Inside College Basketball

Quick Fix  

Three frisky freshmen have helped rejuvenate North Carolina

By Seth Davis

Every fall at North Carolina one freshman is chosen to carry the Green Bag for the entire season. The privilege of schlepping the duffel, which contains the trainer's equipment, is usually extended to the player who is, shall we say, least overcome by shyness. So it was that Rashad McCants walked out of the Tar Heels' locker room at Madison Square Garden late last Friday night, barely an hour after being named the Most Valuable Player of the Preseason NIT, with the Green Bag slung over his right shoulder. As McCants passed coach Matt Doherty in the hallway, he shook his head and said, "I can't believe you picked me to carry this."

The once mouthy McCants, who scored 25 points, was too hot for Kansas to handle. Manny Millan

"I didn't pick you, your teammates did," Doherty said.

"It was you," McCants replied.

"No, no. I said to everyone, 'Let's take a vote. Everyone who thinks McCants should carry the bag, raise your hand.'"

Such lighthearted moments were in short supply last season, when North Carolina went 8-20, the Tar Heels' first losing record in 40 years. But with their 5-0 start, including last week's shocking routs of then No. 2 Kansas and Stanford en route to winning the NIT title, the Heels served notice that they have the strong shoulders -- and young legs -- required to lift their program back to prominence. North Carolina's top six players are freshmen or sophomores, so the Tar Heels are sure to stumble at times this season, but rarely in recent memory has a team gone from being so bad to so good so quickly. The players profess not to be surprised by their success. "Just because we're young doesn't mean anything," said freshman point guard Raymond Felton after making four of six three-pointers in the 74-57 win over Stanford. "The only thing that matters is how badly you want to win."

What mattered in New York City was how quick the Tar Heels were with their hands and feet. Last season North Carolina forced an average of 12.8 turnovers per game, but at the Garden the Tar Heels caused both the Jayhawks and the Cardinal to commit 21 turnovers, which they converted into a total of 51 points.

North Carolina derives much of its unselfishness from Felton and a great deal of its court presence from 6'8" freshman center Sean May, who Doherty says also has the best hands he has seen since James Worthy's. The Tar Heels' cockiness, however, comes largely from the 6'4" McCants, an explosive scorer who in the five wins averaged 21.2 points on 66.7% shooting. McCants, a native of Asheville, N.C., was known as quite a woofer while he played on the summertime AAU circuit. Though Doherty has put the kibosh on those antics -- "He hasn't pounded his chest once after a dunk, knock on wood," Doherty says -- McCants's swagger has injected life into a program that last season had scarce opportunity for chest-thumping. "I've been taught by my mother and father to hold my head high and keep strutting," McCants says. "That's what I plan on doing."

Issue date: December 9, 2002

For more Inside College Basketball see this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, December 4. Click here to subscribe to SI.

 

Related information

Stories

Inside College Football: And the Winners Are ... Inside the NFL: St. Louis Blues Scorecard: Taking Their Hits SI's Steve Rushin: I Believe in B-ball SI Online: Current Issue and Archives

Multimedia

Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video