By Frank Heath
Sports Columnist
Bravo, Heels!
Following Tywon Lawson’s severe ankle injury early in February, there were a lot more questions about this UNC basketball team than answers. Sure, the Tar Heels still possessed the talent — as they very often do — to compete against top opposition on any given night.
But when North Carolina looked in the mirror after losing to Duke in Chapel Hill on Feb. 6, all the Tar Heels could say to themselves was, “We gotta do better than this.†If what Carolina sought from that moment was the best opportunity to attain our goals, to meet its expectations and to fulfill its – and our — hopes, the Tar Heels would need to figure out ways to improve their defense, sharpen their half-court offense and solidify their overall focus.
ACC and NCAA championships, just like victories at Cameron and substantial league winning streaks, don’t just arrive because a team “deserves†them. In the end, these things must be worked toward, competed for and earned.
During its final eight regular-season games, as Carolina traversed the second half of the treacherous ACC schedule, the Tar Heels passed through something of a metamorphosis. At one point a team that seemed unsure of its identity or even of its legitimacy within the college basketball landscape, the Carolina Tar Heels gradually became a group that could say to itself, “We believe we can do this.†Then, finally — by the time of their season-finale victory at Duke last weekend — they completed a transition to what looks like a confident, mature and potentially overpowering force.
And how did this happen? Carolina identified what it needed to do in order to get back into the mix for the ACC regular-season title, and ultimately the 2008 National Championship, and then it set about to do just that.
Since Carolina began its current eight-game win streak, there have been numerous bumps — even some craters — in the road. What is impressive about these Heels — more so even than their natural basketball abilities, which are significant — is the level of character the players and coaches have shown — and in some cases, actually developed — in confronting and overcoming those obstacles as they presented themselves.
While Tyler Hansbrough has been an amazingly steady and improving force throughout the season for UNC, guys like Danny Green, Quentin Thomas, Marcus Ginyard and Deon Thompson also have taken it upon themselves to increase their contributions and help fill key roles. This became more critical mid-season when Carolina’s other key offensive players — Lawson and Wayne Ellington — either were missing from the court or were not able to produce each night at their accustomed all-star levels. The Tar Heels’ transition has been an impressive example of a group of individuals ultimately bonding as a team.
This is not to predict that UNC no longer possesses the potential to fall on its face, or that this very thing may not happen even as early as this Friday during the ACC Tournament. No one has a crystal ball, and just because something has worked before does not mean it should be relied upon as the answer for tomorrow or the future.
But with their play during the past month, this UNC basketball team has already succeeded in at least one very impressive accomplishment: The Tar Heels have demonstrated among themselves and to the larger world that watches that they are indeed capable of the type of play and determination that we all hoped for and (maybe unfairly) even expected from them entering this season.
The pressure placed on people in the public eye can make it extraordinarily difficult to live up to the legacies and shoulder the high expectations, the hopes and the dreams of the multitudes. Each flaw or mistake in these arenas is magnified, while proper channeling of talents and maintaining a 20/20 perspective, and sometimes even perfection itself, can suddenly transform into baseline “givens.†For every member of a team to be able to react positively under this sort of pressure and expectation is, in itself, a high achievement.
One hopes that the players and coaches who make up this team — which has worked so hard to climb back up from being a perceived also-ran a month ago to a team that many now see as having the best chance to win this year’s national championship — will use that recognition of their accomplishments as a launch pad.
Recent events have imparted a sobering backdrop and sense of perspective for college athletics. The horrible death near campus of Student Body President Eve Carson, along with subsequent investigations, have touched multitudes and given all of us —not least, those directly involved with UNC basketball — reason to pause and recall that basketball is just a game.
But by the same token, the shining example that Ms. Carson set during her life — through her perseverance, achievement and pursuit of understanding and betterment for everyone and everything around her — is not one that can be ignored by anyone in any endeavor. And there’s little doubt that her memory is a lamp that every member of this Tar Heel team will carry close for a long time to come. So, in the same spirit I imagine Eve Carson would have said it had she still been here to cheer, Go Heels!!