Jan. 17, 2004

By Adam Lucas

We'll get to what Rashad McCants did in the last four minutes of Saturday's 86-83 upset over Connecticut in just a second. But right now, let's talk about what he didn't do.

He didn't relax on defense. With Carolina holding a one-point lead and the Huskies preparing to throw the ball inside to Emeka Okafor for a sure two points, McCants didn't lose track of the talented center. David Noel was fronting Okafor, and the sophomore's leaping ability forced the entry pass to be made just an inch or two higher than Jim Calhoun might have liked. That allowed McCants to swoop around from the back and swipe the ball away, igniting a Tar Heel possession that ended--as if you had to ask--in a McCants dunk.

"That's defensive fundamentals," McCants said. "Help side, help the helper. They threw the lob pass, and that's a play you have to get. If you don't get it you deserve to come out of the game."

Connecticut, as good a team as Carolina will play this year, answered with six straight points. And then McCants didn't do something else that was crucial: he didn't think.

There have been times this year, even early in the game on Saturday, when the talented sophomore has appeared to be thinking through his next move while he's holding the basketball. Carolina can whip the ball around the perimeter, and when it lands in McCants's hands, suddenly things slow down as he takes a couple of deliberate dribbles or waits for something to develop.

That didn't happen in the game's closing minutes. Down three, less than 90 seconds to play, he caught a pass in front of the Tar Heel bench. Almost before the ball was settled in his hands he was into his shooting motion.

Catch. Shoot. Swish.

Tie game.

One minute later, after Jawad Williams--who said after the game that his nose remains painful, a situation complicated by the fact that he is recovering from a cold--ripped down a rebound and held off Okafor. That set up Carolina's final possession, one that allowed a tiny window into the Roy Williams philosophy of basketball, one that won a lot of games in Lawrence and one that, as his players are beginning to realize, is going to win a lot of games in Chapel Hill.

Since he arrived on campus in a car driven by Dean Smith on the night of April 14, Williams has been preaching to his team to get good shots. That's been occasionally misunderstood by fans and media, who assume good shots can only come in close proximity to the basket. What he has told his team, however, is that a good shot isn't the same for everyone. What's a good shot for Raymond Felton isn't the same for Jackie Manuel.

So it's not a total shock that Mr. High Percentage Coach drew up a last-second play not for the Heels to bang it inside, but for a three-pointer. Even one of the options that wasn't used off the play was for a three-pointer by Melvin Scott.

It was the first time all evening that Carolina had run the play, and when the ball came to McCants, it was obvious as soon as he squared up that the ball was headed for the twine. This, Carolina fans, was a good shot. This McCants three-pointer was as certain as a David Noel dunk.

No thinking. Catch. Shoot. Swish. Cue the floor-storming students.

"I think the big adjustment for me was just to play," McCants said. "Just get out there and have fun and enjoy myself. I've been thinking too much. When I think a lot, it hurts my game."

When he doesn't play well, McCants usually dominates the spotlight. It's the same when he excels. For that reason, you won't read much tomorrow about David Noel's solid--or as solid as is possible--post defense against Okafor, or Melvin Scott's 6-of-6 free throw shooting exhibition in the first half that allowed Carolina to stretch their lead, or Williams playing with a broken nose (if you think it's easy ask Ben Gordon, who shot 3-of-14 with the same injury, about it) and draining two crucial second half three-pointers, or Raymond Felton playing one of his best floor games of the year and finishing with seven assists and just one turnover.

The glare on McCants shines so brightly that he might even eclipse a certain twang-talking head coach from Asheville. But when they think about this game later, after the parties have died down and the SportsCenter highlights have gone off, the Carolina players are going to realize that their coach gave them the opportunity to win this game. He got frustrated with them, chucked his suit jacket halfway down the bench when the Heels were playing defense with their hands instead of their feet in the second half, but he also gave them exactly what they needed to win.

It's pretty simple: what Roy Williams says, what he believes, what he teaches about college basketball works.

"I don't believe in that stuff about go-to guys," Williams said. "Just do what I tell you to do and it will work."

It will work. Williams believes it. And as his team ran off the floor, celebrating with their fellow students and jumping to deliver high-fives, you got the feeling that they're starting to believe it.

Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.