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BY AARON Fin SENIOR WRITER
They’re supposed to be glum. They’ve been through
the two most tumultuous seasons in the history of
North Carolina basketball.
They were here for 8-20. They watched as three
teammates from that 2001-02 squad transferred. They gave
serious thought to transferring themselves.
They were here as a hot start quickly became a disap
pointment last year, and speculation about their coach’s
future abounded. They saw that coach, Matt Doherty, shown
the door. They survived the coaching search-turned-media
blitzkrieg that followed.
After all that, Jawad Williams, Jackie Manuel and Melvin
Scott should have emerged as surly veterans, their spirits bat
tered from trying circumstances, their thoughts bitter from
intense fan and media scrutiny.
They’re supposed to be demoralized. And at 3 p.m. on Oct.
30, an hour before the start of practice, Williams and
Manuel sat in two chairs on the Smith Center court, talking
little, their shoulders slumped, looking every bit like the
weary elder statesmen of their reputations.
Then some made-up song in Scott’s raspy, high-pitched
voice echoed from the tunnel, and a moment later Scott him
self jogged onto the court to join the other two juniors, while
singing his “little introduction music.”
Manuel and Williams dropped their heads and laughed.
The three were back together, and the mood had changed
instantly.
“People look at us and think, ‘Man, they’re crazy,’” Scott
said. “With all we’ve been through, they think we’re supposed
to be, like —”
“Sad as hell,” Manuel interrupted.
“When we were 8-20, I walked with my head up high
when I went home,” Scott said.
“I still was at North Carolina,” Williams said.
“Yeah,” Scott added. “Nobody from Baltimore ever came
here, that I knew of."
“Or from Cleveland,” Williams said. “Regardless of how
the year went, we had a lot to be happy about."
“I feel like I’m blessed,” Manuel blurted.
So much for the public’s perception.
The fact is, the three talented juniors from Doherty's first
recruiting class are doing just fine. They’re a little hardened,
a little less trusting than they used to be, but fine. Rather
than scarring them, their experiences prepared them to lead
one of the nation’s elite programs back to prominence.
The Tar Heels have no scholarship seniors, so all of a sud
den Williams, Manuel and Scott have no choice but to lead.
But responsibility is not something the trio shies away from.
On the contrary, a sense of duty played a large part in the
decision of each not to transfer.
“We were here w'hen all this stuff started falling apart.
We’re going to be here to bring it back," Williams said. “I
think this program depends on us to be here. Were the old
est on this team so we have to be the ones to lead them back.
That’s the reason why we’re still here.”
That’s why they’re here, even after 8-20. As difficult as last
season was for the players, it didn’t compare to the previous
year. Just how much worse was the threesome’s freshman
campaign?
“The worst,” Williams said.
“A lot of guys would have quit,” Scott said. “Packed their
bags. Transferred.”
“We stayed here and stuck it out," Williams added. “Tried
to help the program get back to where it was. We could have
easily left and went our separate ways, but I don’t think that
would have been good to run away from our problems,
instead of staving here and trying to solve them."
“That's teaching us everyday life things,” Scott said. “Off the
court, how to be tough. Because life is serious. Death's got to
be easy, because life is hard. You can put that in the paper.”
The juniors still have some resentment about things that
have been printed in the papers the last two seasons. Before
Raymond Felton, Sean May and Rashad McCants came
A TRIO OF RARE TALENTS
BY RANDY WELLINGTON
STAFF WRITER
The only glimmer of hope for any
North Carolina fan lost in the
deepening doldrums of the
2001-02 season was the buzz
about the incoming freshman class.
The best point guard recruit, the
best shooting guard recruit and the
second-best power forward recruit in
the country were all going to be Tar
Heels.
Now, in their second season together,
Raymond Felton, Rashad McCants and
Sean May should be as good as any trio
in college basketball.
And the onus is on them to make the
8-20 season of tw o years ago a distant
memory'.
Felton was the most consistent of the
three last year, earning third-team All-
ACC honors and finishing second in the
conference with 6.74 assists per game.
This year, the pressure has increased.
The media named him ACC Preseason
Player of the Year, and his new coach,
Roy Williams, has put Felton in charge
of Williams’ breakneck offense.
“I do believe that Raymond Felton
Point guard
Ray Felton,
coming off a
season in which
he averaged
12.9 points per
game, was
named the ACC
Preseason Player
of the Year.
Sophomore
center Sean May,
could emerge as
one of the
nation's best big
men this season.
He averaged 11.4
points and 8.1
rebounds in 11
games last year.
“There s nobody on our squad that ’s ever played in the NCAA Tournament. ''
ROY WILLIAMS. NORTH CAROLINA COACH
Talented shooter
Rashad McCants
set a North
Carolina school
freshman record
with 17.0 points
per game last
season and was
MVP of the
Preseason NIT.
Basketball 2003414
has a motor that can really push it,”
Williams said. “That’s the way I want to
run.”
Felton’s motor may be running on
empty' at times this season because he’s
the only true point guard on the team.
