University of North Carolina Athletics
Austin O'Connor (photo by Jenna Miller/jennamillerphotos.com)
Photo by: Jenna Miller/jennamillerphotos.com
GoHeels Exclusive: Time To Focus
January 15, 2019 | Wrestling
By Joe Wedra
Coleman Scott and the rest of the UNC wrestling team arrived at Jadwin Gym at 8 a.m. Saturday morning to a locked back door.
There stood 20 wrestlers and a coaching staff in the loading dock behind the gym in 25-degree temperatures on the campus of Princeton, waiting several minutes before a coach propped a door so the team could enter through the bowels of the gym and make the long walk to the locker room.
The trip, as a whole, was filled with adversity. Nothing seemed to go smoothly, from the bus ride to New Jersey to the performances on the mat, which ended in a 23-16 loss to the Tigers.
Every step of the way, there were hiccups.
Scott's goal for Saturday morning was simple – get up early, get a hard workout and shake off the visit to Jersey. It was a time to re-focus and take a hard look at the team's goals with two weeks before the start of the ACC season.
It might not have been the ideal way to start a travel day, but it ended up being the perfect reboot. The workout began at 8:20 and the team was on the bus and headed back to Chapel Hill by 9:55.
It was a quick but important hit of the reset button – just in time to lock in to prepare for next weekend's home dual against Virginia.
The battle of focus
There were no words minced from Scott in the post-match locker room last Friday night. It wasn't a message his team hadn't heard before. But this time, Scott got down to brass tacks rather quickly.
The Tar Heels split the night's matches, 5-5, but dropped four on bonus points. Princeton collected a pair of pins and two major decisions to cruise in the team score and send Carolina home with a loss that stung even more with a nine-hour bus ride on the horizon.
The post-match speech had a simple theme: these next two weeks must be different.
Major changes across the board aren't needed, nor is widespread panic. The talent on the roster is plentiful.
However, the focus – the down-to-the-detail emphasis for everyone in the room – must rise.
"At this point in the season there's no room for anything less than your best foot forward, your best intensity as a wrestler," Scott said. "I've seen it myself when I wrestled in college. That winter break isn't easy. These months aren't easy. But we can settle into a rhythm now… one with good focus each day we walk into the room."
Someone who did particularly bring the focus on the trip to Princeton was No. 4 Austin O'Connor, whose tight 3-2 loss to No. 1 Matthew Kolodzik might have woken up the rest of the country and set the 149-pound landscape on alert.
There's little doubt that O'Connor's style – his focus and gritty mindset – is along the lines of what Scott has for the rest of the guys in the room.
The redshirt freshman has lost just three times this year. In addition to the loss to Kolodzik, he's dropped matches to Duke's Mitch Finesilver, whom he beat in a rematch, and Ohio State's No. 3 Micah Jordan. There's little he hasn't done, providing the model for the rest of the room.
"You're seeing it every week with Austin. He keeps getting better even in areas you don't think a redshirt freshman can get better," Scott said. "I have no doubt that he's going to make a push once March rolls around, but he's also going to be key in what we're doing in ACC matches. He's putting 149 pounds across the country on notice every time he hits the mat."
The road ahead
The Tar Heels have a week and a half to prepare for Virginia, by no means an easy task to kick off a tough ACC slate for Scott and Co.
For the coaching staff, there's little doubt about what the prevailing message will be throughout the room: the time for anything short of rigorous preparation doesn't exist. Now, it's an all-hands-on-deck effort to win – for the team.
After the Tar Heels take on UVA next weekend, they'll hit the road for back-to-back road duals against Bucknell and Pittsburgh. After the team returns from Pennsylvania, it will host three duals in 11 days – against Virginia Tech, N.C. State and Cornell.
"We aren't going to sit around and act like we haven't been tested with the travel schedule we've faced early, but there's also a good benefit to that," Scott said. "They've all been through the worst of it now. We've gotten through the tough times early. Hopefully, this is the stretch where we put everything together as a team and perform better than anyone thinks we can. I know it's possible. All of us do. Now it's the time to prove it."
To prove it, Scott is having all of his guys turn the page.
