LUCAS: EXHAUSTED...
FORT WORTH—History tells us that we will still be talking about this game in 20 and 30 years, because this is University of North Carolina basketball and they make a habit of beating top-seeded teams on a fairly regular NCAA Tournament basis.
So when we are talking about Carolina's 93-86 overtime win over the defending national champion Baylor in 20 or 30 years, please make sure you remember RJ Davis' 30 points and Brady Manek's 26 points and Armando Bacot's 15 points and 16 rebounds and the absolutely incomprehensible events of the final ten minutes of regulation and Dontrez Styles with one of the all-time, "Why are you taking that shot…GOOD SHOT DONTREZ I ALWAYS BELIEVED IN YOU!" three-pointers in Tar Heel history in the opening minute of overtime.
So please make sure you remember all of that. But I also want you to remember this feeling: after a game that started at 11 a.m. local time, how absolutely, completely, totally exhausted we felt when it was all over.
Sure, RJ Davis is probably a little weary also. He played every second of the 45 minutes in one of Carolina's all-time NCAA Tournament performances. And Armando Bacot and his 40 minutes and Hubert Davis over there coaching the bejeebies out of the building and Leaky Black doing all his Leaky Black things.
But us. I have never been so spent after a Carolina basketball game. That is partially because the second half had so many whistles that it unofficially lasted as long as a Mike Krzyzewski postgame ceremony. I have a friend who is a Special Forces Green Beret and has spent most of his working life, as he puts it, "Going where the bad guys are." This means he goes to all the places you and I aren't brave enough to go so that we can do things like obsess over college basketball.
He also happens to be a fanatical Tar Heel fan. This was his text after the game: "It is confirmed that I am cooler under direct fire than during overtime in March Madness."
I have never taken enemy fire, and if things go well and I stay out of Durham, I expect that trend to continue. But I imagine that is exactly right. Do you know the most hazardous place in the United States early on Saturday afternoon? It very well might have been the North Carolina locker room, where the fiery Brady Manek was entrenched with the equally fiery Eric Hoots. They had to watch the rest of the game on a 42-inch locker room television with no sound and only a video board game feed.
As Hoots would put it later: "It's possible we are going to get an invoice for a trash can."
"That," Leaky Black said as soon as the clock went to zero, "is the craziest game I have ever been part of. I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest."
Tell us about it, Leaky.
I really mean this: in my last days, I fully expect this thought to cross my mind: "Well, I would have five more years. But that 2022 Carolina-Baylor game happened."
And then I will smile, and I will think, "It was worth it."
It is hard to describe the feeling of absolute glee that permeated Dickies Arena in the Carolina section in the minutes after the win. In the last two weeks, we've experienced two all-time Carolina basketball wins: the Coach K sendoff at Cameron and today's win over Baylor. Some programs, some fan bases, go entire lifetimes without even one of those. The Tar Heels just casually grab one once every other weekend. This is Carolina Basketball.
But this is also Carolina Basketball: on Friday night, Garrison Brooks showed up at the team hotel in Fort Worth. His Mississippi State season had ended earlier in the week, so he made the three-hour drive to Atlanta, then caught a flight to Dallas, then drove to Fort Worth so he could surprise a couple former teammates at the Omni.
The first person he encountered in the hotel lobby was Roy Williams. The duo chatted about Brooks' season and about Saturday's impending game. And before Brooks departed to go visit the team meeting room, Williams stopped him.
"Did you get some work done on your Master's this year?" the former head coach asked.
"Yes sir," Brooks said. "I should be able to finish it next summer."
Williams grabbed his hand and looked him right in the eye. He gestured at his wife, Wanda, and another bystander. "OK," he said. "I've got two witnesses right here who heard you say that. I want you to get that done."
"Yes, sir," Brooks said.
About that atmosphere in the team meeting room and around the hotel the last 48 hours leading up to the Baylor game: Hubert Davis set a tone that was almost a little jarring. It wasn't relaxed, exactly. It wasn't laid-back, because the Tar Heels still had intense practices. But it was…can this be right?...happy.
