Lucas: You Are Here

By Adam Lucas

Hubert Davis looked around at his Tar Heels in the moments before they took the court against a ranked Michigan squad at the Smith Center. Tar Heel legends were in attendance, fans were standing, the speakers were throbbing.

"This is why you came to Carolina," Davis told his team. "You came to Carolina to play against great teams like Michigan. You came to Carolina to play in this environment. This is big time. This is why you came here."

Davis was greeted with wide smiles from his players. It was a good sign. "OK," he said. "Then let's go play hard and enjoy it."

And by the time the 72-51 win was finished, he was prophetic. It was why the players came to Carolina and why the students came to Carolina and why Phil Ford and Antawn Jamison and Tyler Hansbrough came to Carolina and why you came to Carolina—because you don't get this anywhere else.

Brady Manek was headed out to talk to his family after a nine-point, five-rebound performance. "This right here," he said, "that's why I came to Carolina. I wanted to be part of this and have this on my side."

It matters.

The fact that you're willing to get there when the doors open and unleash a 20,000-person strong "Boo Yah!" for Stuart Scott and swag surf—we saw you, Roy and Wanda Williams—and sing Sweet Caroline and roar when the video board shows highlights from 1993 because you instantly realize the significance of those clips on this particular night…all of that matters. All of that is why a kid from Oklahoma, without having ever been inside the Dean E. Smith Center, packs up his car and drives 17 hours across the country—because he wants to experience nights like this.

You can't have this without the basketball, of course. You can't have it without Caleb Love driving for a hammer dunk on one possession and then swishing a step-back three-pointer a couple possessions later. You can't have it without Armando Bacot's double-double and Leaky Black's steady 32 minutes.

Most of the last ten days has been devoted to discussing the supposed fact that Carolina can't defend, and if you wonder if the Tar Heels heard the chatter, that was Bacot in the postgame locker room bouncing around saying, "They said we couldn't defend! They said we couldn't defend!"

The locker room celebration was only enhanced by the fact that the players were surprised with the newest Jordan retro shoe, an XI Cool Grey that hasn't been released to the public yet.

Maybe you've never been a 20-year-old basketball prodigy and can't relate to the fact that getting Cool Greys in the locker room after a win over a ranked opponent is essentially the epitome of coolness. But I bet you either remember or you are currently experiencing the bliss of it being the last day of class, you just filled in a packed student section watching the Tar Heels win at the Smith Center, and now it's the wee hours of Thursday and you're standing outside with your friends waiting on the P2P because the night just started and the bus runs until 3 a.m.

Every bit as much as the classrooms and the argyle and the Old Well, that's what makes it Carolina. Twenty years from now, you're going to have a lot more, "Remember that night…" conversations about this exact evening than you are about those forthcoming exams.

Hubert Davis calls it "shared experiences" and it happens in the Smith Center just like it happens on Franklin Street. It's why Mitch Kupchak and Phil Ford and Antawn Jamison and Tyler Hansbrough and Tyler Zeller—among a dozen Tar Heel lettermen who were there on Wednesday, not counting the ones on the Carolina bench—can hold a conversation as if they were teammates even though most of them never shared the court.

Davis has been telling his players about that relationship since April. Wednesday night, something much more effective happened: they got to experience it themselves.

"That's what Carolina is about," Davis said on the Tar Heel Sports Network with Jones Angell after the game. "It's about family. It's about relationships. It doesn't matter when you played. It's the shared relationships and experiences you've had here that form that bond with people you didn't even play with. Having those former players here supporting the current players is something that's always been a foundation piece for this program."

Look, your jump shot probably isn't good enough to team up with Tyler or get an assist from Phil. Maybe you came here for the nationally known business school or the biology program or just because you really like the colors. Somewhere along the line, you had a night like this one, and that's when you understood what it means to be part of Carolina basketball.

"It was fun," Bacot said. "It felt like Carolina basketball…Today was amazing."

Bacot paused. He already knew the answer to what he was about to ask. He flashed a giant grin and said the following to his classmates and his peers and the 20,000 people who roared late into the Chapel Hill night:

"Are you not entertained?"

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

Leaky Black

Caleb Love

Brady Manek

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