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Posted: Friday October 18, 2002 2:00 PM Updated: Tuesday November 12, 2002 5:57 PM North Carolina Tar Heels
The following preview is provided by Blue Ribbon. For the most thorough preview available of the upcoming season, order the 2002-03 Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook, on sale now at 1-800-775-2518. Team Preview | Blue Ribbon Analysis How did the bottom fall out so far, so fast? As big a story as Maryland's first national championship was in the ACC, North Carolina's demise was even bigger and, certainly, more shocking. The program that set the standard for consistency and success found itself scrambling to stay out of the ACC Tournament's dreaded Thursday night play-in game. The team that set the NCAA record with 31 consecutive seasons of at least 20 wins found itself with no more victories than the school's football team. The team that set the NCAA record with 27 consecutive appearances in the NCAA tournament, found itself at home in March, wondering just what had run over it. What went wrong? The answer to that simple question could fill the 384 pages of the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook, and significant information still would have to be left out. It was the topic of lengthy dissections in all the ACC-area newspapers and all the national media outlets, all of which sent someone to Chapel Hill during the course of the season to wade around in the remnants of the meltdown. Looking back, the answer is fairly simple -- the Tar Heels didn't have much talent.
Coach Matt Doherty had to replace five of his top seven players, two of whom were first-round picks in the NBA Draft. He was left with seniors Kris Lang and Jason Capel (a pair of complementary players at best) and a roster full of question marks. Turns out, the most common answer to those questions was "no." That's why during a span of four months, three players -- none of whom Doherty recruited -- opted to transfer out of his program. Project center Neil Fingleton, all 7-foot-5 of him, left for Holy Cross before Christmas. Guards Adam Boone and Brian Morrison waited until the end of the dreadful season before both decided they no longer wanted to play for Doherty, who can be caustic and demanding. In general, those are not huge losses for the Tar Heels. None of the three fit into the up-tempo style Doherty desperately wants to play and all of them would have seen diminished -- if any, in the case of Fingleton -- playing time. More disconcerting for Doherty, however, was that at least two of the players he recruited, freshmen Jawad Williams and Jackie Manuel, also considered leaving, according to reports after the season. That would have been even more devastating, considering those players presumably knew what they were signing up for when they autographed their letters-of-intent. The three who transfered were signed by the much more mild-mannered Bill Guthridge. But unlike them, Williams can play at the highest level of college basketball and the athletic Manuel can get there. Another reason the Tar Heels imploded: an immature coach. That doesn't mean Doherty acts silly, tells off-color jokes or watches Adam Sandler movies. It means he's been running his own program for only three years -- two just happen to be at the place where basketball is a religion -- and he's still finding his way. He admitted during the school's longest season -- to the raised eyebrows of some -- that he could have used some more experience before he took over the Frank McGuire/Dean Smith/Bill Guthridge chair. But who can blame him for grabbing one of the great jobs in all of sports when Guthridge stepped aside and Roy Williams, Doherty's mentor at Kansas, backed out? One of the problems is that Doherty wanted to build his program his way. His insistence on doing that created some disturbances in the force that is Carolina basketball. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it did contribute to the horrific eight-win season. Doherty's type-A personality is diametrically opposite to Guthridge's low-key manner. He bullies, curses and intimidates and makes few apologies for it. That personality is why there have been constant rumors coming out of Chapel Hill about chemistry problems between coach and players and in the locker room for two years now. "There has to be a change," Capel said as one of his departing blows to the News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C. "I don't think there's a choice. There's no choice." Doherty said in the same story: "I realize there are certainly some concerns, and in a weird way, I'm excited about the communication, because we can grow from it. I don't want to take their concerns lightly. I want them to feel like they have avenues to discuss things with me and all the coaches." Doherty privately has promised to change some of his ways, to tone down some of the practice furor and the behind-closed-door tirades. But that's his style. It's different from the coach who preceded him. The departures and discontent do make it harder for Doherty to put in a quick fix, to make a one-year turnaround like last year, when the Tar Heels went from being ACC regular-season co-champs (and Doherty being AP National Coach of the Year) to having the worst season in school history. For one thing, Doherty's third edition will be the youngest in UNC basketball history. There are only two seniors, little-used reserves Will Johnson at forward and Jonathan Holmes at point guard, and no juniors on the roster. The rest of the team is made up of nine sophomores and freshmen. So while Doherty might not be worried about his job -- barring another meltdown this season, he's safe for another year -- he is worried about this team's capability of bouncing back. "I am concerned about our size," Doherty said. "I am concerned about how young we are. I think we will have the youngest team in Carolina history. It is certainly the most freshmen and sophomores that we have ever had. "So we have a lack of size, a lack of experience and a very, very difficult schedule." So where can the Tar Heels go from here? The easy answer is upward, because they can't spiral any lower than home losses to Hampton and Davidson and a near-loss to Binghamton. But there are reasons for the coach to be optimistic. The biggest one, of course, is the recruiting class, considered to be one of the best in the nation. It's probably not good enough to get the Tar Heels an ACC championship or even an NCAA tournament berth this season, but the six-player class is a great foundation for building a program on top of the three sophomores Doherty recruited the year before. Three of the six players were among recruiting analyst Bob Gibbons' Top 10 high school players from last year: 6-foot-1 point guard Raymond Felton, 6-foot-9 big man Sean May and 6-foot-3 swingman Rashad McCants. Doherty could start those three freshmen with sophomores Melvin Scott and Williams, an inexperienced but talented team that will probably turn whatever dark hairs Doherty has remaining a shiny, shiny gray. "In an ideal world, I would let these freshmen learn from an experienced junior and senior class, and they wouldn't be counted on to have to play such a prominent role on the team,'' Doherty said. "They could learn at a different pace. But that can't happen. "This group, I am going to have to play some freshmen. They are going to make their share of mistakes. If you are a Carolina fan, you have to give them some rope." The gem of the recruiting class and the unquestioned star of the future is Felton, the South Carolinian who has drawn comparisons to Phil Ford. Those comparisons make Doherty cringe, not because they aren't true or because Ford isn't part of his coaching staff. He just doesn't want Felton to arrive with that much pressure. "Raymond was a great high school talent, but there is going to be an adjustment period," Doherty said. "People have talked about him so much that they are going to expect him to never miss a shot, to never turn the ball over, to steal the ball away from his man every time down the floor and for us to win every game. That is not going to happen. "People, I hope, will give Raymond a chance to grow and develop. If that happens, he will have a chance to have a great career here." Felton is a great scorer and perhaps a better passer. He's exactly the kind of talented point guard the Tar Heels have lacked since school assist leader Ed Cota finished his eligibility three years ago. Felton averaged 31 points, nine assists and six steals at small Latta (S.C.) High School. As a senior, he set the South Carolina state record with 117 3-pointers. During his career, his team was 104-9, including a win over the best-known high school team in the country, DeMatha High of Hyattsville, Md. But Doherty says to put Felton in the same class as a Ford or a Kenny Smith is to create unrealistic expectations. "Phil was blessed to be surrounded by experienced, talented players," Doherty said. "Raymond does not have that luxury. He is not surrounded by juniors and seniors and All-Americans. Kenny Smith was. He was surrounded by Perkins and Jordan, and I was an experienced player on that team. We could tell him, 'Kenny this and Kenny that.' Raymond may not have that luxury much." He could be joined in the backcourt by another freshman, McCants, or one of two sophomores, Manuel (5.5 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 1.1 steals) or the 6-foot-2 Scott (6.2 ppg, 1.0 rpg, 2.0 apg). Manuel had a difficult time adjusting to the college game. He doesn't have much of a shot, but he is athletic and fast and has all the qualities that make a great defensive player. "Jackie came back over the summer really improved," Doherty said. "He's the best athlete on the team, and he's gained about 10 pounds." Scott was at a disadvantage last year because Doherty tried to make him a point guard when he was clearly more suited to be a shooting guard. "I put him in a bad position at the beginning of the year, asking him to be a point guard and starting in the ACC," Doherty said. "He wasn't used to that, and that was my fault putting him in that position. "The thing Melvin does best is shoot the basketball. I want him to focus on getting comfortable so he can make shots for us. We are going to need him to make shots for us." McCants, a North Carolina native who spent his senior year of high school at New Hampton Prep in