But Williams will compensate by chang
ing the way he uses timeouts.
“The people in Kansas accused me of
saving my timeouts because the other
team had scored eight or 10 in a row,
and I’d look down to see if my socks
were on straight, because I am not call
ing a timeout," Williams said.
“But this year, if Raymond gives me
the tired signal, I am going to call a
timeout."
The most electric of the group last
season was McCants, who led the ACC
in scoring for the first two months of the
season before losing his starting job
against Wake Forest on Feb. 2.
After scoring 13 points against Wake,
he scored two against Duke and zero
versus Florida State the next two games,
his only games all season without dou
ble figures in points.
Despite the frustration of the bench
ing and the ensuing slump, he finished
along, Williams, Scott and Manuel were billed as UNC’s sav
iors. When the program struggled, those three absorbed the
brunt of the criticism.
Williams is too soft. Scott is too small to play shooting
guard hut can’t play point guard. Manuel is too awkward on
offense.
“I really use it as motivation,” Williams said. “I think about
it another way, like, I wish I met the person who wrote this.
I’d take them on the court and destroy their ass, that’s the
way I feel sometimes.”
“It pisses you off” Manuel said.
“Because some of the people who write these damn arti
cles haven’t ever touched a basketball a day in their lives,”
Williams continued. “They don’t even know anything, they
just go off what another man said. I respect certain writers
that have been around the game and probably even played
the game. But a lot of these guys have never played the game,
fat dudes sitting on the couch all day watching TV, thinking
they know the game.”
Williams stopped, as if finished, but he had more to say.
“I read articles, saying ‘Jawad Williams is too soft at times.’
I’d call Jawad Williams consistent. I was going to give you 15
points and six boards every night out. I could care less, but
like I said, if one of them writers gets out on this court, I’ll
destroy their ass.”
By the end of that rant, Scott and Manuel were snicker
ing. When Williams finished, Manuel half-covered his
mouth and said to Williams in a lilting, sing-song voice,
“You’re in trou-ble, you’re in trou-ble.”
All three then lost it, leaning off their chairs and laughing
at Williams' non-diplomatic comments. Sure, they’ve got
some leftover bitterness, but these guys can still laugh at
themselves.
The three players started laughing at each other —and
bonding with each other the first time they met before
their freshman year.
“I was excited to meet different people, to be around these
guys," Manuel said. “Even though I felt like they were clowns
too. And I’m pretty sure they felt the same way about me.”
They’ve always been able to laugh at themselves, even
when times were hard. It’s a big reason they’ve been able to
endure the trials of the past two years.
“I knew they were clowns," Scott said. “For me, I haven’t
ever been close to anybody outside of Baltimore, country
guys, or guys from the Midwest, or something like that. So
when I heard Jackie talk, I was like, ‘He sounds funny.’ When
he heard me talk, he w as like ‘Man, he sounds funny, too.’”
And with that, another laughing fit broke out.
’lill
DTH FILE PHOTO
Junior shooting guard Melvin Scott (right) reacts to a referee's call as classmate Jackie Manuel (left)
looks on. The junior class has become a tight-knit group since the turmoil-filled season of 2001 -02.
the season strong and ended up as the
team’s leading scorer with 17 points per
game, seventh in the ACC.
Classmate David Noel w'as the play
er who replaced McCants in the starting
lineup. Noel, a former walk-on. is a per
fect contrast to the flashy McCants but
is eflusive in his praise of his teammate’s
offensive skills.
The member of the trio who has gone
through the most turmoil is Sean May,
who missed most of last season with a
broken foot and then faced accusations
that his father had kept him from
returning to the team.
This season, the foot is healthy, and
his play this summer at Michael
Jordan’s summer camp, w'here McCants
and May were counselors, has McCants
excited.
“He destroyed every single big man
(at the Jordan camp),” McCants said.
“His ‘D’ is phenomenal.”
The Tar Heels were 7-2 w'hen May got
injured but finished the season 19-16,
showing how important May’s health is
to their success. To avoid another injury
and increase his agility, May lost 10
pounds in the off-season, going from
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2003
270 to 260.
“His quality is that he can run the
floor,” Melvin Scott said. “And that’s
what separates him from other big guys.”
There have been great UNC duos like
Jamison and Carter and Stackhouse and
Wallace.
But a trio with this much talent is
unprecedented, and the expectations
match the talent level.
Both of the aforementioned duos led
their team to the Final Four in their
sophomore seasons.
Felton, the best of this year’s sopho
mores, could be a top-five pick in the
2004 NBA Draft, but this year, he’s con
centrating on his Tar Heel legacy.
“The NBA is not in my mind right
now,” Felton said. “I’m just focusing on
this season and trying to lead my team
to many victories and, possibly, to the
Final Four."
It’s a bold goal, especially for a team
with so little postseason experience.
Said Williams, “There’s nobody on
our squad that’s ever played in the
freakin' NCAA Tournament.”
But he has three players who have the
talent to change that.
7