Davis let his team enjoy Thursday night, after the first NCAA Tournament victory for many of them. He very purposely wanted them to soak it in, to enjoy that feeling of accomplishment. Even the head coach himself shot a game of pool in a hotel restaurant with a close family friend, as Jeff Lebo—who had the scouting responsibilities on the Bears—sat nearby and watched and grinned. That's coaching from a head coach every bit as much as in-game adjustments--switching Leaky Black to be the inbound man with a minute left in regulation, for example--can be.
Lebo began working on Baylor almost as soon as the brackets were announced and had already pulled a whopping 142 clips on the Bears. He'd turned in his scouting report earlier in the day. Life, for right now, was very good.
Davis keeps talking about experiences, about his team having some of the same moments he and his coaching staff had as Tar Heels. They're going to get it now, just like Davis did after the win over top-seeded Oklahoma in 1990. Fans met the Tar Heels at the airport that night, and they're gathered at the Smith Center right now waiting on them again. Those memories are going to last even longer than Davis tossing in an impossible left-handed scoop shot off the glass and Leaky Blacksomehow elevating over a Baylor defender to drop in a close-range shot in overtime.
They're going to remember this part, too. After the win at Clemson, Hubert Davistold his team that any future flagrant or technical fouls would be punished not by the starters running, because they already had to play too many minutes. Instead, he told them, any such violation would mean the five deepest reserves, the bringers of biscuits, would have to run a 22, which is two down-and-backs the length of the court in 22 seconds.
This is a direct throwback to Dean Smith, who would make everyone except the recipient of a technical foul run. It is an awful punishment to watch your teammates run for something you know is your fault.
In the locker room, Manek turned to Jackson Watkins, Duwe Farris, Rob Landry, Ryan McAdoo and Creighton Lebo. This was just after someone asked Hubert Davisif the team could wear sweats on the plane.
"They can wear whatever they want!" a happy Davis shouted. It was that kind of day.
So here is Manek:
"Guys," he said, "I'm sorry for that 22 you're about to run."
Lebo, who is now the proud owner of a Fort Worth-purchased cowboy hat, broke into a wide smile. "Brady," he said, speaking for every Tar Heel everywhere, "I'd crawl the length of the court for you."
FORT WORTH—History tells us that we will still be talking about this game in 20 and 30 years, because this is University of North Carolina basketball and they make a habit of beating top-seeded teams on a fairly regular NCAA Tournament basis.
So when we are talking about Carolina's 93-86 overtime win over the defending national champion Baylor in 20 or 30 years, please make sure you remember RJ Davis' 30 points and Brady Manek's 26 points and Armando Bacot's 15 points and 16 rebounds and the absolutely incomprehensible events of the final ten minutes of regulation and Dontrez Styles with one of the all-time, "Why are you taking that shot…GOOD SHOT DONTREZ I ALWAYS BELIEVED IN YOU!" three-pointers in Tar Heel history in the opening minute of overtime.
So please make sure you remember all of that. But I also want you to remember this feeling: after a game that started at 11 a.m. local time, how absolutely, completely, totally exhausted we felt when it was all over.
Sure, RJ Davis is probably a little weary also. He played every second of the 45 minutes in one of Carolina's all-time NCAA Tournament performances. And Armando Bacot and his 40 minutes and Hubert Davis over there coaching the bejeebies out of the building and Leaky Black doing all his Leaky Black things.
But us. I have never been so spent after a Carolina basketball game. That is partially because the second half had so many whistles that it unofficially lasted as long as a Mike Krzyzewski postgame ceremony. I have a friend who is a Special Forces Green Beret and has spent most of his working life, as he puts it, "Going where the bad guys are." This means he goes to all the places you and I aren't brave enough to go so that we can do things like obsess over college basketball.
He also happens to be a fanatical Tar Heel fan. This was his text after the game: "It is confirmed that I am cooler under direct fire than during overtime in March Madness."
I have never taken enemy fire, and if things go well and I stay out of Durham, I expect that trend to continue. But I imagine that is exactly right. Do you know the most hazardous place in the United States early on Saturday afternoon? It very well might have been the North Carolina locker room, where the fiery Brady Manek was entrenched with the equally fiery Eric Hoots. They had to watch the rest of the game on a 42-inch locker room television with no sound and only a video board game feed.