New Hampshire, is a long-armed guard who has great intensity, a player similar to Manuel but with more basketball skills. He'll fit in perfectly with the running and pressing style Doherty likes. "Rashad is a guy capable of scoring," Doherty said. "He is a strong presence who is very tough minded. He listens and works hard." Carolina's final backcourt player is 6-foot-5 freshman walk-on David Noel of Southern High School in Durham, N.C. He was a high-level football recruit who was set to sign a scholarship as a wide receiver, until Doherty convinced him to stick with basketball. He has talent suited to the up-tempo style Doherty wants to use and has been promised a scholarship as a sophomore. The Tar Heels do have some depth in the backcourt, though there is little experience beside 6-foot senior Holmes (1.1 ppg, 0.5 rpg), who rarely got off the bench last year. The frontcourt has even more questions. The 6-foot-8 Johnson (3.9 ppg, 2.5 rpg) is a former walk-on who turned out to be the Tar Heels' most reliable outside shooter last year, making 42.9 percent of his 3-point shots. Williams (9.9 ppg, 4.2 rpg), a sophomore forward, came on at the end of last season, after starting a total of nine games. "Jawad played really well at the end of the season, and I was really impressed with his defense,'' Doherty said. "He became such a better defender." But Doherty got only one of his big-man recruiting targets, signing 6-foot-9 May from Bloomington, Ind. The son of former Indiana star Scott May was Mr. Basketball in Indiana last season. He's kind of pudgy, but so was Lonny Baxter at Maryland and Travis Watson of Virginia. May can be devastating inside. As a senior at Bloomington North, he averaged 21.8 points and 13.7 rebounds and blocked 104 shots. He's the Tar Heels' only legitimate big-man prospect, though Doherty did sign two other players as projects after missing out on a handful of targets like Jason Fraser, Torin Francis and Brad Buckman. What Doherty got was 6-foot-11 center Damion Grant of Jamaica (by way of Brewster Academy in New Hampshire) and 6-foot-8 forward Byron Sanders of Gulfport, Miss., two players who will have to improve quickly before they can contribute. Grant is raw, having played basketball for only three years before signing with the Heels. Sanders is still a year or two away from contributing regularly. Doherty didn't make it any easier for his team to bounce back by putting together a demanding schedule that includes an appearance in the Preseason NIT and the Holiday Festival at Madison Square Garden, plus games against Illinois in the ACC-Big 10 Challenge, Kentucky, Connecticut and Miami. "I would love to start out with 10 pencil-in, easy wins, but that is not Carolina and that is not what our schedule is," Doherty said. "That is not what our fans want; I don't think our players want that. We want to go against the best. That is Carolina basketball. We want to make sure we are prepared. "These are going to be great tests for us. If we win these games, we will develop a lot of confidence. And if we don't win every game, we have to work to figure out where we need to improve." Based on last year's performance, there is no aspect of the Tar Heel program that doesn't need some kind of improvement or change. The roster has been purged of some of the questionable players on the team, from the seniors to the transfers. But Doherty has a young team that will no doubt falter at times, if only because of the increased scrutiny his program will have during this important bounce-back year. "I would like to move forward," Doherty said. "There are a lot of frustrations that develop when you go 8-20. They surface. It's a new season. We are looking forward to moving forward. We are rebuilding." And, for once, not just reloading. Doherty is in a tough situation. He's going into his third year as coach of the Tar Heels, reaching great heights in his first season and uncharted depths in his second season. All he has to do this year is take a team with nine sophomores and freshmen from those depths back to the top of the college basketball world. That's not an easy thing to do with a team that has two little-used seniors. "Experience is such a key," Doherty said. "You look at Maryland last year and Kansas this year. You look at teams that have been successful, and they have seniors and juniors that have been around the block a few times. "We'll have to stick together and be prepared and do our best. If we lose a game, we have to be prepared to bounce back. If we win a game, we can't feel too good about ourselves.'' The Tar Heels are more talented than they were last year, for sure, but the sharks can smell the blood leaking from a program that has always had an air of superiority. That will make the task of getting back to the top even harder, as rivals revel in this rare downturn. Having the team in Felton's capable hands will help. "I am not going to say we will win the ACC," Felton said before he arrived. "We aren't going to win the NCAA championship. But we are not going to have as bad a year as last year. I don't think we are going to have a team like that." Carolina fans around the world certainly hope not.
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