University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: ANTHONY SORBELLINI
Lucas: The Games
November 5, 2024 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Monday night's opener was a reminder about the best part of college basketball.
By Adam Lucas
College basketball is kind of a mess.
Conferences are too big and the transfer portal is confusing and all the old rules about what's legal and illegal are null and void. Too many people want to tinker with the one perfect thing in sports, the NCAA Tournament. Rosters are in a constant state of turnover, there is no one person in charge of the game, and the NCAA mostly just seems overwhelmed.
And about the time Elliot Cadeau confidently stepped into his first three-point shot of the season and swished it, 16 seconds into Monday night's win over Elon, not one single bit of that mattered.
It's finally time for the fun part.
When Cadeau hit that three-pointer, all 17,242 people in attendance cheered like they'd been waiting for exactly that shot ever since the Tar Heels struggled to an 89-87 loss to Alabama on March 28. That's over seven months of waiting.
Now, finally, it's time for the games.
It's actually not college basketball that's a mess. It's the college basketball offseason.
The season itself is very fun. Players are staying in school longer. Which is beneficial when you trail plucky Elon by two points with seven minutes left, because then you just hand the ball to fifth-year senior RJ Davis and watch him operate.
Davis' stats in the first 33 minutes of the game: 3-for-13 from the field, 1-for-7 on three-pointers, 7-for-7 from the line, five rebounds and five assists for 14 points.
So he wasn't bad. But it wasn't a vintage Davis performance.
Until the final seven minutes, when he did this: 4-for-6 from the field, 2-for-4 on three-pointers, two rebounds, two assists and 10 points.
That's what makes the games so fun. From November to April, we get to watch guys like RJ Davis, and we don't have to worry about the portal or roster management or theoretical salary caps. We just get to watch Davis, the reigning ACC Player of the Year, who got into the lane into the first half, could have forced it up through the defense because he is The RJ Davis, but instead fired it to a freshman, Ian Jackson, who swished a three-pointer.
Davis scored 24 points and grumbled as he looked at the stat sheet, "I was terrible."
So what did he do when he felt like he was terrible? "I wanted to continue to be aggressive," he said. "My shots weren't falling but one way to get out of a shooting slump is to keep shooting. I was able to get into my floater and find my rhythm that way. I was able to penetrate and get into the defense and either score or kick it to someone."
That's a veteran knowledge of how to play—the shot isn't falling, so how else can I get my offense going?—that makes the games fun.
College basketball is in trouble? Maybe from April to October. But not this time of year, not as long as we have Jalen Washington exulting after a dunk and the Tar Heels sprinting down the court to get a slam eight seconds--eight seconds!--after a made Elon three-pointer and a raucous student section.
And there is so much more. There is the energy of Hubert Davis on the sideline. Frustrated with his team's first half lack of intensity, he repeatedly barked, "Get up!" to the five players on the court, urging them to tighten their man-to-man defensive pressure. He wanted no space at all, no comfort whatsoever for the ballhandler.
And what do you know? It worked.
Elon turned it over, and Drake Powell converted a layup.
Elon turned it over, and Seth Trimble scored in the paint.
Elon turned it over, and Powell fed Trimble for a lob dunk and a Phoenix timeout.
The defense wasn't always that good—"We talk about holding them to 40 percent or lower, and Elon shot 42 percent," Hubert Davis said. "That's not going to get it done."—but it was that good when it had to be. That also includes a key stretch in the second half, as Carolina forced four turnovers in the final five minutes of the game.
The most impressive play of that stretch came with 3:30 remaining, as both Elliot Cadeau and Jalen Washington threw themselves on the floor to secure a loose ball that eventually ended up as a held ball and a Carolina possession. "We had to be tough enough to get loose balls," the head coach said.
The crowd responded to that effort. This was a bad start time on a bad weekday night against an unfamiliar opponent. So what happened? 17,242 people came to the Smith Center despite it being easily available on TV. They came ready to see the 94-foot putt and the chicken toss and Show Us Your J's but more than anything, to see Carolina Basketball, because for these six months every year, when there are finally games, basketball is different in Chapel Hill than anywhere else in the country. This time of year, we get to see lob dunks and thanking the passer and defensive stops (and if Monday was any indication, there will be plenty of all of the above).
It is not a perfect team, and they were far from perfect against the Phoenix. Hubert Davis will get them back into practice on Tuesday afternoon and he will relentlessly try to get them to improve—because that's what time of year it is. In around 80 hours, they get to play a game that every player in college basketball dreams about playing. No portal, no agents, no noise. These next three days are the good stuff—they are purely about getting better as a basketball team so that you can go play a game on the biggest possible stage.
RJ Davis has seen enough of these day-after practices to know what's coming after the head coach stalked around the outside of the final timeout huddle and was very brief with his team in the postgame locker room.
"There's going to be a lot of film," he said. "And it's going to be embarrassing. But it's coming from a place of love. It's coming from a place that will make us improve both individually and collectively as a group."
It won't be easy, but it's still worth doing. Because these next five months, no matter what happens, no matter how many missed shots or turnovers go on the stat sheet, even if a loss happens to…well, I can't actually say it…it's still the games. And that, by far, is the best part of the year.
