University of North Carolina Athletics
Jacobs: Valiant To The End
March 29, 2012 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers
March 29, 2012
by Barry Jacobs, TarHeelBlue.com
The word is rarely employed these days except among aficionados of old Chrysler muscle cars and vintage comic strips. Yet it's the first word that came to mind after watching the light wink out on the 2011-12 North Carolina men's basketball season and a team that carried great promise as far as ill fortune would allow.
The word is valiant.
Theirs was a valiant effort.
In the modern game, no team wins every outing, at least no Division I men's squad since Indiana in 1976. Those Hoosiers were the last of eight NCAA champions to sail unscathed through an entire season, a roster of perfection that includes Frank McGuire's 1957 Tar Heels.
But you don't have to be perfect to be great, and it was greatness the 2012 Heels pursued. They came close.
The '57 squad was 32-0. Five UNC teams in the history of the program surpassed that victory total and three matched it. Among the latter group was this year's 32-6 unit.
While the 2012 team didn't reach the Final Four, it did advance to the regional finals for the sixth time in nine years under Roy Williams. Those trips generated three Final Four appearances and NCAA titles in 2005 and 2009.
A narrow loss to Kentucky in the 2011 East Regional final was part goad, part inspiration as the Heels contemplated the '12 season. "We could have had a chance to win it all if we won that game," Tyler Zeller said last June.
Failure to capture a championship was a factor in last spring's decisions by Zeller, Harrison Barnes, and John Henson to eschew departing for the pros with eligibility remaining. Like key members of the 2008-09 team, most particularly Tyler Hansbrough, the trio decided their college careers would not be complete without winning it all.
"At this level the great thing is, you're able to recruit guys who are talented enough to leave early," UNC assistant Steve Robinson said during the '12 season. "The tough part is managing that until they do leave early."
With all five starters returning and a strong bench that included promising freshmen James Michael McAdoo and P.J. Hairston, the 2011-12 Tar Heels figured to be something special. Not even a devastating summer knee injury to Leslie McDonald, the squad's most accurate returning 3-point shooter, deterred most observers from anointing UNC as the nation's No. 1 team in preseason.
"We have a chance to be really, really good," acknowledged Williams, ranking the squad as potentially among the best units he'd ever coached. "That doesn't mean you're going to win at the end."
Williams wasn't trying to dampen expectations. He's been in the game long enough to recognize how fate can derail plans and trump talent.
Unknowingly anticipating what was to come, he specifically recalled two exceptional seasons undone by wrist injuries to key players - Kenny Smith's at North Carolina in 1984 and Jerod Haase's at Kansas in 1997. Williams' advice, given the fickle nature of chance, was to "enjoy every game."
Most contests were quite enjoyable for the 2012 Heels, whose biggest enemy at times was their own wandering concentration.
They lost a mere four times in 31 outings during the regular season. Three defeats were administered on the road - at UNLV, Kentucky, and Florida State. The only loss at the Smith Center came against Duke on a last-second shot. That stumble was avenged in March at Cameron Indoor Stadium in arguably Carolina's most complete game of the year.
UNC's 14-2 conference record secured first place in the regular season for the 29th time in the ACC's 59 years. Then the Tar Heels advanced to the ACC Tournament finals, marking the 16th straight time either North Carolina, Duke, or both reached the league championship contest.
As per Williams' specifications, UNC attacked relentlessly on offense. The Heels paced the ACC in scoring and scoring margin, in rebound margin and offensive rebounds, in assists and ratio of assists to turnovers.
They finished second in the league in blocked shots per game, second in field goal percentage and in field goal percentage defense. Their suppression of opponents' shooting (.394) was best at Chapel Hill since 2001; opponents' .319 accuracy on threes was lowest since 2000.
Barnes, Henson, and Zeller were voted to the all-conference first team, only the second time three players from the same school were so honored in ACC history. (Duke did it in 2002.) Henson led the ACC in rebounds while Zeller was second. That's just the second time a conference club ever supplied the top two rebounders. (N.C. State did it in 1959.)
Playmaker Kendall Marshall, by most estimations the team's most valuable performer, had 351 assists in 36 games, a modern ACC record for a season and fourth-most by an NCAA player since the stat was recorded. The deft floor maestro averaged 9.8 assists per game, also a new ACC standard.
Henson led Carolina and the league with 101 blocks; the team had 221, more than any UNC squad since the statistic was first reported in 1976.
Barnes and Zeller finished in the ACC's top five in scoring.
As a group the Heels made 100 more free throws than their opponents attempted. The team's accuracy from the field, 3-point range, and at the line was the best since the championship season of 2009.
There are no rankings for severity or number of injuries incurred, but Carolina unwillingly excelled there too. Defensive stopper and emerging offensive threat Dexter Strickland was lost with a knee injury in January. Henson was sidelined for nearly four games after incurring a wrist sprain in the team's ACC Tournament opener.
Then there was the tumble by Marshall near the midpoint of the second half against Creighton in NCAA play at Greensboro, a wound from which neither the sophomore nor the team recovered.
Little-used freshman Stilman White came off the bench against Ohio and Kansas and did a superior job subbing for Marshall, augmented by utilityman Justin Watts.
"That's what you love about college athletics, it is about the kids," Williams said after lauding White. "It's about the players. It's not about the coaches. It's about the players and it's about the name on the front of the jersey. And I had a marvelous group."
Twice in the past eight years, North Carolina was the only team left standing when the NCAA tournament concluded. Other times - in an overtime loss to Georgetown in 2007, following a slow start against Kansas in the 2008 Final Four, and in 2011 against UK - the Tar Heels left the court lamenting squandered opportunities.
Then there was 2012, when they peaked in a timely manner only to stumble over the unforeseeable. And still they attacked, determined to play another day, valiant to the end.
