the helper this time. Just before Bullock backpedaled over the boy, Williams steered him to the opposing bench.
Assist, Williams. But the coach had a more relevant take on the game afterward.
"You just want them to get used to playing together, and to see how hard you have to play," he said. "I wanted us to play as hard as we could defensively, and we didn't do a great job of that. I wanted us to share the basketball, and I thought we did a good job of that."
The Tar Heels take the court in Nassau again on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. against the Bahamas All-Stars. Stay tuned to TarHeelBlue.com tonight for a notebook and box score highlights.
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 upcoming official chronicle of the first 100 years of Tar Heel hoops, A Century of Excellence. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter.
