University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: A Work In Progress
December 6, 2011 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Dec. 6, 2011
By Adam Lucas
Six-foot-10 basketball players don't go to college to develop. Not the athletic ones, no sir. They go to college to make head coaches genuflect and to play unlimited minutes.
Except, that is for Desmond Hubert. He looked Roy Williams square in the eye during the recruiting process, heard the head coach say, "If everyone comes back, I'm not going to need you that much," and he still picked Carolina. It could very well be that Tuesday night's eight rebounds in 13 minutes against Evansville might be the highlight of Hubert's freshman season. He seems utterly unconcerned about the long list of schools that would have handed him 20 minutes per game, no questions asked.
"The easy path isn't always the best path," he says. "Everyone here knows what they're talking about. The coaches, Jonas (Sahratian), my teammates. I felt like this was the best opportunity for me to get better as a player rather than going somewhere I could've played more but not gotten the same kind of teaching or learned as much."
Hubert and Sahratian have become well acquainted since the former arrived for the second session of summer school. Almost instantly, Tar Heel teammates began referring to Hubert as a "mini-John," referencing John Henson. That's partly a compliment: both have the same wiry, athletic body.
That's also partly not a compliment: upon arrival, both looked like their last full meal had come during the Guthridge era. Hubert walked onto campus weighing 193 pounds (Henson arrived at 183). Approximately six months later, he weighs 210 pounds, eats six times per day and regularly spends part of his pregame warmup routine tossing weighted medicine balls off the backboard and dunking them, a feat that impresses even burly senior Tyler Zeller.
"I love Desmond," Zeller says. "He's a very hard worker. When you tell him to do something, he listens and he's always trying to improve."
Zeller means that literally. Hubert is, indeed, always trying to improve. After midnight last Wednesday, after Carolina had beaten Wisconsin and he had played exactly zero minutes, he was back out on the Smith Center court working on his shot.
It's been a long curve for the Cream Ridge, N.J., native, but it also has a high potential reward. The coaching staff has worked with him to reconstruct his shot, and the room for improvement showed on a couple of errant second half free throws. But it's also undeniable how effective he is around the rim. He's now grabbing a rebound every 1.94 minutes, easily the best figure on the team (Henson, for example, gets a rebound every 2.70 minutes). Roy Williams occasionally says that his wife, Wanda, gets the same number of rebounds as various Tar Heels. Wanda would never want to battle Desmond Hubert in the paint.
Hubert began Tuesday's game against the Purple Aces with a seemingly lofty goal--"I wanted to get 10 rebounds," he says--and he nearly got there, including three boards on the offensive end to go with two blocks and two points. Every college coach in America looks over at the Tar Heel bench, sees the nearly seven-foot Hubert (officially, he's listed at 6-foot-9.5) sitting there getting better, and grits their teeth mumbling, "Only in Chapel Hill."
The consensus among his teammates and coaches is that Hubert's best work comes in practice, when he battles Zeller and Henson every day. He blocked a Zeller hook shot at Monday's practice, a notable achievement, and he's also trying to emulate some of the senior's offensive moves around the rim.
"You get so much better going against people who are seven-foot shot-blockers every day in practice," Hubert says. "Every day, I work against two of the best big men in the country. They teach me so many little things. I'm trying to develop my offensive game, and they help me with that. I want to get better in the post, and I want to get stronger so I can hold my own on the block."
Maybe he'll play extended minutes Saturday against Long Beach State. Maybe he won't. Hubert seems pleasantly encouraged that he's getting results every day in practice, and willing to wait his turn during games.
Besides, there's another reason he's not quite as concerned about game action. How would he compare those games against outside competition to what he sees every day at the Smith Center from Henson and Zeller?
"Games are," he says with a grin, "a lot easier."
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 and Facebook
