University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Too Cool
January 27, 2014 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Let's just abandon all pretense and be totally honest about what's going to happen here. The words you are about to read are going to sound hopelessly old. You will think they were written with a quill pen on a scroll of parchment paper while listening to a phonograph. These words are like Old Tin Can vintage stuff.
You've been warned. Here we go.
One of the great mysteries of basketball in the modern era is as follows: whenever a team fails to get to a majority of the loose balls, it is almost always blamed on being "too cool." Too cool to dive on the floor, too cool to make the sacrifice, too cool to risk leaving some skin on the hardwood. Roy Williams has addressed this topic, and in his usual understated fashion, has proclaimed, "I hate cool."
But...that is so not cool. Standing and watching the other guy get the ball while you wait for it to bounce back to you is about as uncool as parachute pants mom jeans cheer sheets.
The coolest play of Sunday night's 80-61 win over Clemson went as follows: late in the first half, Marcus Paige missed a driving bucket late in the shot clock. Desmond Hubert helped keep the ball alive, and it bounced towards the baseline near the Clemson bench. It looked like Josh Smith believed he was simply going to bend down and scoop up the ball.
He did not account for James Michael McAdoo, who had thrown himself onto the court, diving on top of the ball, cradling it, and signaling for a timeout to preserve the possession.
"Those are just winning plays," McAdoo said. "It's stuff you have to do if you want to win a ballgame."
Three things happened soon after McAdoo called the timeout:
First, the Tigers, especially Smith, immediately slumped their shoulders. They had only a couple feet to walk to get to their huddle. It felt like it took them the better part of 30 seconds to get there. The play visibly took much more out of them than a simple basket.
Next, the Smith Center crowd of 18,616 went crazy. The only competition this particular roar had during the entire night was when James Manor hit back-to-back three-pointers late in the game. And, really, if your only competition is James Manor hitting back-to-back three-pointers, then you've had a pretty good night.
And finally, before McAdoo could even cross midcourt on his way back to the bench for the timeout he had called, he was greeted with a flying cross-body chest bump from Leslie McDonald, an enthusiastic high five from Joel James, and Marcus Paige's arm draped around his shoulder.
Perhaps you shouldn't take advice on this topic from someone who admittedly once purchased an actual cassette single of Blame It On the Rain. But every single bit of that description sounds impossibly cool to me.
What's even more impressive is the way it spreads. Like any cool trend, there are immediate copycats. Within 60 seconds of McAdoo's play, J.P. Tokoto hurled himself onto the hardwood in front of the Tar Heel bench to save a possession (again beating Smith). By the time the game was over, four different Carolina players--the others were Leslie McDonald and Kennedy Meeks--had gone to the floor while chasing a loose ball.
These plays matter. Part of the reason there is still a streak to talk about is because Tyler Hansbrough dove on top of a loose ball near midcourt in double overtime against the Tigers in 2008.
If those plays aren't cool, then why are they still so vivid even six years later?
Carolina doesn't keep specific record of these types of plays during games, although Williams tracked "floor burns" at Kansas in tribute to a hard-nosed Jayhawk and future UNC assistant coach, Jerod Haase. The Tar Heels do keep track of "first on the floor" during practices as a way to gauge which player is the first to sacrifice himself for loose balls.
Players, however, realize there is much more value to the play than just earning a plus point in practice. Notice in the following quote how McDonald immediately recalled, without prompting, two of his teammates who showed the most effort against Clemson.
"When you are out there having fun and playing hard, you see one player dive on the floor, and you want to do it, too," McDonald said. "You see 'Mac' diving for the ball and J.P. diving for the ball and getting rewards for it from the coaching staff and the fans. You want to receive that, too. So the next time the ball is on the ground, you're going to dive on the floor."
Sounds pretty cool to me.
Adam Lucas is the editor of CAROLINA.
