University of North Carolina Athletics
Q&A: Eric Montross
March 18, 2014 | Men's Basketball
By Ben Brown
A two-time all-America selection at Carolina, Eric Montross notched plenty of NCAA Tournament experience during his four years in Chapel Hill. With two Final Fours and a national championship to his name, he certainly has plenty of wisdom to lend to this year's Carolina basketball team.
Ben Brown: When you're in the NCAA Tournament, obviously every single game could be your last of the season. Does that affect the way you play?
Eric Montross: "Again, I will say for me, and I can only speak for myself, although I can hedge on what I think my teammates at the time felt, I never prepared differently because I always felt that Coach Smith was preparing us the same way every game so that we would perform at our highest level every game regardless if it was an out of conference early season game or an ACC tournament or NCAA tournament game.
The preparation didn't change, but certainly there was an appreciation for the position that we were in and there was that extra gravity to the situation that you knew there was a lot riding on the game. But, I don't ever feel like it played a role in my performance or the performance of our team as far as giving us the jitters or making us think about 'what if.' We expected to win because we felt because we were a very prepared group and that Coach Smith had put us in a position to succeed, so that was what we expected."
BB: How important is a team's experience to helping it go far in the tournament?
EM: "I do think there is something to be said for experience, and I think that it's important to have a consistent level of emotion. I think for young players-and it's simply because they don't have the experience-emotion can get in the way of performance. If you've never been into that emotional setting or you've never tried to concentrate on the pregame when you have the intense atmosphere of the NCAA tournament, or the travel or getting a police escort to the arena or the fanfare associated with it, if you've never been in that situation, that's when it can be a distraction. I think that's where the age of the team and the maturity can be a factor."
BB: When you're in the middle of the tournament, do you ever have a chance to take a step back and understand the journey?
EM: "I absolutely did not grasp the situation when we went through it. We were just one foot in front of the other and we were moving fast and we were enjoying the ride and we were thrilled with the success, but there was no time that we turned our minds toward thinking about how spectacular it was, or that we should be writing about it in a journal. That's something that I say in passing, but I really wish that I had written down some of my experiences and really soaked in every single one of my experiences, because it is such a special, special time. The tournament is so unique that until you can step back from it and view it from a different perspective, it's very hard to fully appreciate the level of achievement."
BB: In the national championship game against Michigan as the game was coming down to the wire, what was Coach Smith's message to the team?
EM: "I don't recall a specific verbiage, but what I do recall is a perfect sense of calm and a sense of control in our huddle. There was always a sense of assurance that what we were doing was either good enough or we could tweak something. Everything we did was looked at in small steps, such as what are we going to do before the next timeout occurs. More than anything, what I remember was the sense of calm in the huddle."
BB: When you were a freshman at Carolina just over 20 years ago, did you ever dream that some day you would be honored as one of the ACC's Legends?
EM: "No, and I'm a little taken aback because I'm not nearly old enough to be considered legendary (laughing). They didn't have ACC Legends when I was in school and when it was first introduced I think that it was apparent to me what a great honor it was to watch the men who walked across the stage and represented an era for their teams by being an ACC Legend.
"It is something that I'm very aware of as a compliment but I'm also, and I'm not trying to sound like Coach Smith when I say this, but there is no way I would even be considered an ACC legend without my teammates. So what I see is an opportunity for me to represent the teams that I played on. I wasn't a guard. I couldn't dribble the ball up the court under pressure and then go score. I had to rely on Derrick Phelps and Donald Williams and I had to rely on screens from George Lynch and I had to rely upon defensive help from Henrik Rödl, and the list goes on. I'm very honored and it's quite a privilege to be in position to be the ACC legend and represent the University of North Carolina, but I'm also painfully aware that it should be my team up there instead of me."
BB: What is the biggest strength of this year's Carolina team that will allow it to make some noise in the NCAA Tournament?
EM: "The leadership of Marcus Paige and his commitment to give everything he has every single night. The fact that Marcus holds himself to such a high expectation of how he should play and then he performs and he does it in a way where he's trying to hold his teammates accountable yet he's not diminutive in his comments to them, I think that's a real sign of strength for the team."
BB: If you had one piece of advice for the team this year as it gets set for the tournament what would it be?
EM: "Lose yourself in the experience. What I mean by that is for a month, starting [last] weekend with the ACC tournament, you have the opportunity to lose yourself in March Madness. If you could ever focus on your schoolwork and basketball and leave everything else out and play with a confidence and enjoyment of the game, that's what I would recommend because that's the kind of commitment it takes to really go far in the tournament. I think that if you can lose yourself in that feeling you will play harder than you have ever played and you will play better than you have played and your teammates will play better than they've ever played, because there is just this energy amongst the team."
BB: Coach Smith was known for writing notes to his players during the offseason. What did he say to you in those letters?
EM: "I absolutely remember receiving a number of letters from Coach Smith and that was before the days of text messaging and social media, so everything had to be handwritten or typed. I know that sounds like the dark ages or like there were dinosaurs roaming around outside of the basketball offices, but Coach Smith would always send us letters, especially in the summer, telling us things to look forward to and to work on. I think that just continued to demonstrate his commitment to us as individual players and to us as a team, because he was going to take the time to remind us of the opportunities that we had to take to get better."
