University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Underrated
January 8, 2011 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Jan. 8, 2011
By Adam Lucas
CHARLOTTESVILLE--When Harrison Barnes stepped to the free throw line with 28.8 seconds left in Saturday's game at Virginia, he heard the crowd.
Barnes's Tar Heels were holding a 57-56 lead and he had two attempts to try and stretch that advantage. The sellout crowd of 14,231 had slumbered early, quieted by a limited student turnout (classes don't resume here until Jan. 19) and solid Carolina execution. But the arena had come to life in reverse proportion to the quality of the Tar Heels' play. As Virginia crept back into the game and eventually seized a 43-32 lead on a miraculous three-pointer by Jontel Evans with the shot clock winding down, it felt like a road Atlantic Coast Conference game is supposed to feel.
"O-ver-rate-ed!" they began to chant at Barnes. It started quietly in a corner of the student section and eventually spread to the entire arena, even creeping up into the upper reaches of the corner upper deck seats that a hearty band of Tar Heel fans had made their personal riser section for most of the afternoon.
"O-ver-rate-ed!" Look at his stats. The wunderkind was 4-of-9 from the floor and hadn't yet made a trip to the free throw line. He had scored just two points, on a jumper with 8:55 left, since midway through the first half.
But wait a second. This was a game that was less about points--there weren't very many of them, and Carolina's 62-point total was the second-lowest in a Roy Williams-era victory (the lowest was 60 at UAB last season)--and more about possessions. Carolina had just 76 possessions, the lowest figure in at least the past two seasons.
Points were limited because Tony Bennett's Cavaliers did an impressive job of refusing to run with the Tar Heels. It was a day when Virginia lived by the jump shot, which usually translates to some long misses and transition opportunities. But the Wahoos (0 fast break points) refused to cooperate and never once gave into the temptation to try and play end-to-end. So every possession was not just a chance to score, but a chance to prolong being forced to play defense for a full 25 or 30 seconds.
It's true that Barnes had just the one second-half field goal as he toed the free throw line with less than a half-minute to play. It's also true that his offense might be coming around. Roy Williams has been asking Barnes to be less reliant on his outside game and more aggressive crashing to the basket. All three of Barnes's early field goals came within 17 feet of the hoop.
This, however, is not about offense. In a tie game, 52-52 with 2:56 remaining, he'd chased down an errant Justin Knox shot on the baseline. Unable to fully gather it before it went out of bounds, Barnes flung the ball over his head in what he thought was the direction of a teammate. The dictum, of course, is to never save the ball in-bounds under the opponent's basket. This was Barnes's own basket, but throwing the ball back towards midcourt was a risky play, because it opened the possibility that an unseen Cavalier could recover the ball and have an easy run-out. The freshman had taken that into consideration.
"Coach has been stressing for me to get involved in every play," Barnes said. "Get lost in the game. So I went after it that way, and I tried to throw it as far back as possible because I knew their guys were mostly under the hoop."
Barnes's play enabled Dexter Strickland to hustle after the loose ball and collect it (Strickland was given the offensive rebound). Eventually, the Tar Heels picked up a pair of Knox free throws on the possession, part of a 14-for-16 stretch from the foul line over the game's final five minutes.
Two possessions later, Virginia had the ball looking to trim a four-point deficit with less than 80 seconds left. They got the ball to guard K.T. Harrell, whose 11 first-half points had sparked the Cavalier offense. This time, though, he never got the ball to the rim. Barnes went flying through the air to register the blocked shot, and the ball was once again recovered by Strickland. Twice in less than 60 seconds Barnes had created a Carolina possession.
Again, this one was a risky play. Barnes left his feet to get the block, meaning Harrell could have had a cleaner look.
"To get that block without fouling, you have to run by him," Barnes said. "I was in the air. If he had pump faked..."
We'll never know, because Barnes solidly slapped leather. It's the kind of play that has to go right in order to win a game of this variety on the road. It might also be the kind of play needed by a rookie searching for positive outcomes.
Last year at this time, it was John Henson who was the Tar Heel freshman expected to leap over buildings and singlehandedly win games. He struggled too, and he knows first-hand the value of making positive contributions to a meaningful win.
"Plays like what Harrison did, that's being a great teammate," Henson said. "They might not show up in the stat book, but it's very good for him to make plays like that. And we see them."
The crowd evidently had not seen them. They were expecting spectacular and got solid, wanted flash and got savvy. So they chanted some more, "O-ver-rate-ed!"
Barnes made one of two free throws, then was defending Joe Harris just closely enough to cause Harris a quarter-second's hesitation on the game's final meaningful UVA possession. That pause cost Harris a look at what Virginia coach Tony Bennett called "the first option" for the Cavaliers' potential game-winning attempt, and Strickland iced the game with a pair of free throws.
In the end stage of the game, Barnes had not been spectacular. During those final few minutes, he had barely registered on the stat sheet. But he had helped his team win. It's not a stretch to say Carolina probably doesn't move to 1-0 in the ACC without Barnes's contributions.
Could that mean--is this even possible?--that the efforts of Harrison Barnes, Prodigy, had been underrated? Maybe just a little?
Oh, and about those chants. On the way to the locker room, Barnes noticed the crowd again. This time, it was what he didn't hear that was remarkable.
"You hear that during the game," he said. "But when you win the game, you don't hear them on the way to the locker room."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of six books on Carolina basketball, including the official chronicle of the first 100 years of Tar Heel hoops, A Century of Excellence, which is available now. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter.
