Lucas: UNC Basketball Mailbag January 11
Jan. 11, 2005 By Adam Lucas If you had the feeling this might be a historic week, you were right. Check out the Tuesday Talking Points for more information. Don't forget that today at 12 Jones Angell and Adam Lucas will be back at Champps Restaurant at Southpoint for the latest edition of "Tar Heel Talk," an hour of the most informative Carolina discussion you can find anywhere. You can listen live on the internet by clicking here. If you've got a question or comment you'd like us to address on the show, drop us an email and make sure to clearly note your question is for the show. Why were the following changes initiated at the Smith Center? 1) Woody and Mick moved courtside All those changes are related, although the order in which they happened is debatable. Carolina had been experiencing a home court "disadvantage" for many years because of the location of the band. At every other ACC arena, the band is next to the visiting bench, which can create some noisy timeouts from the visitors. It's not illegal, it's just a benefit of playing at home. But in the Smith Center, Roy Williams had to shout over the band. So after last year, they were relocated closer to the visitors. That freed some space where they used to sit, and press seating was constructed there. With the writing press moved from their courtside location, it created space for the new courtside seats, which have contained a virtual Who's Who of Tar Heels lately, including B.J. Surhoff and Dale Jarrett against Maryland. But the Smith Center honchos still needed to find a place to reseat the patrons who used to sit in the location where the band was moved. So most of the boxes around the top of the lower level were eliminated, creating new seats to relocate the displaced fans. But the loss of the box meant the loss of the broadcast location for Woody Durham and Mick Mixon, so they moved courtside. Some of the media have quietly grumbled about losing floor-level seating, less because their view is worse than the fact it is a growing trend across the nation to move the media away from the floor. However, one prominent columnist who has covered the Tar Heels for more than 30 years told Carolina officials he prefers his new seat in section 116, which is just 10 rows up from floor level. I have two separate questions.... I have noticed that not only does Quentin Thomas not score much, but he barely every even attempts a shot. Does he have a red light from Roy or is he not confident with himself or has it just been coincidence that other people are more open? I understand that he is a point guard and should look for the pass first, but it seems like he will not be a complete player if he doesn't start shooting some. What is happening with Phil Ford right now? I know he is with the Pistons, but what are his duties? I've also heard rumors that Larry Brown wants out, and if that happened, would Phil Ford be out too? Roy Williams doesn't technically use the "red light/green light" system occasionally employed by Dean Smith. But Thomas is well aware that as a freshman on a team loaded with juniors and seniors, his role when he enters the game is to move the basketball and find good shots for his teammates. At the present time, he's a point guard much more in the role of Derrick Phelps or Jimmy Black--players who were content to set up their teammates--than Kenny Smith, Jeff McInnis, or even Felton. You might have noticed that Thomas has looked significantly more confident in recent games than he did earlier in the year. Before the Christmas break, he had 18 assists against 19 turnovers. In the four games since then, he's notched 13 assists and just eight turnovers. "Over the break I sat down and thought to myself, `I know I can play a lot better,'" Thomas said. "I'm not saying I was playing bad, but I knew I could play better. My teammates and coaching staff really supported me and kept telling me they knew I would get it." The coaching staff has taken note of his heady play, as he won the "Good Plays" award handed out by the coaching staff after reviewing film of the UNC-Wilmington game. Ford is indeed with the Pistons, where he says he's enjoying his return to the NBA. When we talked with him this weekend, he was fresh off a plane from Boston, having just touched down in Detroit long enough to get ready for another charter flight to New Jersey this morning. That change in travel arrangements is one of the biggest changes he's noticed. As for his future, he says he does have head coaching aspirations. Larry Brown isn't going to coach forever, but Ford is so highly thought of in the basketball world that we wouldn't expect him to have a major problem finding employment. How would you compare this current UNC team with the 1997-98 team that sported Vince, Jamison, Cota, Shammond Williams, Okulaja and Makhtar Ndiaye (with Haywood coming off the bench as a freshman)? I'd say this team is definitely deeper. And between Jamison and McCants -- I don't know who the more potent scorer is. McCants is probably more versatile, but Jamison's release was lightning fast. What other comparisons would you make? I am amazed at the amount of depth that this year's squad has. I was curious if the crack research staff could enlighten us readers as to how this year's team compares to teams of years past(especially the 1992-93
team) in terms of minutes played per game. As the winning streak builds, it's become extremely fashionable to try and compare this Carolina team to some of the best teams in school history. Don't get us wrong, because everyone here at the Mailbag home office was downright giddy watching the Heels steamroll Maryland on Saturday. This team has already given us some of the most efficient offensive displays ever seen in Chapel Hill. But they don't hang banners for that. At this point last year, Georgia Tech had lost two in a row, and they went on to lose three out of four games on two separate occasions over the next month. It's doubtful they'd trade a better January record for their Final Four appearance. Maryland finished their ACC season 7-9 last season and promptly won the ACC Tournament championship. Sure, you might say, but those teams aren't Carolina. That forces us to bring up the two biggest cautionary tales in Tar Heel history: the 1984 team that started 21-0 but lost in the ACC Tournament semifinals and NCAA Tournament