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GREENSBORO — North Carolina’s No. 6 preseason national ranking is obviously based on those Tar Heels who showed up for the NCAA Tournament rather than the ones who drove departed coach Bill Guthridge slightly nuts by staggering through a listless, embarrassingly mediocre regular season.
The Tar Heels — if you recall — barely even made the Big Dance last March— after stepping on each other’s toes all winter. The “Bad Heels” actually lost four in a row in January, including a home game to flighty Florida State that had courtside fans at the Smith Center tripling the amount of wine they consumed with their cheese.
But all’s well that ends well. And the Heels were certainly pretty awesome once they got madder than March and got down to business. Carolina bounced back from a first-round ACC tourney exit at the hands of Wake to play with passion and pride in the NCAAs. Sort of the way that Guthridge and their legion of faithful fans thought they should have been playing all along.
This time around, there is every reason to believe the Heels will play at their NCAA intensity level from the jump. We may even look back in March and wonder how in the world this talented gang of McDonald’s All-Americans could have possibly been picked as low as sixth.
The biggest change for the 2000-01 Heels is that new coach Matt Doherty looks and dresses like Wall Street, but enjoys running his guys run through walls. He’s an old-school disciplinarian in a brilliant disguise. Doherty won’t tolerate the foolishness that “Uncle Bill” tried hard to overlook last season. The five that Doherty puts on the floor had better go hard and play together or they won’t be out there long enough to letter. Doherty will worry far less about hurting the feelings of his sensitive student-athletes than nice-guy Guthridge did.
All Doherty must do, in fact, is find an adequate replacement for point guard Ed Cota and the Heels could find themselves right back in the Final Four for the fifth time in seven years. Then, of course, they could actually worry about winning one for a change.
Cota, of course, will be much tougher to replace than his 10.1 ppg scoring average might indicate. Cota was Carolina’s only legit ballhandler and merely finished his career as the No. 3 assist man since James Naismith hung the first peach basket.
There are a fistful of Cota wannabees on hand. It’s no exaggeration to say that if one of them becomes Cota Lite, Carolina will join Arizona and Duke on the national stage. But if no one can run the show adequately, the Heels may plunge as far as the middle of a loaded ACC that should place a six-pack in the NCAA Tournament.
A darkhorse candidate is superstar off-guard Joseph Forte, a deadly shooter, who topped the team last year with 16.7 ppg. Forte was also second on the team in assists and third in boards as a freshman and played decent defense. If there’s a negative, it’s that this may be his last season in Chapel Hill before he takes NBA money and runs. He’s that good.
Doherty talked at least semi-seriously at Operation Basketball about pairing Forte with veteran Max Owens — yep, he’s still around — in a shoot-first-ask-questions-later backcourt. That’ll work fine against Buffalo, but probably not against teams that can turn up the defensive heat like Duke and Maryland. So expect Forte to stay at the 2 and for Doherty to unearth a fresh playmaker.
Junior football player Ron Curry is a point candidate, especially if Carl Torbush’s troops don’t make a bowl game. But Curry was no great shakes when he played hoops as a freshman.
Soph Jon Holmes is reportedly a candidate. Well, at least in the way that Ralph Nader was a candidate. Holmes is a swell kid and a hard worker, but may not be athletic enough to play major minutes in the ACC.
The Heels’ prize freshmen, though, are a different story.
Adam Boone is 6-foot-2, tough as nails, polished, unselfish and smart enough to aspire to a medical career. He’s the logical choice for the job based on temperament and tools.
Then there’s Brian Morrison, also 6-2, a high-wire athlete out of the Bobby Sura mold. Morrison is a little wild — well, maybe a lot wild — so Doherty may not hand him the car keys and tell him to drive right away. But Morrison leaps tall buildings with a single bound and has more range than an ICBM. If Morrison doesn’t play the point, he’ll be a weapon coming off the bench — doing the sort of instant-offense stuff that was supposed to be Owens’ role the last few years.
There are no questions along the front-line, where the Tar Heels are frighteningly big.
Brendan Haywood might just be ticked about being named to the preseason second-team All-ACC squad. The 7-footer could slam-dunk all the writers at OB, but then again maybe he’ll settle for slamming around opposing big men. The soon-to-be lottery pick, merely shot 73.3 percent last season and grabbed 8.4 boards per game last season.
“Is there a better big man in the country?” Doherty challenged writers. “Give me a name.”
No one could.
Power forward Kris Lang, 6-11, will also play for pay down the road. Throw out his miserable injury-plagued sophomore year. His jump hook is unstoppable and he’s healthy again.
Smooth 6-8 junior small forward Jason Capel would be the top gun on many teams. He scored 12.8 ppg and can do a little of everything.
Behind them are Brian Bersticker, who lost last season to injury, football player Julius Peppers, who adds muscular mayhem, and perhaps 7-6 Neil Fingleton. Fingleton doesn’t want to red-shirt, but is currently injured, so it could happen. The Heels won’t need him this year.
Rounding out the roster are senior Michael Brooker, a senior shooter who has yet to prove he can make a major contribution, high-jumping Orlando Melendez, walk-on Jim Everett and Morehead scholar Will Johnson
It’s a team that will certainly be very good, barring catastrophic injuries. It will still be a step slow on defense, though, so it won’t be perfect.
Tar Heel fans, by the way, are going to like Doherty.
They will especially like his attitude about Duke, which has had a four-year stranglehold on the ACC regular-season race. Doherty obviously doesn’t like them now any more than he did when he played against them in the early ‘80s.
“Duke’s beaten us five straight times,” he said. “I guess we have something to prove, don’t we?”
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