Carolina Wins #5

Posted April 7th, 2009 by Sean Williams

said, after the LSU game, that we proved we had what it takes, but…

WHAT?

Is there any comparison? The way this team played was so utterly
inspiring. This is a life-lesson team, this is a series of games that
you can *learn* some shit from. I remember when I first became a heels
fan (way after you guys did, I’m sure, and I have no defense for that
except to say, I wasted my late teens learning how to be an artist,
and only got on board once Ian wouldn’t let me go to college anywhere
else…) we would watch games, and I remember the satisfaction of
knowing we were doing it “right”.

Whoever we were playing, we would win, because we were doing it right.
They’d go on a run, and Ian would say, “everyone goes on a run, don’t
worry about it, Dean knows what he’s doing…” And sure, some asshole
would go nuts and drop 40 on us because he was exorcising demons, and
it was almost as if Dean was saying “we might lose this game, but this
kid’s gonna walk away feeling better about his life. That’s part of
the game, we’re not gonna double him five feet from the three point
line – We’re gonna play the right way. Period.”

When you’re a Carolina fan, you have automatic reactions to stuff. Ty
jacks up a three early in the shot clock, half way through the second
half, and we’re up by 20. Everyone in the room said, “We didn’t need
that.” The scrub runs the whole floor and tries to score in the final
seconds instead of passing up to a Senior, and that’s one of the
things we remember. Because we’re playing right, in the moments when
we’re not playing right, we notice.

The way this team finished, you wonder how we lost a game all year.
But maybe that’s the lesson. We don’t need to win every game, in life.

This was just amazing, amazing, amazing. Every team, we just got the
car to the best speed we could, and then we started working on our
mileage. Never cruise, never take your eye off the road, but don’t
feel like you have to gun it every time some jerk in a pimp-mobile
comes by. How many dunks did we have last night? One? I only remember
Wayne on a break away, other than that, we were like a kettle drum
that didn’t need a tuning key.

I wish I had enjoyed it even more, this season. I wish I had watched
knowing this was one of the best teams we’d ever have. 101-14 over
three years? Is that right? The best stretch in the history of
Carolina.

This team won, not in the way that sports teams normally win, but in
the way that science moves forward, one low-drama discovery at a time.
It almost made sense that Ginyard was wearing a tie, it was as if the
playing of the game was as important as the mind-set. Every game in
the tournament felt like surgery, and when the last game came around,
we were so good at it that a life-threatening procedure felt workaday.

I’m elated. I’m sated. This was just wonderful.