Lucas: This Year

By Adam Lucas

WEST LAFAYETTE—We mark time by Carolina basketball seasons.

1986: First year I ever missed school for the Friday of the ACC Tournament. My parents wrote a note saying I was "sick" so it would be an excused absence. I've had that same sickness every year since.

1993: Carolina beat Michigan for the national title in New Orleans. It was my first time on Bourbon Street. That memorable evening, my dad and I saw Chris Webber and a lot of beads.

1998: My grandfather died in February. Woody and Mick mentioned his passing on the air. I still have that cassette tape.

2016: Saw my son crying in the stands of NRG Stadium. Which made it even sweeter when we took a family photo in 2017 on the floor of University of Phoenix Stadium, and there is confetti in our hair.

And now there is 2021, the year everything was different. Right now, you might think you'll remember the basketball, the hailstorm of opposing three-pointers or Wisconsin's maddening defense. But what we're going to remember is how completely different this year will always be.

Assistant coach Hubert Davis keeps a running tally. As of Friday afternoon, he has been tested 113 times for COVID. Since November, the Tar Heels have been tested as a team 82 times.

That's 82 times with someone jabbing a cotton swab—they don't feel as soft as they sound—up your nose. Occasionally, the tests would make a player's nose bleed. That was just part of the experience.

Life as a Carolina basketball player has been pretty charmed since the mid-1950's. This year's team received almost exactly zero of those perks. No adoration on campus. No standing ovations in class. No late Saturdays on Franklin Street.

Instead, they took 82 COVID tests. They ate meals at eight-foot long tables, with two players per table. The practice gym was converted into a combination locker room and film room to create better spacing. Players filled out electronic symptom forms every single morning. Any slight cough or congestion was immediately cause to be held out of practice. The team couldn't have meals on the bus, which changed the way they travel after games. There was no snack bag on the socially distanced team plane, on which capacity was dramatically reduced.

I know, these are luxuries. And every single person has suffered in some way over these last 12 months. There are much, much bigger hardships, and perhaps you know someone or I know someone who wishes their biggest problem was not having a snack bag on the plane.

But think about your freshman year of college.

Caleb Love has been on campus since August and has never once sat on a stone wall in the Pit and watched the foot traffic during a class change. Kerwin Walton's parents made the 22-hour drive from Minnesota to watch him play in February for what was going to be the first time they'd ever seen him play in the Smith Center. A couple hours before tipoff, the game was canceled. RJ Davis has no idea what a typical summer day at the Smith Center is like, with a national champion over here and an All-American over there giving you pointers on creating space for a jumper and someone you watched on TV as a kid saying he's got next. A big part of what makes Carolina different, of what creates those bonds that makes those players come back in the summer, is the entire experience, not just the basketball. And this year the experience was different.

Garrison Brooks, Andrew Platek, K.J. Smith and Walker Miller had their senior day at the Smith Center against Duke, and their parents weren't able to stand with them at center court and soak in the roar of a capacity crowd in the moments before tipoff. They didn't get to see that look of pride in their parents' eyes. There is very little better on earth than someone praising your kids, and the parents of those seniors will never have that lifetime memory of hearing those cheers and knowing, "He doesn't always do his laundry or clean his room, but wow, my kid did this."

A lingering image from this season came a couple months ago in practice. Walker Kessler had some stuffiness. It was your typical North Carolina mid-winter sniffles. But he had to sit out of practice out of an abundance of caution. So he sat in the Smith Center stands, ten rows back from the court in a hoodie and a mask, while staff members tossed him bottles of water from afar.

The next day, he was fine. That was 2021 every bit as much as an Armando Bacot putback or a Kerwin Walton three-pointer.

"I'm so proud of them as young people," Roy Williams said after Friday's loss. "This was a hard year. A lot of stuff you remember from your freshman year of college, none of my freshmen have any memories like that. They went to class for six days and that's it. They haven't had the college experience of the pageantry of home football weekends and the experience of running out of that tunnel with 21,750 people…I'm so proud of our kids for going through this. It wasn't nearly as much fun as it was in the past."

They did all that so we could watch the Heels—so we could send our angry tweets and yell at the television and use all caps in the in-game group text ("WE HAVE TO GUARD THE THREE!!!"). The only thing worse than watching the Tar Heels go out this way is not getting to watch them play at all, and they made sure we got to do that.

No one is asking you to feel bad for the Tar Heels. They were thoroughly outplayed on the basketball court against Wisconsin. They didn't guard or shoot or execute very well. There are basketball issues to solve, and in the days and weeks and months to come, it will be the coaching staff's job to fix them.

But this will forever be remembered as the year Carolina won at Duke in what we consistently tell these college students is one of the most important games they will ever play in their lives…and the biggest story after the game was the horror of those same college students celebrating their victory.

In a normal year, it's a significant investment of time and a demanding physical task to be a Carolina basketball player. But it's a pretty fun gig.

This year had some moments, like chanting "Walk-er Kess-ler" during the win over Florida State and a home beatdown of Duke. But this year was different. This year was, on many occasions, a lot of work.

The feelings at the end of a season are familiar. There is sadness. There is frustration. There is, almost instantly, missing it.

Friday night there was something new. Friday night, for just a moment, you wondered if there might be just a little bit of relief. And in that way, there will never be another season like this one.

Scoreboard Slider

University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

Garrison Brooks

RJ Davis

Walker Kessler

Caleb Love

Walker Miller

Andrew Platek

K.J. Smith

Kerwin Walton

Related Videos