Oct. 16, 2008
By Adam
Lucas
An injured foot that has him on the shelf until December kept Marcus Ginyard on the sidelines rather than the middle of the action in a recent Smith Center pickup game. Not surprisingly, considering Ginyard's status as the resident Tar Heel hoops sage, he couldn't just watch the game. He had to give the game some thought.
"I was watching Bobby and Tyler and Danny all playing pickup," Ginyard said, "and I was thinking about all the things we've been through and all the things we've learned. Having been through all those things is going to help this team."
That team will come together for the first time on Friday evening for the first day of practice. This year's unusual schedule includes a week of practice before the traditional season tip-off, Late Night with Roy Williams, is held on Oct. 24.
Already this week, the seniors have begun to mark their "lasts." They've had their last running test. They'll have their last first day of practice.
And it might just be the last time we ever see a senior class like this one.
Why? Because they've stuck around. Ginyard, Danny Green, Bobby Frasor, Michael Copeland and Tyler Hansbrough--all four-year contributors, all the foundation of the program over the last three seasons. The last core to remain intact with such success was probably the 1991 group of Rick Fox, King Rice, and Pete Chilcutt; that group won two ACC Tournament titles and advanced to one Final Four before losing to--ouch--Kansas.
"I don't know if you'll ever see again a situation where five guys come in and graduate together after four years," Frasor said. "That's what makes it so special. We were labeled a good foundation class when we came in. And I think people appreciate that we've built that foundation and we're good kids and we're going to graduate and play hard."
Don't forget that when this group started practice on October 14, 2005, expectations were lower than
Wes Miller's career dunk total. The Tar Heels were coming off a national championship and four players from that team had chosen to depart for the NBA. The five-man freshman class that entered over the summer of 2005 was intended to be nice complementary pieces; instead, it became essential.
The ACC media picked Carolina to finish sixth. Sports Illustrated did not include Carolina in its projected 2006 NCAA Tournament field. And when the Tar Heels took the court for the first time as a unit, on an excursion to the Bahamas, they committed 38 turnovers in one game against a team that arrived at the gym in the back of a pickup truck.
And what happened next? Magic.
"That was a strange year, because it was the most satisfying year I've ever had in coaching--but the year before we had won the national championship, which was my dream," Roy Williams said recently of the 2005-06 squad. "To play the way we played and accomplish the things we accomplished made it a very fun and satisfying year. That was the year my team bought into everything I'd asked more than anyone ever had."
Lots of Carolina classes have won games, of course. What made this year's seniors different is that they seemed to have such natural chemistry while amassing those wins. Today's college basketball player is sometimes perceived as someone out of the And 1 Mixtape Tour. Spend any time around these seniors, and it quickly turns into an encore episode of The Golden Girls.
Ginyard doesn't like sports. Copeland is the comedian. Green is from New York. Frasor is sarcastic. Hansbrough is...Hansbrough, which means he's the butt of almost as many jokes as he has national player of the year awards.
Is this a basketball class or a proposal for a new sitcom?
"For some reason we all click," Hansbrough said. "We just all have fun. That's a big factor in why we all stayed. It's so rare to see a large group of seniors stay together for all four years. But we know each other really well, and we have that bond because we've been together."
"It started from the first time we were together," Ginyard said. "We've stuck with each other and we've trusted each other. And we're all still here together, four years later."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
