Lucas: Every Year

By Adam Lucas

We have to do this every year.

It is misery, this last game. Carolina lost to Auburn, poof, and it is done.

2019 Carolina basketball is over, and I'm not ready for that. This last night of the season, it is painful. The complete silence in the locker room. The players, the same ones who have been so fun and so boisterous all year, sitting with towels over their head. A basketball season is full of mistakes and losses, but there is always the next practice or the next game or the next meeting.

Now there is nothing. The season is over.

When Tyler Zeller graduated in 2012—freaking Creighton—I truly thought we might never see a player like him again. Getting to know him for four years, watching him develop, watching him excel…it felt like college basketball simply wasn't producing that kind of player anymore.

These are the scholarship seniors we have said goodbye to in the last four years:

Marcus Paige. Brice Johnson. Joel James. Nate Britt. Kennedy Meeks. Isaiah Hicks. Stilman White. Joel Berry. Theo Pinson. Luke Maye. Cameron Johnson. Kenny Williams.

Somewhere in that group is a Tar Heel who signed an autograph or took a picture with your kid. Somewhere in that group is a Tar Heel who made an amazing shot that you watched over and over late into the night even though you had to go to work or school the next day. Somewhere in that group is a Tar Heel who when you hear his name, immediately makes you say, "He's one of my all-time favorite Tar Heels."

Being a fan of this program in these four years has given us more thrills, and more memories, than some programs get in a lifetime. Seriously, look at those names. We got all of them, all their highlights and all their big shots and all their fun, in the span of just four years. How can that possibly be over? Right this second, it doesn't feel like we could ever do this again.

But we will, and by March of 2020 we'll be right back to convincing ourselves that if we just don't pick up that penny on the ground that isn't on heads, we will somehow impact Carolina's fortunes in the next game.

Not everyone is so lucky.

Ed Cota was recently discussing painful losses in his Carolina career. What comes to mind? Utah, of course. 1998 Final Four. Freaking Utah.

Not for Cota, one of the greatest point guards in Tar Heel history. Immediately, he singled out the 2000 Final Four loss to Florida. Why? Because it was his last one. Because his career ended that night in Indianapolis. He remembered every play of every moment of that game, was still frustrated with one particular foul call, described in vivid detail how it felt to walk off the RCA Dome court.

And that is how it will be for Maye and Williams and Johnson. For the second straight season, there was no drama in the final minutes. All the seniors were removed from the game with approximately two minutes left. Williams went straight to the bench and pulled a towel over his head to hide the tears.

As the game continued in front of him, Roy Williams walked down the bench and stopped at each senior.

To Kenny Williams: "I love you."

To Luke Maye: "I love you."

To Cameron Johnson: "I love you."

Then the Carolina head coach returned to his seat, and wiped away a tear, and he watched the end. After he'd addressed his team in the locker room—as soon as Williams finished talking to the team, Johnson was vomiting—Roy Williams, Kenny Williams and Luke Maye made their way down the hall for their postgame interviews.

But Auburn—freaking Auburn—was still at the podium, so the three Tar Heels had to wait in what the NCAA calls the "holding area." They just sat there, black curtains pulled around the room. No one was on their cell phone. No one spoke. They just sat, alone, and stared at the floor.

So if it's going to end like this, why do we do it? It's going to end in sheer misery, despondently staring at the ground. Why do it?

Because of this:

Kenny Williams: "If I tried to put this into words, it wouldn't do it justice. To really know the feeling, the joy that you get playing here…you have to be a part of it to actually know the feeling. You come in with expectations and these past four years have blown that away."

Luke Maye: "It's going to be hard for me to speak on all the memories and all the times that I've had at Carolina because there were so many great ones. I can't even put into words how honored I am to be able to play for this University, play for Coach Williams, and play with teammates and brothers like Kenny."

They don't get to do it again. This was the last one. Imagine what that is like for them. That's why they remember this one for a very long time, because being a Carolina basketball player was a highlight of their lives (not the only highlight, but a highlight). Everyone in that group named above has seemed, almost every day, to realize how lucky they are to be part of this.

And for us, there will never be Luke Maye and Kenny Williams and Cam Johnson again. Right now, of course, it feels like there will never be Tar Heels like this ever again.

And maybe there won't, not exactly like this.

But both of these sentences are true:

Next year there will still be Tar Heels, and that's why I love Carolina basketball, and that's why this night isn't sad.

But next year there won't be these Tar Heels, and they're why I love Carolina basketball, and that's why this night is sad.

Thank you to Kenny Williams and Cameron Johnson and Luke Maye for making it easy, every single day, to be proud these were our guys representing Carolina basketball. And for giving every impression, every day for the last four (and two) years, that you loved this place and this program exactly as much as we all do. And, incidentally, for being really good basketball players.

You could see how much it meant to them by the way they reacted in the final two minutes, the way it sank in with them that it was over. They have to go out in the world in a couple of months, but let me assure you that within the friendly boundaries of the Smith Center, every time we see them--whether a year from now or 30 years from now--we will immediately picture them as college students, as Maye pumping his fist in Memphis while we scream, "Luuuuuuuke!" or Johnson swishing another three-pointer from an absurd distance or Williams with a wide grin on his face as he sits on the hardwood after drawing another charge.

There has been a lot of talk recently about what college sports is not. For one night, maybe it could just be OK that what college sports is—or what it was—for Kenny Williams, Luke Maye, and Cameron Johnson was four of the best years of their lives. Maybe that's enough, just for tonight.

Meanwhile, we've scheduled our entire lives around basketball for the last five months, and now we have to spend ten days figuring out how to watch anything but basketball.

But right now, we've got something that Kenny and Cam and Luke would give almost anything for: we get to do it all again next year.

Players Mentioned

Cameron Johnson

Luke Maye

Theo Pinson

Kenny Williams

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