Nov. 25, 2008

By Adam Lucas

MAUI--Before Monday's tipoff against Chaminade, Tar Heel assistant coach Joe Holladay walked up to J.B. Tanner and said the words every walk-on hears in his dreams.

"You're good for five minutes tonight," Holladay told Tanner.

The senior from Hendersonville cocked an eyebrow at his coach. "Really?" he asked.

Holladay grinned back. "Easily," he said.

The patron saint of Carolina walk-ons, Dewey Burke, used to say that his favorite phrase to hear his coaches say was, "Dewey, we need you to imitate J.J. Redick today in practice." That meant Burke had an unlimited green light to shoot as much as his elbow would allow.

Coming in a close second to a Redick imitation would be being told, in the moments before a nationally televised game, that five minutes of playing time was in the very near future. Tanner played in 18 games last season and was on the floor for a grand total of 29 minutes.

"You can feel it getting closer as the game goes on," a smiling Tanner said while standing beside the Tar Heel team bus after the 115-70 victory. "We're always still kind of skeptical of when we would get in. But when Justin went in, we knew Coach Williams was making his way down the end of the bench. It's a good feeling.

It was fun to watch the offensive explosion from Danny Green, Ty Lawson, and the rest of the first-string Tar Heels. With 3:52 left in the first half, the Silverswords' Joel Smith celebrated a blocked shot a little too vigorously. At that moment, the Tar Heels led just 34-22.

Fourteen minutes of game action later, Green slammed through his third dunk of the half to give the Tar Heels an 83-39 advantage and cap a 49-17 run.

It was as thorough a dismantling as this year's team has performed on any opponent. But we're spoiled, and if five years of Roy Williams-coached basketball has taught us anything, it's that thorough dismantlings happen five or six times every year.

What doesn't happen five or six times every year is extensive playing time for those Tar Heels who reside on the end of the bench. They go to practice every day just like the starters, endless drills and running and weight-lifting. They put on their Jordan Brand warm-ups just like the starters. And then...they cease being a player and start being a fan.

It can be lonely down there on the end of the bench. All of Carolina's walk-ons were good enough to be stars in high school. Tanner, Jack Wooten and Patrick Moody worked their way onto the varsity through the JV squad, playing in front of tiny crowds in the expansive Smith Center.

All for just one night like tonight. Between them, the three walk-ons played 16 minutes. Add in freshman Justin Watts, who also earned some first-half minutes, and the late-game quartet played 27 minutes. Watts seemed to believe he was open for the vast majority of that time, and managed to launch nine shots--one of them a pretty drive-and-dunk--in just 11 minutes.

"When we get back to the hotel, I'm going to see if I can find an ice machine on the sixth floor for Justin," said Tanner. "He might need some ice for his elbow. But he was trying to dunk on some people, so that was fun."

What's also fun is watching Tanner shoot. In pregame warmups he made 19 straight three-pointers (his record is 36 consecutive three-pointers), and then made two trifectas during game action.

Hold on, don't move on to the next paragraph just yet. That's 19 consecutive three-pointers. Most mortals think they're in the zone when they make three or four in a row. Tanner isn't even on a good streak until he gets close to 20. Monday's exploits left him with nine points, triple his previous career high of three points.

His shot is the most automatic on the roster and a tribute to the science of shooting. Tanner's dad, J. Tanner, taught him the basics. Get a good base. Use your legs. Keep your elbow pointed at the basket. Hold the ball like a waiter's tray. Follow through. Flick your wrist.

Eventually, through thousands of repetitions, those instructions became muscle memory. Which leads to nights like Monday, when the moment the ball leaves Tanner's hand you can tell it's going straight through the net.

You might not be tall. You might not be fast. But there will always--always--be a place in the game of basketball for a shooter.

"God gives some people a gift for jumping or dunking on people," Tanner said. "He gave me a gift for shooting. Put that with a lot of hard work and the results will come."

Even if they come just five minutes--or less--at a time.

Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.