Adam Lucas: Getting It

Marcus Ginyard and Tyler Hansbrough watch the final moments of the Tarheel's 71-56 win over Boston College on Saturday.

Adam Lucas on the win over Boston College.

March 10, 2007

http://tarheelblue.cstv.com

TAMPA--Marcus Ginyard's smiles on the basketball court come in a variety of flavors.

There's the "Celebrating a big play" smile. There's the "Can't believe that was called" smile. There's the "Dewey just drained another three" smile.

"I'm having fun out there," he's explained in the past. "A lot of guys try to be all hard when they're on the court. But I'm having fun and I don't mind showing it. I don't see any reason to be different on the court than I am off of it."

Never before, though, has there been a smile like the one he flashed early in the first half of Saturday's win over Boston College.

Maybe you saw it. With about 10 minutes left in the first half, Ginyard was guarding Sean Marshall. He swiped at the ball, forced a turnover, hesitated just a second, and then sprinted off to gather the ball and deposit a layup that put the Tar Heels up 19-9.

But why was he smiling during the play? Let's turn on the audio for just a second.

With Ginyard in front of him, Marshall ripped the ball through. Carolina's defensive ace pecked at the ball.

"You're not going to get the ball," Marshall told him.

At that exact second, karma landed directly on Marshall's head. As he turned and prepared to make his next move, a split second after the words had left his lips, Ginyard did take the ball away.

"He turned his back a little bit and I poked it away," Ginyard said. "He looked at the ref for a second and I looked at the ball. It was still out there, so I went and got it and laid it up."

Ginyard is not particularly a talker on the court. But this was an occasion he could not resist. So he looked at Marshall and said the only perfect thing he could say. The only thing left to say, really:

"Hey, man, I got it."

And there you have Carolina's 71-56 ACC Tournament semifinal win in a nutshell. This was, by far, the best game the Tar Heels have played against BC since the Eagles joined the league.



Brandon Wright scores two of his 20 points.

Boston College is a team built to bruise you. Every player on their roster fits their system perfectly. They have a swagger that suggests they are well aware they're going to wear you down, that they're content to plug along until you give up. Even their offense, a tight version of the flex that is ideally run with everyone inside the paint, is built to eliminate any room to breathe.

Last year in the Smith Center, that worked. Last year in the ACC Tournament semifinals, that worked. The day's theme was right there in black and white on the Carolina scouting report:

"Soft will not even come close to working against them. If you do something soft, you will get embarrassed."

"They're a very mentally tough team," Danny Green said. "They play physical and try to get in your head. It's attack or be attacked. And I think today we attacked them and played up to their level of intensity."

Everyone wearing argyle did. Forget about Ty Lawson's 8 assists--his most impressive contribution might have been holding Tyrese Rice to 1-of-9 from the floor. A series of Tar Heels limited Jared Dudley to 7-of-18. Carolina held a mammoth 16-rebound edge.



Ty Lawson drives for a lay-up in the second half of North Carolina's semifinal win.

Thirteen of those rebounds came from Tyler Hansbrough, his third double-digit rebounding effort in the past four games. He holds the mask he's forced to wear because of a big hit in the Duke game in approximately the same regard as he holds the dance skits during Late Night: there's nothing good about them, but they're required.

"I'm not happy with the mask," he said. "I don't think I will get happy with it. It cuts my vision...If I'm not going to be able to see to shoot the ball, I have to do something to help this team. So I wanted to get every rebound."

Did you hear that? Every rebound. The Tar Heels dealt exclusively in those types of absolutes on Saturday. They defended on every possession. They boxed out on every shot. And they ran constantly.

At times, it looked like a game of red rover, with five white shirts already back on defense as five burgundy shirts walked down the court on offense. When you play for Roy Williams and you see that walking, you know exactly what it means.

"They want to try to use the clock for 35 seconds on offense," Reyshawn Terry. "And we know that with our tempo of game, by the time they've worked it on offense, they might not be aware of us pushing the ball back the other way. So we tried to take advantage of it."

So Carolina earned a slot in Sunday's title game. They earned their 27th win of the season. And they earned something that's been even tougher to find over the last couple of years--Boston College's respect.

That's why, later in the first half after Ginyard had gone out of the game, Marshall had one last thing to say. As he crossed the court and found himself in front of his nemesis, now seated on the Tar Heel bench, he had only two words left:

"Nice defense."


Adam Lucas's third book on Carolina basketball, The Best Game Ever, chronicles the 1957 national championship season and is available now. His previous books include Going Home Again, focusing on Roy Williams's return to Carolina, and Led By Their Dreams, a collaboration with Steve Kirschner and Matt Bowers on the 2005 championship team.