Jan. 24, 2008

By Adam Lucas

CORAL GABLES--This is not Tobacco Road.

The schedule claimed this to be an Atlantic Coast Conference basketball game. Carolina against Miami, two teams coming off difficult losses. As an ACC fan, you intuitively know what that means. It means students camping out and quirky arenas. Part of what makes the ACC the ACC is familiarity.

This, however, is not familiar. Prior to Wednesday night, Miami was 9-0 in the friendly confines of their BankUnited Center. Home court advantage means something different down here. Mostly, what it means is volume--the Hurricane public address system was cranked somewhere past front row at a Rolling Stones concert, closer to standing next to a 737 on takeoff. The stat sheet says there were 7,000 people in attendance; that means Miracle Ear can expect 14,000 new applications on Thursday morning.

At Miami, Sebastian the Ibis does his version of the Soulja Boy at midcourt and a DJ tries to fire up the crowd by saying things like, "Get up for your team, y'all!" Kearney Andrews, as far as anyone knows, has never requested that anyone, "Get up for your team, y'all!"

It's not better or worse than the environments we're used to on Tobacco Road. It's just different, more NBA-ish. Which probably explains why multiple members of the Miami Heat were sitting courtside, carrying on a running conversation with UM's Jack McClinton.

The chatter eventually drew to a close because, quite frankly, McClinton didn't have much to talk about. He was too busy trying to get away from a procession of Tar Heels led by Marcus Ginyard. The combination of Ginyard, Danny Green, and Ty Lawson held him to 4-of-12 from the field.

"We wanted to be there every time he caught it and not let him get into a rhythm," Ginyard said. "We had to try to make him do things he wasn't comfortable doing, because we knew he had the ability to be a spark for his team."

The spark for Carolina came on Monday, when the pre-practice film session stretched to 90 minutes. Play, stop, rewind, repeat. For an hour and a half.

The film revealed something that might sound familiar.

"It's just like Coach always says," Ginyard said. "The eye in the sky doesn't lie. We had to see a lot of things Coach was talking about, like the lack of effort defensively and the lack of movement on offense. When you see it and talk about it and draw it on the board, that's great. But when you see yourself not doing things you're supposed to do, that hammers it home. And to see it for so long and to have to sit there while he gets upset, that really reinforced it."

So the Tar Heels went out and played like, well, the Tar Heels. They had a point guard, Ty Lawson, who was running the offense crisply and varying between scoring on his own (23 points) and getting his teammates involved (10 assists). They had a post player, Tyler Hansbrough, who dominated the second half and finished with the second-best scoring output of his career (35 points) despite playing a fairly average first half.

"We needed this win," Roy Williams said. "We needed to play well on the road."

Isn't that something? There's no way that Everett Case or Frank McGuire or any of the forefathers of the ACC could have envisioned an important league game being contested here, far from its roots. But even hundreds of miles from home, the same principles still work.

"It's Miami Basketball!" the PA banshee screamed in pregame. "We play hard, play smart, and play together!"

And there you have it. Outside the lines, it was the complete opposite of a Carolina basketball game. Inside the lines, the goal even for the home team was to play the Carolina Way. No matter what smoke wafts through the arena in pregame introductions or bass thumps in the student section, it's still the same game, with the same rhythms and feel.

At the 5:25 timeout, Carolina held an 81-67 lead. Miami Heat point guard Jason Williams--the former Florida Gator, not the former Blue Devil--was seated across from the Carolina bench. Behind the UNC bench was Bob McAdoo, a one-year standout whose jersey hangs in the Smith Center rafters and who currently serves as an assistant coach for the Heat.

Williams began teasing McAdoo from afar, waving an orange pom-pom and pantomiming a comeback that he thought would soon begin. McAdoo just laughed, sat back in his seat, and pointed to the scoreboard.

It was a simple gesture, but effective. The type that's understood anywhere basketball is the common language, from South Beach to Tobacco Road.

Adam Lucas most recently collaborated on a behind-the-scenes look at Carolina Basketball with Wes Miller. The Road To Blue Heaven is available now. Lucas's other books on Carolina basketball include The Best Game Ever, which chronicles the 1957 national championship season, Going Home Again, which focuses on Roy Williams's return to Carolina, and Led By Their Dreams, a collaboration with Steve Kirschner and Matt Bowers on the 2005 championship team.