University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: The Henson Watch
March 9, 2012 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
March 9, 2012
By Adam Lucas
ATLANTA--If a basketball game is played at the ACC Tournament and no one notices, does it really make a sound?
Let's get the basics out of the way first: The Tar Heels will play again on Saturday afternoon.
Now, on to the important stuff: John Henson met the media after the game with no tape on his wrist and a slight sense of bemusement about their obsession with his health.
Henson went down midway through the first half on a play near the basket. From that point forward, everything that happened on the court was secondary. Yes, sure, the ACC Tournament is a nice event to win. But NCAA Tournament pairings are released Sunday night, and Carolina's postseason expectations would go from ludicrous to merely astronomical without Henson, who impacts virtually every possession on defense and is part of one of the best frontcourts the Tar Heels have ever had.
So from the moment he went down, I watched him. He eventually came back into the game, but it was only for a quick 30 seconds. As soon as he tried to grab the ball, he was signaling to the Tar Heel bench for a replacement.
"I knew I couldn't play when Kendall threw me the ball, and I was eight feet away and I couldn't go up for the shot," Henson said.
He left the game. Then he left the bench. He didn't return with the team after halftime, which made my vigil even tougher.
When he came out of the locker room with 17:35 remaining in the second half, he had his jersey untucked. This prompted intensive analysis. What did it mean? Was he frustrated? Had he gotten bad news? Henson's face is always so expressive. Look at him. Is he happy? Is he morose? Here we are, in March, and what was happening on the court had virtually nothing to do with the rest of Carolina's season.
I watched him clap (He's clapping! That could be good news!). I watched him put ice on his wrist (Uh-oh). I watched him take the ice off (Yes!).
Think about what those minutes were like for you--the frantic refreshing of the internet, the constant checking of Twitter. Now imagine what it was like for Henson, who was as uncertain as the rest of us when he first went down on the Philips Arena hardwood.
"It was the worst," he said. "I was upset because I never had an injury where I couldn't hold the ball. Before the x-rays, I was a nervous wreck."
And then?
"They came out and said it wasn't anything broken or fractured, and it was a moment of relief."
Whew.
Look, all of us have been here before. Carolina fans kept watch on Ty Lawson's toe during the 2009 ACC Tournament, which was also held in Atlanta. Lawson, who had played the week before in a must-win regular season finale against Duke, did not play, and the Tar Heels were eliminated in the semifinals. Lawson later returned for the second-round NCAA Tournament game against LSU, where he was magnificent. Things worked out pretty well that season.
Henson's wrist is not Lawson's toe, of course. But just to be safe, all Epsom salts at the team hotel have been placed under lock and key.
"He had trouble catching and gripping the ball," Roy Williams said after repeating the news that an x-ray was negative. "If he had felt comfortable gripping the basketball, we would've allowed him to play." Point guard Kendall Marshall, who by the way set the Atlantic Coast Conference single-season assists record on a pass to Harrison Barnes in the first half, good-naturedly ribbed Henson after the game--when it was clear it wasn't a catastrophic injury.
"As you know, John can be a little dramatic," Marshall said.
Maybe so. But as you also know, John can be integral to national championship hopes. Hence the stress. Every point Roy Williams has ever made about the ACC Tournament being secondary to the NCAA Tournament was proven on Friday afternoon. I never heard one person say, "Boy, Carolina needs Henson to win the ACC Tournament." But I heard a lot talk about how a potential Henson injury might impact the Tar Heels' NCAA fortunes.
Less noticed in all the Henson commotion was the fact that Harrison Barnes limped noticeably in the second half before signaling to Williams that he needed a replacement. That's two of Carolina's starting five hobbled, and with opening round NCAA Tournament play (please don't try to pass off the First Four as the real tournament) less than one week away, the real story from Atlanta is about x-rays and ankles .
Oh, and they also played a game. Carolina beat Maryland, 85-69.
Very few people noticed.
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.
