University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Tar Heels Watch Together
March 14, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
The scene in the Smith Center players' lounge played out very much like it did across the rest of the country.
A couple commercial breaks into CBS' Selection Show on Sunday evening, the network went to break with only one region revealed. The 2016 Atlantic Coast Conference champions had assembled to watch the show together, and knew they would be a number-one seed, but knew nothing else about the rest of their region.
During the break, Roy Williams asked his team, “Hey guys, do you want some inside information?”
No one answered, because, well, he's Roy Williams and if he wants to provide inside information, he's probably going to do it regardless of majority vote.
“Well, OK,” he said to a silent room. “If we win our first game, we would play the winner of…”
“NOOOOOO!” came the voices in unison of virtually every assembled player.
Their coach might have obtained some inside scoop on a day when the brackets leaked on the internet well before they were announced on CBS. But the players still wanted the thrill of seeing their name up on the board, and then to watch each slot filled in line by line.
Whether Williams actually had the bracket will never be known. Instead, the Tar Heels sat and watched with the rest of the nation. With the lengthier show, there was plenty of time for analysis and commentary from the players, virtually all of whom were still wearing their black ACC championship hats (including Kennedy Meeks, who still had a strand of net stuck in the back of his hat).
Some predictable biases showed through. As soon as Iowa went on the board, Marcus Paige announced, “Iowa is going to beat Villanova,” making an early call on an upset to watch. With Carolina the first team announced in the field, there was none of the drama of past years, including two years ago when the Tar Heels were one of the very last teams announced.
There was the usual bantering about who everyone thought might fill out the other high seeds in Carolina's region, but a good deal of the uncertainty focused on King Rice's Monmouth club, which was universally considered (in Chapel Hill) to be a deserving club. The selection committee, evidently, did not agree.
The Tar Heels eventually found out their destination (Raleigh) and opponent (still to be determined after an opening round game on Tuesday). But with the familiar site at PNC Arena, the entire team agreed on one thing: “Raleigh is going to be lit,” as Theo Pinson put it.
Williams—who exchanged text messages with Kenny Smith, who was an analyst on the selection show, throughout the evening and during the show—spoke to his team during the commercial break immediately following the announcement of Carolina's region.
He talked about details, about the mechanics of practicing in Raleigh and the various media and NCAA obligations. He also invoked the name of the 2009 national champions, a squad he told the 2016 team had had a similar late-season defensive awakening. Most of the roster has significant NCAA Tournament experience. Still, Williams couldn't hide his love of this time of year.
“Each game there will be more stress,” he told them. “It's the greatest thing there has ever been.”
