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"Opponent brings in boisterous crowd bigger than any they’ve had all year (the Frank Erwin Center crowd took some shots in the local paper after barely 3,000 fans attended this week’s game against USTA; they put over 16,000 people in the building on Saturday, and they were vocal in their efforts to drown out the thunderous PA system).
Here’s what is supposed to happen: the Tar Heels take that opponent’s best shot, get the crowd to the point where they’re standing for every crucial possession, then punch them in the gut and sneak off into the night with their brownies and a win.
That’s a Carolina basketball trademark. And it needs to happen regularly again soon, or there’s fear of losing the copyright.
Now, here’s the thing: it’s tougher than you think to play on the road, especially in December. The Tar Heels took exams all week. They had skeleton practices due to the combination of school demands and an illness that ripped through the team. Theo Pinson, for example, did not practice Thursday or Friday, and he looked wobbly on Saturday, playing a season-low ten minutes while scoring zero points and never really appearing into the flow of the game.
“It’s been really different,” Berry said of practice this week with minimal healthy bodies. “That’s not an excuse at all, because we still have to play basketball. But it’s been really different.”
Even under the best of circumstances, playing on the road is difficult. The Tar Heels spent less than 24 hours in the Lone Star state. Six of those hours were devoted to air travel and making the nearly 2,500-mile roundtrip. Carolina arrived at the team hotel on Friday night around 11 p.m. Central time and still had a meeting on the itinerary. There was a late night on Friday and then a shootaround Saturday at an unfamiliar gym, and then a hostile crowd that had arrived for the express purpose of watching the Tar Heels."
"Opponent brings in boisterous crowd bigger than any they’ve had all year (the Frank Erwin Center crowd took some shots in the local paper after barely 3,000 fans attended this week’s game against USTA; they put over 16,000 people in the building on Saturday, and they were vocal in their efforts to drown out the thunderous PA system).
Here’s what is supposed to happen: the Tar Heels take that opponent’s best shot, get the crowd to the point where they’re standing for every crucial possession, then punch them in the gut and sneak off into the night with their brownies and a win.
That’s a Carolina basketball trademark. And it needs to happen regularly again soon, or there’s fear of losing the copyright.
Now, here’s the thing: it’s tougher than you think to play on the road, especially in December. The Tar Heels took exams all week. They had skeleton practices due to the combination of school demands and an illness that ripped through the team. Theo Pinson, for example, did not practice Thursday or Friday, and he looked wobbly on Saturday, playing a season-low ten minutes while scoring zero points and never really appearing into the flow of the game.
“It’s been really different,” Berry said of practice this week with minimal healthy bodies. “That’s not an excuse at all, because we still have to play basketball. But it’s been really different.”
Even under the best of circumstances, playing on the road is difficult. The Tar Heels spent less than 24 hours in the Lone Star state. Six of those hours were devoted to air travel and making the nearly 2,500-mile roundtrip. Carolina arrived at the team hotel on Friday night around 11 p.m. Central time and still had a meeting on the itinerary. There was a late night on Friday and then a shootaround Saturday at an unfamiliar gym, and then a hostile crowd that had arrived for the express purpose of watching the Tar Heels."
