Dec. 20, 2008

By Adam Lucas

You want to get Capone? He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way.--Sean Connery in The Untouchables

CHICAGO--It was five days before Christmas, and Bob Frasor, Sr., walked through the United Center aisles an hour before Saturday's game time looking very much like a wannabe Santa Claus. The father of Carolina's senior guard was carrying two large plastic bags, both of them stuffed to capacity with Carolina blue number-four t-shirts.

Exactly how many of the t-shirts did he have for friends and family who had come to watch his son play his "home" game in Chicago?

"Well, we know we had 300 tickets," he said with a smile.

By tip time, much of the stands behind Carolina's bench were populated with Frasor fans. Depending on traffic, Blue Island is approximately a 30-minute drive from the city, which meant the younger Frasor saw plenty of familiar faces when he glanced into the stands.

"One thing's for sure," Frasor said. "It was a lot different than Chapel Hill. I don't see that many Frasor jerseys at the Smith Center."

Maybe he should.

Frasor is perhaps most famous in Chapel Hill for being Tyler Hansbrough's sidekick. In fact, in the Tar Heel locker room after Saturday's game, the very first question Frasor was asked by the media--after his own home game!--was about Hansbrough. By now, the responses have become routine.

Hansbrough will eventually outscore Frasor by about 2,000 career points, which explains all the attention. But don't forget that when the rest of the world had bailed off the UNC bandwagon before the 2005-06 season, it was Frasor who piloted that team to a 23-8 record.

Since then, he's ceded the starting point guard job to the speedier Ty Lawson. But he's never complained and never whined about some unfortunate injury problems. When his shot hasn't fallen--as it hasn't for part of this season--he's simply found other ways to contribute, like making the extra pass or improving as a defender. In six of Carolina's first nine games, Frasor won the coaches' defensive award.

"It's easier to play defense when you don't let your man catch the ball," Frasor says. "So if I deny hard, that gets a `good play' from the coaches. If you play the right position and the right help you're doing what the coaches ask you to do and you have a chance to win those kinds of awards."

He has a chance to win another one after picking up a steal and playing solid off-the-ball defense against the Crusaders. Even more rewardingly, he swished his first two three-pointers, gaining so much confidence that he hunted his shot for the first time in months and nearly drained a third trifecta. His eight points set a season high and he nearly broke into double figures for the first time since the Gonzaga game during his sophomore season.

"Seeing that first one go in is always nice," Frasor said. "Every shot I had felt like it was going in."

About the only bad thing that happened all weekend was when the rest of the Tar Heels failed to heed his restaurant advice on Friday night. With a Chicago native in tow, Frasor expected the Tar Heels might dine at Gibson's or Rosebud, two of his local favorites. Instead, they went to Dave & Buster's, where his teammates busied themselves trying to amass the 17,000 tickets needed to buy a guitar for the locker room copy of Guitar Hero (they succeeded).

Still, his eight points and an 85-63 Tar Heel victory salvaged the weekend. As he tied his tie to head to his cousin's wedding, Frasor said, "This is one of the nicest things Coach Williams does. Not many of my friends and family have been able to see me play in person in college."

What they saw should have looked very familiar. As he handed out those shirts before the game, the elder Frasor defined a quintessential Chicago player as someone with solid fundamentals, toughness, and a high basketball IQ. Other cities pride themselves on flashiness. Chicago, one of the world's very best sports cities, tends to place its values elsewhere.

"Chicago people take pride in toughness," the younger Frasor says. "They've got that work ethic, and they like the blue-collar guys."

Late in Saturday's first half, Frasor--who still sports a visible scar down his left knee--was standing along the lane watching Erik Buggs attempt a free throw. At that moment, with Larry Drew II in the game, Frasor wasn't in the point guard slot. But he was still thinking like a point guard, and he wanted to make sure everyone was running the same set after the free throw. He looked over at the bench. "Hey, Coach," he yelled. "What call do you want?"

Toughness, street smarts, and not a little bit of savvy. It might not be quite as gritty as Sean Connery's description. But in basketball, that's the Chicago way.

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