As Hoots would put it later: "It's possible we are going to get an invoice for a trash can."
"That," Leaky Black said as soon as the clock went to zero, "is the craziest game I have ever been part of. I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest."
Tell us about it, Leaky.
I really mean this: in my last days, I fully expect this thought to cross my mind: "Well, I would have five more years. But that 2022 Carolina-Baylor game happened."
And then I will smile, and I will think, "It was worth it."
It is hard to describe the feeling of absolute glee that permeated Dickies Arena in the Carolina section in the minutes after the win. In the last two weeks, we've experienced two all-time Carolina basketball wins: the Coach K sendoff at Cameron and today's win over Baylor. Some programs, some fan bases, go entire lifetimes without even one of those. The Tar Heels just casually grab one once every other weekend. This is Carolina Basketball.
But this is also Carolina Basketball: on Friday night, Garrison Brooks showed up at the team hotel in Fort Worth. His Mississippi State season had ended earlier in the week, so he made the three-hour drive to Atlanta, then caught a flight to Dallas, then drove to Fort Worth so he could surprise a couple former teammates at the Omni.
The first person he encountered in the hotel lobby was Roy Williams. The duo chatted about Brooks' season and about Saturday's impending game. And before Brooks departed to go visit the team meeting room, Williams stopped him.
"Did you get some work done on your Master's this year?" the former head coach asked.
"Yes sir," Brooks said. "I should be able to finish it next summer."
Williams grabbed his hand and looked him right in the eye. He gestured at his wife, Wanda, and another bystander. "OK," he said. "I've got two witnesses right here who heard you say that. I want you to get that done."
"Yes, sir," Brooks said.
About that atmosphere in the team meeting room and around the hotel the last 48 hours leading up to the Baylor game: Hubert Davis set a tone that was almost a little jarring. It wasn't relaxed, exactly. It wasn't laid-back, because the Tar Heels still had intense practices. But it was…can this be right?...happy.
Davis let his team enjoy Thursday night, after the first NCAA Tournament victory for many of them. He very purposely wanted them to soak it in, to enjoy that feeling of accomplishment. Even the head coach himself shot a game of pool in a hotel restaurant with a close family friend, as Jeff Lebo—who had the scouting responsibilities on the Bears—sat nearby and watched and grinned. That's coaching from a head coach every bit as much as in-game adjustments--switching Leaky Black to be the inbound man with a minute left in regulation, for example--can be.
Lebo began working on Baylor almost as soon as the brackets were announced and had already pulled a whopping 142 clips on the Bears. He'd turned in his scouting report earlier in the day. Life, for right now, was very good.
Davis keeps talking about experiences, about his team having some of the same moments he and his coaching staff had as Tar Heels. They're going to get it now, just like Davis did after the win over top-seeded Oklahoma in 1990. Fans met the Tar Heels at the airport that night, and they're gathered at the Smith Center right now waiting on them again. Those memories are going to last even longer than Davis tossing in an impossible left-handed scoop shot off the glass and Leaky Blacksomehow elevating over a Baylor defender to drop in a close-range shot in overtime.
They're going to remember this part, too. After the win at Clemson, Hubert Davistold his team that any future flagrant or technical fouls would be punished not by the starters running, because they already had to play too many minutes. Instead, he told them, any such violation would mean the five deepest reserves, the bringers of biscuits, would have to run a 22, which is two down-and-backs the length of the court in 22 seconds.
This is a direct throwback to Dean Smith, who would make everyone except the recipient of a technical foul run. It is an awful punishment to watch your teammates run for something you know is your fault.
In the locker room, Manek turned to Jackson Watkins, Duwe Farris, Rob Landry, Ryan McAdoo and Creighton Lebo. This was just after someone asked Hubert Davisif the team could wear sweats on the plane.
"They can wear whatever they want!" a happy Davis shouted. It was that kind of day.
So here is Manek:
"Guys," he said, "I'm sorry for that 22 you're about to run."
Lebo, who is now the proud owner of a Fort Worth-purchased cowboy hat, broke into a wide smile. "Brady," he said, speaking for every Tar Heel everywhere, "I'd crawl the length of the court for you."
