Lucas: Turnt

By Adam Lucas

With a little under eight minutes left in the first half of Monday's top-11 showdown at the Smith Center, Carolina trailed, 25-21.

Enter the freshmen.

The trio of Coby White, Nassir Little and Leaky Black haven't played copious minutes together this season. But when they do, something's about to happen. And Monday, it did.

Little got a steal. Little got a dunk. White made a layup. White (yes, White) got a block.

Then White hit a three, with the assist coming from Black. White hit another three. Black drilled a three-pointer, with White returning the favor and providing the assist. Little grabbed a rebound, then made a couple of free throws. Black snagged a steal. White made yet another three-pointer, with the assist from Little. White got a steal.

By the time the freshman tsunami was over, the Tar Heels had gone from down by four points to leading by ten. Those three players recorded every single stat entered on the box score for the Tar Heels during that stretch.

Black continues to play a valuable reserve role, and again earned some minutes at point guard during the second half against the Hokies. He's going to be an integral and flexible part of Carolina teams both this year and in future years.

But let's talk for just a second about Little and White. Little had 23 points on seven-for-12 shooting and nailed a couple of three-pointers. He made all seven of his free throw attempts, which continues to be an important development for the Tar Heels in conference play—he's now attempted 26 free throws in six ACC games, more than anyone else on the team and a significant increase from the 31 he took in the 13 nonconference games. He's 13-for-15 from the line in the past two games.

Those charity tosses are indicative of the increased aggressiveness with which he's playing offensively. And this is exactly what Little said after the game when asked about how well he and his classmates played against a top-ten opponent, a chance for him to thump his chest a little and maybe strike back at everyone who'd doubted him in December and early January:

"I think that's a testament to the older guys and Coach Williams and the entire coaching staff. They got us prepared for this moment, knowing we're young and learning. They gave us the opportunity to get better and then to implement that in the games."

That's a mature way to answer the question. But give Little some credit, too. You don't play at Carolina if you don't play defense. And he's taken an increased interest in that end of the floor in recent weeks. It's not unusual at practice when Little is off the court to see him standing next to an older teammate or an assistant coach, asking exactly what he should be doing on a particular play. When he comes out of a game, he'll often find a seat next to assistant coach Steve Robinson, immediately wanting to know what he did wrong or how he can improve.

That leads to moments like late in the first half against the Hokies, when Little became confused on an offensive set. At the next dead ball, senior Kenny Williams spent some time with his arm around Little, explaining some of the nuances of playing the power forward position on that particular play.

It was a subtle gesture, but one that makes Carolina basketball so much fun. Sure, there are incredibly talented freshmen who are slowly maturing right in front of us (but that doesn't mean they won't mess up at some point in the future, because that's what freshmen do). But there are also seniors who are as conscious of their role as Williams, who said after the Louisville game he wanted to make purposeful changes in his brand of leadership.

"I'm trying to encourage them," Williams said. "There's a lot of emotions that go into a game, so you don't need guys who are constantly on you. I've changed and I've tried to do more encouraging…Nassir is trying to play two or three positions. He said he didn't know the four, so I told him we can live with that and let's move on to the next play."

Little has done a better job of moving on to the next play in recent games. In one sequence against Virginia Tech, he made a mistake by being overaggressive and dribbling into an obvious halfcourt trap in the second half, which led to a turnover. But just a few moments later, he again got the ball in the backcourt, waved off Seventh Woods, recognized that the defense wasn't paying much attention to him, and made the right decision by taking the ball right up the backs of the unaware defense to the rim, where he was fouled and converted a couple of free throws. That particular version of Little is going to be very difficult for ACC opponents to guard.

White, meanwhile, has been quietly thriving in what is generally acknowledged as one of the toughest roles in the program—being the starting point guard for Roy Williams. You probably already know he was good on Monday night. You might not realize just how good. White finished with 27 points, seven rebounds and six assists. According to Tar Heel Sports Network statistical guru Jody Zeugner, only four other players in Carolina history have reached those numbers in a single game. Their names are Tyler Hansbrough, Charlie Scott, Walter Davis and Joseph Forte. Every single one of those players has a jersey hanging in the Smith Center rafters.

Add in White's four steals, and it's entirely likely—Scott and Davis played before steals were officially recorded, and Forte and Hansbrough never reached that mark—that no Tar Heel in the over 100-year history of UNC basketball has ever put up 27/7/6/4 in a single game. White did it two months into his college career against a top-10 opponent.

And even with all those statistical achievements, maybe the most enjoyable part of Monday's performance was how much fun the freshmen seemed to have doing it. At one point in the first half, Garrison Brooks converted a three-point play, and both White and Little celebrated with leaps higher than anything they did in the course of game action. Black came flexing across the lane for a chest bump with Brooks. None of the three rookies were celebrating something they'd done—they were celebrating the achievement of a teammate in the first half of a January game.

Just imagine how much fun they'd be having if Roy Williams wasn't holding them back so much.

A couple minutes after the game, Little sat in the Tar Heel locker room digesting the win. That was when he provided a nice reminder that he's still 18 years old and won't turn 19 until next month.

The topic was the rowdy Smith Center crowd, the over 21,000 people who stood and cheered through most of that 20-0 run that was keyed by the freshmen. It was a very good crowd, an observer remarked.

That's when Little responded with an observation that would sound cool coming only from him, and not being paraphrased by someone old enough to remember an eight-team ACC and Dinah Shore giving out the Holly Farms Player of the Game. There will be plenty of time for the freshmen to make more mature, Kenny Williams-type answers to media inquiries. Little himself has endured intense scrutiny and managed it all better than someone twice his age could be expected to do. For now, it's fun to hear him respond like a normal teenager for just a moment.

So here is exactly what he said:

"Man," Little said, "it was turnt."

Players Mentioned

Leaky Black

Garrison Brooks

Nassir Little

Coby White

Kenny Williams

Seventh Woods

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