Lucas: Home Game

By Adam Lucas

ATLANTA—Leaving the court at McCamish Pavilion is the biggest challenge of any visiting locker room in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Walk off the court in the corner closest to the Georgia Tech band. Make a left. Walk approximately 30 feet. Go up 14 steps. That's when you face the most daunting part: a roughly 110 foot ramp, with a significant incline, that leads up to the doors to the locker room.

Brandon Robinson walked that path numerous times as a youngster growing up in Georgia, when he attended camp multiple times on Georgia Tech's campus. As a Tar Heel, he eagerly awaited his first game at McCamish.

It wasn't what he expected.

As a freshman, Robinson played nine minutes and made zero of his five shots in Carolina's headscratching loss to the Yellow Jackets. He had two turnovers and no assists. He knows all those stats by heart, because Roy Williams was so troubled by that 75-63 defeat in December of 2016 that he's been carrying the box score folded up in his back pocket for the last couple of days.

"He showed it to me," Robinson said, "but he didn't have to. I remember that game. It was probably one of the worst games I've played in my life."

On Tuesday, Robinson corralled 20 tickets for friends and family for the second trip Carolina has made to Georgia Tech during his UNC career. He estimated another 20 bought their own tickets and made the half-hour drive from Douglasville.

Robinson made sure it was worth their trip by playing a season-high 18 minutes, scoring on three of his four shot attempts, grabbing two rebounds, and committing just one turnover in Carolina's 77-54 win. It's already just the fourth time in the last 25 years that a Tar Heel team has won two ACC road games in the same season by at least 20 points.

The story of the night will be the impressive offensive display put on by Cameron Johnson (22 points) and Coby White (19 points and eight assists). But one of the stories of the season continues to be the emergence of Robinson, who provides Carolina with a valuable offensive weapon off the bench.

As the game slows down for the junior, he's not just shooting well. He is, quite simply, playing well. You've probably noticed him for his shooting, but he's making plays in multiple facets of the game, which enables Roy Williams to be more flexible with his lineups and rotations. On Tuesday, Robinson tossed a slick over-the-head pass to Nassir Little for a violent slam dunk in the second half. He hit a midrange jumper in the middle of the Tech zone in the first half, wisely finding the soft spot in the defense. He passed up a relatively open three-pointer in the second half—the kind of shot a 60 percent three-point shooter in league play is certainly entitled to take—and instead made the extra pass to White, who drilled one of his five three-pointers.

But maybe his best play came late in the second half, when shifty Tech point guard Jose Alvarado had the ball in transition and was locked in one-on-one against Robinson. Alvarado is a tough cover, it was a 25-point game, and Robinson could have been excused for sliding out of the way.

That's not how you earn more minutes, and that's certainly not how you play in front of the home folks. Alvarado tried to go right…Robinson slid in front of him. Alvarado tried to go left…Robinson slid with him.

"Coach Robinson always gets on me about sticking my hands in," Robinson said. "So when he tried to go by me, I spread my hands out and tried to use my wingspan against him."

Stymied, Alvarado had to give up the ball, and the Jackets eventually missed a three-pointer. The film will ultimately render the verdict, but the naked eye suggested Robinson has a chance of winning his first defensive player of the game award from the coaches this season.

One of the best traditions in Carolina basketball is the Dean Smith policy of taking an out-of-state player "home" for a game in his home territory during his four years in Chapel Hill. It enables the homestanding player's friends and family to hold up handmade signs in the crowd (the Robinson crowd did), pose for pictures after the game (they did), and relish every moment of a big Tar Heel win and their favorite player's key role in the game (oh, they most definitely did).

Robinson enjoyed it almost as much as they did. When he finally came out of the game late in the second half, Williams grabbed him before he could take a seat on the bench. The head coach said something, and both of them laughed.

"That," Williams told the junior, "was a lot better than your freshman year." Maybe Williams can even throw away that Dec. 2016 box score now.

And then Robinson got to exit the McCamish court yet again, this time sprinting up that infernal incline with his teammates racing beside him, everything always having to be a competition, even running back to the locker room.

This one, though, felt a little different.

"It feels so good to run up that ramp with a win," Robinson said. "I've been here so many times as a little kid. But this one was special."

Players Mentioned

Cameron Johnson

Nassir Little

Brandon Robinson

Coby White

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