Lucas: Parting Gifts

By Adam Lucas

RALEIGH—I could watch this over and over again.

There are a little under four minutes left in Carolina's 75-65 road win over NC State on Monday night. The Wolfpack has just missed a layup, and Garrison Brooks (of course) gets the rebound. He throws an outlet pass to Andrew Platek, who is approximately 75 feet from the basket.

There are four NC State players back on defense. Platek needs two dribbles to cross midcourt. The Wolfpack defenders are pointing and watching but what they are not particularly doing is stopping Andrew Platek.

At midcourt, he realizes they are in disarray. The four State defenders are back inside the three-point line, but they are on their heels while Platek is attacking.

And do you know what he was thinking at that moment when he realized that 6-foot-10 D.J. Funderburke and 6-foot-11 Manny Bates were in his way, but that he essentially had an open lane to the rim?

"I was thinking," Platek said with a grin in a very happy postgame locker room, "that I was going to dunk it."

Spoiler alert: he didn't. But he did lay it in to give Carolina a ten-point lead with 3:47 to play, and that exact mentality—I'm about to throw this down—is exactly how the Tar Heels seem to play in PNC Arena every single year (Platek, by the way, is the interview subject on Tuesday's Carolina Insider podcast, and it's one of the most frank interviews you'll ever hear from a player, so now is a good time to subscribe).

This would have been surprising if it wasn't so unsurprising. Here are the numbers:

In his 17 seasons as Carolina's head coach, Roy Williams' winning percentage at PNC Arena (15-2 against the Wolfpack and 4-0 in the NCAA Tournament) is .905.

In that same timespan, Roy Williams' winning percentage at the Dean Smith Center—on a court that carries his very own name—is .862.

Williams knows how to win in Raleigh. More importantly, he knows how to convey that knowledge to his team. In the immediate aftermath of Saturday's win over Miami, Williams addressed the team in the Smith Center locker room. Then he dismissed them.

Sixty seconds later, before anyone could get too far away, he called them back into the locker room and shut the door. The message? He wanted to remind his team of the next opponent.

"He said we needed to win at their house," said Christian Keeling. "He said it would be even sweeter to win it in front of their fans. And some of the stuff he said, I can't say."

It's OK, Christian. We know what you're getting at. We know that Roy and Wanda Williams may soon have to expand their pantry to make room for all the Raleigh brownies he's collected in the course of his career.

It has plenty of competition, but it's possible that this one might have been the sweetest. This was a Carolina team playing without four rotation players (Sterling Manley, Anthony Harris, Cole Anthony and Jeremiah Francis), including the leading scorer. Among the so-called "healthy" players was Leaky Black, who is still battling through a toe injury, and Brandon Robinson, who is hurt pretty much everywhere else.

Robinson made multiple trips to the Carolina locker room on Monday night; the banged-up Tar Heels were keeping athletic trainer Doug Halverson so busy that he eventually had to summon assistant Madison Corona from the stands, where she had intended to attend the game as a fan. No nights off with the 2020 Tar Heels.

The senior was clearly in pain every time he moved. And yet he still managed to make seven straight free throws in the final nine minutes of the game.

And with three minutes left and a ten-point Carolina lead, after an errant K.J. Smith jumper, it was Robinson who went leaping out of bounds to save the loose ball back to Brooks. As the Tar Heels reset the offense, the senior doubled over in the corner, clutching his side.

"B-Rob was going through a lot of pain," Brooks said. "For him to go out there and make those plays meant a lot to me."

It meant a lot to everyone wearing blue. The Tar Heels haven't fixed everything that has left them 10-10 at the end of January. But they're indisputably a better team than they were two weeks ago, they're on a winning streak, and they're playing crisper, more consistent basketball.

And, of course, they'll always have Raleigh. Early in the second half, during a media timeout, an NC State video board promotion sought to find the most excited Wolfpack fan. The winner, it was announced, would win a gift card for everyone in their row.

A boisterous State fan clad head-to-toe in red pom-poms won the promotion. The NC State marketing staff headed to his row, where they would hand out gift cards to everyone in the row.

When they arrived at the appointed row and began handing out gift cards, they soon realized they had a problem: half the row was filled with Carolina fans. A look of resignation passed over their faces; some State fans in the area began booing the situation. Making it even sweeter, it was not just any Carolina fans. Among those wearing blue on that row were Phil Ford, John Kuester, Joe Holladay, Dave Hanners, and Wanda Williams.

As players and coaches, the group of Ford, Kuester, Holladay and Hanners were part of 54 wins against NC State. Williams is married to the greatest Wolfpack tormentor in basketball history.

And now they each had a handy gift card. Imagine the look on Roy Williams' face when he walks into his kitchen late on Monday and his wife hands him the gift card she was personally presented by the Wolfpack at the game. Here's your win. And here's your gift card.

Carolina wins again.

In Raleigh, it's a familiar outcome.

Players Mentioned

Cole Anthony

Leaky Black

Garrison Brooks

Jeremiah Francis

Anthony Harris

Christian Keeling

Sterling Manley

Andrew Platek

Brandon Robinson

K.J. Smith

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