University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: He's Alright
March 24, 2012 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
March 24, 2012
By Adam Lucas
ST. LOUIS--Coming out of a timeout with 11:56 remaining and Ohio having scratched their way back within 39-38 in Friday night's regional semifinal, Reggie Bullock happened to take a look down at the Bobcats bench. What he saw surprised him.
"I saw one of their assistant coaches, and he told them, `They can't win this game without Kendall Marshall on the court,'" Bullock said.
To that point, the Tar Heels had occasionally looked disorganized. It wasn't jarring, but it was there if you looked closely enough. Where there usually was a seamless call for an offensive play from point guard Kendall Marshall to his teammates, there was Stilman White or Justin Watts looking to the bench for a play call from Roy Williams. Where there usually was a tight team huddle coming out of the lengthy television timeouts, there was less communication. They looked like they were playing without their point guard, yes, but they also looked like they were playing without a leader.
Bullock had seen enough. He grabbed Tyler Zeller, Harrison Barnes, James Michael McAdoo and Justin Watts--the four Tar Heels going back on the floor with him.
"I gathered the guys," Bullock said, "and I let them know we are still Carolina, even without Kendall. We knew he had our back, but we still have to play and get things done."
It wasn't just talk. On the very next Tar Heel possession, Bullock fired through a three-pointer from the corner. It was one of five three-pointers he made for the game. How clutch was the sophomore from Kinston? His four second-half field goals--all three-pointers--came in either a one-point or tied game.
From that 12-minute mark in the second half, he made whatever plays the Tar Heels needed. He hit huge shots. He got rebounds (he finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds, his second career double-double). He even found time to admit his rare mistakes. After he failed to see Harrison Barnes in time for a skip pass that might have created an open three-pointer with seven minutes remaining, he quickly looked at Barnes--even while the play was still moving--and said, "My bad."
A few minutes later, when Bullock hit one of his big three-pointers, Barnes immediately told him, "That was a big-time shot." Later, coming out of the 3:49 media timeout, Bullock returned the favor. "It's your time," he told Barnes. The Iowa sophomore picked up four points on Carolina's next possession, swishing a free throw and hitting a game-tying three-pointer.
"Reggie is very unselfish," said his roommate on this trip, Kendall Marshall, who declined to take wrist-centric questions after the game in an effort to talk only about his teammates. "He's going to do whatever the team needs him to do. He knew at that time, the team needed a vocal leader. He grew up a little tonight into a leadership role. Before, he would sit back and let me, John or `Z' say something. It was great for him to step up and be that leader tonight."
History will probably remember this as "The Zeller Game," because his 20-point, 22-rebound game was the first 20/20 game in NCAA Tournament play since Tim Duncan in 1997, the first-ever 20/20 NCAA Tournament game by a Tar Heel, and put him in the company of Hakeem Olajuwon, Joe Smith and Tim Duncan as the only players to post 20/20 NCAA Tournament performances in the last 30 years. Join that list, you deserve to have people remember this as your game.
But in the same way that you remember the Tar Heels couldn't have won the Villanova game in 2005 without Melvin Scott's key minutes at point guard in relief of Raymond Felton, you're going to remember that it was Bullock who made every play against the Bobcats. Every single time, Bullock was there.
For every minute of television and inch of newsprint and internet-print spent on Carolina's point guard situation, the position did not decide the game. White contributed a career-high six assists and zero turnovers in a career-high 32 minutes, and he was tenacious on defense fighting through endless screens. White and backup Watts did enough for the Tar Heels to win the game. They were not Marshall, but no one realistically expected them to be. They managed the team and put them in position to be one of eight teams still playing for a national championship.
What the Tar Heels needed was someone else to decide this was their team, that they weren't going to let Carolina be rudderless. That person was Reggie Bullock.
In a relieved Tar Heel locker room, Bullock found a quiet corner with Jackie Manuel, a 2005 national champion who knows how championships are won, who knows in a six-game win-or-else tournament, there are going to be days like this, when you have to win with nowhere close to your best.
Manuel has been a bit of a mentor for Bullock, chiding him about his defense and pushing him to be an even bigger contributor. "I would say," Manuel said, "he did alright."
Alright? A double-double? Big three-pointers? Huge rebounds? That's alright?
"It's alright because we get to play again," Manuel said. "That's always alright."
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.