He hopes that the Princeton trip is a marker on this season – one that jump-started a special run that continues when the calendar flips into March.
Coleman Scott and the rest of the UNC wrestling team arrived at Jadwin Gym at 8 a.m. Saturday morning to a locked back door.
There stood 20 wrestlers and a coaching staff in the loading dock behind the gym in 25-degree temperatures on the campus of Princeton, waiting several minutes before a coach propped a door so the team could enter through the bowels of the gym and make the long walk to the locker room.
The trip, as a whole, was filled with adversity. Nothing seemed to go smoothly, from the bus ride to New Jersey to the performances on the mat, which ended in a 23-16 loss to the Tigers.
Every step of the way, there were hiccups.
Scott's goal for Saturday morning was simple – get up early, get a hard workout and shake off the visit to Jersey. It was a time to re-focus and take a hard look at the team's goals with two weeks before the start of the ACC season.
It might not have been the ideal way to start a travel day, but it ended up being the perfect reboot. The workout began at 8:20 and the team was on the bus and headed back to Chapel Hill by 9:55.
It was a quick but important hit of the reset button – just in time to lock in to prepare for next weekend's home dual against Virginia.
The battle of focus
There were no words minced from Scott in the post-match locker room last Friday night. It wasn't a message his team hadn't heard before. But this time, Scott got down to brass tacks rather quickly.
The Tar Heels split the night's matches, 5-5, but dropped four on bonus points. Princeton collected a pair of pins and two major decisions to cruise in the team score and send Carolina home with a loss that stung even more with a nine-hour bus ride on the horizon.
The post-match speech had a simple theme: these next two weeks must be different.
Major changes across the board aren't needed, nor is widespread panic. The talent on the roster is plentiful.
However, the focus – the down-to-the-detail emphasis for everyone in the room – must rise.
"At this point in the season there's no room for anything less than your best foot forward, your best intensity as a wrestler," Scott said. "I've seen it myself when I wrestled in college. That winter break isn't easy. These months aren't easy. But we can settle into a rhythm now… one with good focus each day we walk into the room."
Someone who did particularly bring the focus on the trip to Princeton was No. 4 Austin O'Connor, whose tight 3-2 loss to No. 1 Matthew Kolodzik might have woken up the rest of the country and set the 149-pound landscape on alert.
There's little doubt that O'Connor's style – his focus and gritty mindset – is along the lines of what Scott has for the rest of the guys in the room.
The redshirt freshman has lost just three times this year. In addition to the loss to Kolodzik, he's dropped matches to Duke's Mitch Finesilver, whom he beat in a rematch, and Ohio State's No. 3 Micah Jordan. There's little he hasn't done, providing the model for the rest of the room.
"You're seeing it every week with Austin. He keeps getting better even in areas you don't think a redshirt freshman can get better," Scott said. "I have no doubt that he's going to make a push once March rolls around, but he's also going to be key in what we're doing in ACC matches. He's putting 149 pounds across the country on notice every time he hits the mat."
The road ahead
The Tar Heels have a week and a half to prepare for Virginia, by no means an easy task to kick off a tough ACC slate for Scott and Co.
For the coaching staff, there's little doubt about what the prevailing message will be throughout the room: the time for anything short of rigorous preparation doesn't exist. Now, it's an all-hands-on-deck effort to win – for the team.
After the Tar Heels take on UVA next weekend, they'll hit the road for back-to-back road duals against Bucknell and Pittsburgh. After the team returns from Pennsylvania, it will host three duals in 11 days – against Virginia Tech, N.C. State and Cornell.
"We aren't going to sit around and act like we haven't been tested with the travel schedule we've faced early, but there's also a good benefit to that," Scott said. "They've all been through the worst of it now. We've gotten through the tough times early. Hopefully, this is the stretch where we put everything together as a team and perform better than anyone thinks we can. I know it's possible. All of us do. Now it's the time to prove it."
To prove it, Scott is having all of his guys turn the page.
He hopes that the Princeton trip is a marker on this season – one that jump-started a special run that continues when the calendar flips into March.
Players Mentioned
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