Lucas: Senior Living

By Adam Lucas

A few weeks into the 2018-19 school year, Kenny Williams and Luke Maye had to sit down for an intervention with Cameron Johnson.

The two seniors had chosen to live with Johnson, a graduate student. And it's not that Johnson is a bad roommate. It's just that, well…

"We had to explain to him that things have expiration dates," Williams says with a laugh.

"Cam tends to leave things in the fridge," Maye says. "We had to talk to him about how we don't roll like that in North Carolina. He's doing a lot better since we talked to him."

Overripe leftovers is about as crazy as things get in the Johnson/Williams/Maye household. Maye is taking a healthy courseload of business school classes. Williams was recently baptized. Both seniors enjoy ribbing their grad student teammate about his relative lack of classes, but Johnson gets the last word on that one:

"Everybody gives me a hard time about that," he says. "They act like I never went to class before. I'm like, 'Guys, I graduated. I've done a lot of classes over the last couple of years.'"

Johnson recently began working on his graduate thesis, which focuses on a topic he knows very well—graduate transfers as a qualitative study. He's talked to other players who made the graduate transfer move and plans to talk to others for his thesis.

Between housekeeping lessons (Williams is a fastidious—Johnson describes it as "OCD"—cleaner, meaning it's not unusual for his roommates to catch him shining a dish) and advanced schoolwork, the trio also finds time to be the acknowledged leaders of this year's edition of the Tar Heels.

It's relatively rare for a modern-era college team to have multiple seniors who are also big contributors. This year, Roy Williams is almost certain to have three senior starters, and Carolina is likely to enjoy both tangible and intangible benefits.

"I think it'll make a bigger difference than maybe even we think," Kenny Williams says. "It'll make a huge difference in road games. I know for sure that Luke and I have seen almost every situation you can see as a college basketball player. We know what to expect, and we can use that to our advantage. If everyone sees the three of us calm and collected they will have a sense of calm. Experience matters. And it gives you an advantage over the young guys who don't have game experience when you have guys who have been there and know what to expect."

The departure of Theo Pinson and Joel Berry means the roles of both vocal leader and leader by example have been vacated. Maye has always been more of an example type but is consciously trying to speak up more as a senior, and his influence was noticeable during preseason conditioning. Last year at this time, Johnson was more comfortable sitting back and observing, identifying the best ways to fit in; he's now feeling healthier and is more at ease being vocal. Williams has never had trouble sharing his opinion and is sorting through the right time to needle a teammate and the right time to encourage.

Statistically, they're likely to be one of the most productive senior classes of the Roy Williams era, with any of the three capable of leading the team in scoring on any given night.

"Experience is invaluable in college basketball," says Johnson, who says Chapel Hill feels like home in his second school year here. "Of course there are good young players in this game. But Carolina has shown before that when you have a good veteran group, they can produce at a very high level. And as someone who has seen that from the outside, I can tell you that opposing teams can tell when they're playing someone who has good veteran leadership. You can see the way they interact with each other and the way they hit on all cylinders on the court. I'm glad Luke and Kenny have helped me merge into their class. And on the court, we're going to make sure our team really benefits from having three strong voices who know what they're doing."

University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Cameron Johnson

Luke Maye

Theo Pinson

Kenny Williams

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