regional semifinals and the 2001 team that won 18 games in a row, ascended to number one in the country, and then lost to Penn State in the NCAA second round. This team does have some characteristics of Carolina's best teams: sticky defense and multiple scoring threats. They're deeper than the 1982 championship squad--in five NCAA Tournament games, only once did a non-starter play double digit minutes for that team (Jimmy Braddock against James Madison in the opener). They're deeper than the 1995 (Pearce Landry and Serge Zwikker were the main reserves), 1997 (Ed Cota was the only reserve who saw major minutes), 1998 (the year of the "six starters" plus Brendan Haywood), and 2000 (it took discovering Julius Peppers to find a reliable reserve) teams. The best comparison, depth-wise, is probably Jeremy's mention of the 1993 team. That squad was a legitimate eight deep, with Kevin Salvadori, Pat Sullivan, and Henrik Rodl all notching double-digit minutes in both Final Four games. The depth didn't start there--don't forget that Scott Cherry memorably saw some crucial second-half minutes against Michigan in the national final, prompting CBS analyst Billy Packer to criticize Dean Smith for playing his bench, only to watch the fresh Tar Heel starters come back and lead Carolina to the title. Check back for the April installment of the mailbag and we'll compare this team to anything you can imagine. Until then, it's probably best to sit back and enjoy the ride. Given the way the NBA continues to reach its tentacles into college and high school basketball, in the years to come we're likely to look back on the 04-05 season as an almost singular collection of talent. The catch, however, is that the most talented teams don't always win the title. We won't know if this team has that same "it" the '93 squad possessed until early April. My father and I were talking the other day, and during our conversation the topic of "Rameses," the Tar Heel mascot came up. Because he graduated from UNC, class of 79', I asked my dad why UNC had a ram as the mascot. He was able to tell me the full history of the Tar Heel, but not the ram. I was wondering if you could enlighten both of us on this subject. Watson, come here, I need you (Don't say there's no educational value in the Mailbag, and if you're staring blankly at your screen, do a Google search on Alexander Graham Bell). Need you to give us the opportunity to answer two very popular questions, that is. Rameses has been Carolina's mascot since 1922--well, not the same ram, but you get the idea. That year, UNC's best football player was Jack Merritt, who was known as "The Battering Ram." Vic Huggins, the head cheerleader, had come up with the idea. It's just a good thing ol' Vic wasn't cheering for the Heels when Billy Cunningham was around or there might be a kangaroo prowling the Smith Center sidelines. We also get a lot of questions about the origin of the "Tar Heel" nickname. The university's official explanation is as follows: "One version of the nickname's origin has the name first being applied to North Carolinians during the Civil War. One record talks of a battle in Virginia, where their supporting column retreated, but North Carolina troops fought alone. The victorious troops were asked in a condescending tone by some Virginians, who had retreated, "Any more tar down in the Old North State, boys?" The response came quickly: "No, not a bit; old Jeff's bought it all up." The Virginians asked: "Is that so? What is he going to do with it?" The reply: "He is going to put it on you'ns heels to make you stick better in the next fight." And Watson, you've given us the opportunity to be crusty old curmudgeons (some might say we don't need the opportunity). Please, in the name of Dean Smith, Lennie Rosenbluth, and Michael Jordan, never write "Tar Heel" as one word. You don't write "Bluedevil" or "Demondeacon," do you? When referring to anything related to UNC, it's Tar Heel, two words. We will now dismount our soapbox. My Heels this year are leading the nation in ppg as a unit. I also noticed that not one of them is on the individual list of the top 25 scorers in the nation. (Espn.go.com's stats.) Is this not an important fact? I haven't heard it yet mentioned, but I've been bragging to my friends about this feat none stop. Am I out of line in doing so? I realize that a lot of this might have to do with the Heels blowing teams out of the water and sending in the 2nd team. Anyway, my real question is, was there another team to accomplish this feat? And if so, where did they finish the season? It is indeed an important fact. Remember, last year Carolina had the leading scorer in the ACC (Rashad McCants), the leading rebounder in the ACC (Sean May), and the leading assist man in the ACC (Raymond Felton). What did all those honors mean at the end of the season? Absolutely nothing. Roy Williams makes it an annual habit to ask his team at the beginning of each season who led the nation in scoring the previous year. Almost invariably, no one knows--even hoops junkies like May (for the record, last year it was Keydren Clark, a 5-8 guard from St. Peter's). Carolina's best teams are almost always carried by balanced scoring rather than one hot-shooting player. Of UNC's 19 highest per-game scoring averages since 1960, only four of them came in Final Four seasons, and only one of those four (Antawn Jamison's 22.2 points per game in the 1997-98 season) happened since in the past 35 years. It's a trend that holds true nationally. Last year's national champion, Connecticut, saw their leading scorer--Ben Gordon--rank 50th in the country with 18.5 points per game. Adam Lucas will answer your questions about the Carolina men's basketball program this season in an exclusive column published each Tuesday on TarHeelBlue.com. Lucas, editor of Tar Heel Monthly and author of the new book on Roy Williams and the Tar Heels Going Home Again, will answer your questions on personnel, strategy, opponents and anything on your mind about the Tar Heels other than recruiting specifics. Please don't forget the ground rules: personal responses can't be guaranteed, no recruiting questions, and please check previous Mailbags to see if your question has already been asked. You can email your questions to Adam--please make sure to include your first and last names and hometown.
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