University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: One Of Those Nights
February 19, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
DURHAM—If we're going to get through this then we're going to have to do it together, and we need to be honest about it right up front: I don't want to write about that any more than you want to read about it.
It was horrible.
Well, wait a second. No it wasn't. For the better part of two hours, it was thrilling. It was prototypical Carolina-Duke, and it was perfect. It was fun to imagine the contrarians who like to pretend that their Louisville-Kentucky game or Georgetown-Villanova game is the equal of Carolina-Duke turning on this game, and then sitting quietly in their chair while they realized, “Yeah, we don't have this.”
At one point, I looked in the stands and Alexander Julian was punching the air with absolute glee after Kennedy Meeks scored on a put-back. Julian has been around the world and stopped being impressed by common events decades ago. Yet there he was, totally exhilarated by a Kennedy Meeks offensive rebound. This was that kind of game.
A couple sections over, Antawn Jamison was standing up in the last row of the student bleachers, his back against the wooden wall that divides the students from the regular fans at Cameron Indoor. Antawn Jamison is one of the greatest Tar Heels of all time, and he was known to torment Duke. He also happens to be one of the most passionate Tar Heels you will ever meet.
This is important context because of what I am about to tell you next: Antawn Jamison looked miserable. He looked like, if he could just loosen his necktie just a little bit—Jamison was in town to do some work for the ACC Network—he could probably pick up a quick double-double. Maybe in the first half alone. If he had to keep the necktie tied, he might've only grabbed eight or nine rebounds rather than reaching double figures.
What must that be like, to be Antawn Jamison and have to stand there and watch in a place where you've made such an enormous difference on multiple occasions? It looked, quite honestly, painful. This was that kind of game.
It was fun to be part of it. It felt like we were in a club, Alexander and Antawn and you and I, and we knew what it was like to be part of this thing that had captivated our thoughts all day and would probably disrupt thousands of sleep patterns tonight. Carolina has now played 26 games this season. This one was similar to the previous 25 only in that they put 40 minutes--or sometimes 40:03, or sometimes 39:56, because this is Cameron--on the Cameron Indoor Stadium clock, and the two teams tried to put a ball into a hoop.
In every other way, this game was different. You remember all those talks about the sense of urgency? There was no need for that on Wednesday. Meeks threw himself on the floor twice going after loose balls, and Nate Britt completely flung himself onto the hardwood late in the first half.
This was a team—finally—that didn't mind getting a few floor burns. This was a team that didn't mind mixing it up a little, and responded exactly the right way. Early in the second half, J.P. Tokoto got tangled up with Amile Jefferson, with Jefferson's big forearm ending up plastered across Tokoto's throat.
The Tar Heel junior took very evident exception to the play, and it was how he responded that was so encouraging. First, he scored off an offensive rebound, bringing his team within one point. Then, he ran the floor and finished with a thunderous dunk that gave Carolina the first lead of the game.
I'm not saying Tokoto's reverse slam was nasty, but let's put it this way: it caused the Duke student line monitor standing over my right shoulder to unleash such a string of profanity that Cameron Indoor security had to ask him to relax. As everyone knows, line monitors are usually completely unflappable, lest their face paint run.
And so, for about 39 minutes, we got to see the Carolina team we woke up on Wednesday hoping to see. These Tar Heels had a little swagger. These Tar Heels thought nothing of throwing down a reverse dunk at a key juncture. These Tar Heels dove on the floor and just grinned when facing adversity and then smacked the press table after swishing a key three-pointer, as freshman Joel Berry II did late in regulation.
But then, well…you know.
There are all kinds of postgame locker rooms. There are sad ones and jubilant ones and confused ones.
This one was none of those. This one was angry. It was stone silent, but you could feel the frustration in every player. Within a five-minute span, Brice Johnson, Marcus Paige and Nate Britt all tried to claim individual responsibility for the loss. Theo Pinson did not even play in the game, did not even wear a uniform, and he shed a few tears. That reminds me of two important lessons from this game:
1. You can win with players like Theo Pinson.
2. You always want to play in the games that are so meaningful to you and to everyone else that they cause tears.
None of the individuals seeking blame were correct, of course. Carolina lost the lead the same way they got in the first place—with a group effort.
“This one,” Paige said, “burns.”
The Tar Heels get to see the Blue Devils again in just 17 days. How they handle the lingering effects of the first meeting will likely to go a long way towards determining the importance of the second meeting.