College basketball is kind of a mess.
Conferences are too big and the transfer portal is confusing and all the old rules about what's legal and illegal are null and void. Too many people want to tinker with the one perfect thing in sports, the NCAA Tournament. Rosters are in a constant state of turnover, there is no one person in charge of the game, and the NCAA mostly just seems overwhelmed.
And about the time Elliot Cadeau confidently stepped into his first three-point shot of the season and swished it, 16 seconds into Monday night's win over Elon, not one single bit of that mattered.
It's finally time for the fun part.
When Cadeau hit that three-pointer, all 17,242 people in attendance cheered like they'd been waiting for exactly that shot ever since the Tar Heels struggled to an 89-87 loss to Alabama on March 28. That's over seven months of waiting.
Now, finally, it's time for the games.
It's actually not college basketball that's a mess. It's the college basketball offseason.
The season itself is very fun. Players are staying in school longer. Which is beneficial when you trail plucky Elon by two points with seven minutes left, because then you just hand the ball to fifth-year senior RJ Davis and watch him operate.
Davis' stats in the first 33 minutes of the game: 3-for-13 from the field, 1-for-7 on three-pointers, 7-for-7 from the line, five rebounds and five assists for 14 points.
So he wasn't bad. But it wasn't a vintage Davis performance.
Until the final seven minutes, when he did this: 4-for-6 from the field, 2-for-4 on three-pointers, two rebounds, two assists and 10 points.
That's what makes the games so fun. From November to April, we get to watch guys like RJ Davis, and we don't have to worry about the portal or roster management or theoretical salary caps. We just get to watch Davis, the reigning ACC Player of the Year, who got into the lane into the first half, could have forced it up through the defense because he is The RJ Davis, but instead fired it to a freshman, Ian Jackson, who swished a three-pointer.
Davis scored 24 points and grumbled as he looked at the stat sheet, "I was terrible."
So what did he do when he felt like he was terrible? "I wanted to continue to be aggressive," he said. "My shots weren't falling but one way to get out of a shooting slump is to keep shooting. I was able to get into my floater and find my rhythm that way. I was able to penetrate and get into the defense and either score or kick it to someone."
That's a veteran knowledge of how to play—the shot isn't falling, so how else can I get my offense going?—that makes the games fun.
College basketball is in trouble? Maybe from April to October. But not this time of year, not as long as we have Jalen Washington exulting after a dunk and the Tar Heels sprinting down the court to get a slam eight seconds--eight seconds!--after a made Elon three-pointer and a raucous student section.
And there is so much more. There is the energy of Hubert Davis on the sideline. Frustrated with his team's first half lack of intensity, he repeatedly barked, "Get up!" to the five players on the court, urging them to tighten their man-to-man defensive pressure. He wanted no space at all, no comfort whatsoever for the ballhandler.
And what do you know? It worked.
Elon turned it over, and Drake Powell converted a layup.
Elon turned it over, and Seth Trimble scored in the paint.
Elon turned it over, and Powell fed Trimble for a lob dunk and a Phoenix timeout.
The defense wasn't always that good—"We talk about holding them to 40 percent or lower, and Elon shot 42 percent," Hubert Davis said. "That's not going to get it done."—but it was that good when it had to be. That also includes a key stretch in the second half, as Carolina forced four turnovers in the final five minutes of the game.
The most impressive play of that stretch came with 3:30 remaining, as both Elliot Cadeau and Jalen Washington threw themselves on the floor to secure a loose ball that eventually ended up as a held ball and a Carolina possession. "We had to be tough enough to get loose balls," the head coach said.
The crowd responded to that effort. This was a bad start time on a bad weekday night against an unfamiliar opponent. So what happened? 17,242 people came to the Smith Center despite it being easily available on TV. They came ready to see the 94-foot putt and the chicken toss and Show Us Your J's but more than anything, to see Carolina Basketball, because for these six months every year, when there are finally games, basketball is different in Chapel Hill than anywhere else in the country. This time of year, we get to see lob dunks and thanking the passer and defensive stops (and if Monday was any indication, there will be plenty of all of the above).
It is not a perfect team, and they were far from perfect against the Phoenix. Hubert Davis will get them back into practice on Tuesday afternoon and he will relentlessly try to get them to improve—because that's what time of year it is. In around 80 hours, they get to play a game that every player in college basketball dreams about playing. No portal, no agents, no noise. These next three days are the good stuff—they are purely about getting better as a basketball team so that you can go play a game on the biggest possible stage.
RJ Davis has seen enough of these day-after practices to know what's coming after the head coach stalked around the outside of the final timeout huddle and was very brief with his team in the postgame locker room.
"There's going to be a lot of film," he said. "And it's going to be embarrassing. But it's coming from a place of love. It's coming from a place that will make us improve both individually and collectively as a group."
It won't be easy, but it's still worth doing. Because these next five months, no matter what happens, no matter how many missed shots or turnovers go on the stat sheet, even if a loss happens to…well, I can't actually say it…it's still the games. And that, by far, is the best part of the year.
Players Mentioned
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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