Lucas: All Of Us

By Adam Lucas

It takes all of us.

That could be true about Carolina's 90-68 win over Lehigh. The standouts were the usual suspects, Armando Bacot (22 points and 20 rebounds, a 20/20 performance for the third time in his career) and RJ Davis (22 points on 8-for-14 shooting).

But the Carolina win was also buoyed by players like Seth Trimble, who helped push the tempo and had a three assist, zero turnover performance. And Zayden High, who was third on the team in rebounding (five) while playing the eighth-most minutes. And Jae'Lyn Withers, whose aggressiveness continues to be an asset off the bench on both offense and defense.

That's how you win a game when you don't shoot particularly well—Carolina was just 5-for-17 from three-point range—but dominate in every other way.

So it was a win that required something from everyone, all 14 Tar Heels who saw action, including Rob Landry, who swished (uh, sort of) a three-pointer late in the game.

But that doesn't begin to tell the full story of everything that happened for Carolina basketball this weekend, and all the people who made it happen. You know the final score. What you might not know is that the Tar Heels had a special visitor this weekend. Jase Brooker is a 12-year-old from Dalton, Georgia.

He and his family, including dad Jason and mom Sharon, will readily admit that they are originally Tennessee fans. But Jase adopted the Tar Heels because Paige Buckner—the sister of Hubert Davis' wife, Leslie—teaches at his school.

In the spring of 2022, Jase happened to overhear a fellow student ribbing Paige about Carolina's loss after the 2022 championship game. He doesn't have a lot of patience for criticism, because he knows what it's like to be frustrated. At the age of 11, he was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, a rare genetic eye disease that causes the loss of central vision in both eyes. There is currently no treatment.

It's a frustrating condition, especially for a now 12-year-old. Jase made his middle school basketball team, but told the coach he knew he couldn't help the team. Imagine being a middle school boy who is a good enough athlete to play your sport, but can't see the game clearly enough to participate.

So Jase--who keeps a signed picture of Hubert Davis on his dresser--didn't want to hear any unfair criticism of the 2022 Tar Heels. "Games like that happen," he told the other kid while his teacher stood there, surprised. "And the floor wasn't put together correctly. If it had been, Armando Bacot wouldn't have sprained his ankle and UNC wins the game."

So he might have originally been Tennessee orange. But Jase clearly has some Tar Heel blood, which is why Leslie Davis made it a priority to get him to Chapel Hill this weekend. Jase and his family tailgated with the Tar Heel basketball team before yesterday's football game (there was a basket of goodies for each family member courtesy of the basketball office when they checked in at their Chapel Hill hotel), then took a pregame tour of the Smith Center on Sunday. He was in the locker room for Hubert Davis' pregame talk, sat at the scorer's table directly beside the bench during the win, and went back in the locker room after the game.

"It was Leslie's idea," Hubert Davis said. "And as soon as I heard about Jase, I said, 'Let's bring him here.' It was awesome to have the whole family here with us all weekend."

Meeting the players and coaches and everyone affiliated with Carolina basketball can be intimidating for a 12-year-old. But as they started the long drive home, the family wasn't impressed by Carolina's big win or their domination of the paint against the Mountain Hawks.

It was the people who had made the biggest impact.

Multiple players, coaches, and former coach Roy Williams met the family on Saturday and then called them by name as soon as they saw them on Sunday.

"The hospitality of everyone was incredible," Jason Brooker said. "You see all these athletes and coaches on TV. But this weekend they were no different than anyone else to us. They were great human beings. It was so nice to not have to worry about anything, and seeing the joy on Jase's face made it such a special weekend."

Although he might not know the full implications, Jase also understood what made the weekend so special.

"My favorite was RJ Davis," Jase said. Makes sense. After all, RJ had those 22 points, right? Knocking down those three three-pointers was pretty cool.

"Because he talked to me," Jase said. "He talked to me and made me feel good."

What Jase doesn't know yet but his parents definitely do is that one day RJ Davis might not have as sweet a three-point shooting stroke, but how he makes people feel can last much longer. Even, perhaps, until he's 95 years old.

That's the age of Hilliard Greene, who played basketball for the Tar Heels on the 1955 and 1956 teams. He was not a star, playing in 18 games over his two years and making a total of four field goals. But Carolina has been a part of his entire life, and it had been almost a decade since he'd last been to a game in person.

Greene spends most every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night greeting customers at the Angus Barn, the venerable Raleigh institution where you can often find him sitting by the front door, congenially welcoming hungry patrons. "As it gets toward Christmas," Greene says with a grin, "it becomes a cotton-picking madhouse over there!"

Through that job, Hubert Davis became aware that Greene wanted to see his Tar Heels again. "The connection we have at Carolina from year to year is awesome," Hubert Davis said. "The affiliation with this University lasts your entire life."

So the head coach extended a personal invitation to the Lehigh game, and Hilliard Greene was in the stands on Sunday (with his son, John, also a Carolina letterman). He is the type of man who describes himself as "too old for a cell phone," so he gives out his home number instead of a cell number. Sunday, there he was in the stands, sitting on the mezzanine level, cheering on his Tar Heels.

On the way home from the game, he looked over at John. What he said next perfectly captured the weekend. "There is just something about Chapel Hill," Hilliard Greene said, "that gets in your blood."

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

RJ Davis

Zayden High

Rob Landry

Seth Trimble

Jae'Lyn Withers

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