Lucas: Steadfast

By Adam Lucas

"The meaning of steadfast," Hubert Davis told his team on Saturday before they faced Ohio State, "is immovable."

The Tar Heel head coach had watched a sermon earlier in the morning about the importance of being steadfast. As he relayed the message to his team, he wanted them to understand there would likely be some adversity at some point on Saturday, and they'd need to be immovable when it happened.

"The example the pastor used was a video I have shown the team about a football gunner and how tough that job is," Davis said on the Tar Heel Sports Network after the 71-70 win over Ohio State. "You're going to get hit. You're going to get knocked down. But you have to make that tackle. That's what today was. There were ups. There were downs. We got knocked down. And these are great moments, when you have to step up and make a play."

There were ups: Seth Trimble returned and scored 17 points, Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar both had double-doubles, the UNC bench outscored Ohio State 15-0.

There were downs: Carolina went just 7-for-13 from the free throw line. The Tar Heels watched a 10-point lead with nine minutes remaining evaporate in approximately eight minutes.

They got knocked down: Or rather, they knocked the Buckeyes down. Specifically, while holding a one-point lead with under a minute to play, they knocked down OSU's John Mobley while he was shooting a three-pointer. The shot went in, Mobley hit the free throw, and suddenly the Buckeyes had a three-point lead with 48.7 seconds left in the game.

What was it that Davis said? "Those are great moments, when you have to step up and make a play."

It is rather unlikely that the majority of the Carolina fan base considered it to be a great moment when Mobley swished that free throw. It very easily could have been a game-deciding play. This particular team refused to let that happen.

The next 48.7 seconds were just about perfect. Rather than panicking and hoisting a three-pointer to tie the game, the Heels took what was available. As was often the case on Saturday afternoon, that meant Trimble—who played 36 minutes in his return—driving to the basket and scoring with 33.6 seconds left.

"We needed a quick basket," Trimble said on the THSN. "We had drawn up a play that could get us a three. But we knew we had more than enough time to settle for a quick two, and that's what I did."

Timeout, Tar Heels.

One-point deficit, half a minute to go. Time to make some more plays.

The Heels put Wilson on the inbounder and let Jonathan Powell and Jarin Stevenson roam the wings. That made them tall and athletic in the backcourt, and when Ohio State inbounded it to seven-foot Christoph Tilly, Wilson and Powell instantly swarmed him. He shoveled it to Mobley, who dribbled into some trouble as his teammates left him to deal with Powell, Wilson and Stevenson. Nearing a 10-second violation, he flung the ball towards midcourt, where Trimble deflected it. Now the 10-second call was imminent, so Colin White simply hurled the ball towards the frontcourt.

No problem. Stevenson, who just a moment earlier had been at the opposite free throw line, raced three-quarters of the court to steal the pass. Had he loafed even half a second, the pass could have led to an improbable layup. Davis said he wanted positional size on this year's team. You know, like a 6-foot-10 guy who doesn't pout about his shooting struggles, so he's still on the floor to reach up and make a game-saving play.

"Our defense created a ton of havoc on that play," Trimble said. "You could tell by the way they were scrambling."

Now it's another Carolina timeout, another chance to make a play. While Ohio State was probably picturing Pete Nance in their nightmares, Carolina got the ball again to Trimble. And even though he fell, he still had enough presence of mind to drop the ball to Henri Veesaar for a dunk. In some ways, the slip might have actually helped the pass go through, because it drew the defense to him and created some space under the basket.

"I didn't mean to fall," Trimble said, "but that pass would've gotten there, whether I was on my feet or off my feet."

And then it came down to one stop. With 4.4 seconds left, Ohio State inbounded the ball in front of their bench. The Tar Heels played it perfectly, and when Mobley might otherwise have had an open look at a deep three-pointer, he instead had to shoot it over Stevenson. It was a very well executed defensive sequence…until Carolina allowed an offensive rebound.

Sometimes you have to execute perfectly. And sometimes you just need to have an athletic marvel on your team, as Wilson swooped in and blocked a last-second follow opportunity to preserve the win.

"It was all about execution on both ends of the floor," Davis said. "We had to execute in that last minute. And we were able to do that on both offense and defense."

In those final 45 seconds, the Heels looked like a veteran team with a high basketball IQ that was very well prepared. It was vintage Carolina executing flawlessly in the final minute, stealing the game from an opponent that thought it had the game won. They didn't play perfectly or maybe even all that well in some areas of the game (Carolina shot below 30 percent from three in the game and 3-for-6 from the free throw line in the second half), but they made every single play they had to make in the closing minute.

It was, yes, steadfast.

"It was," Davis said, "a beautiful game."

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Jonathan Powell

Jarin Stevenson

Seth Trimble

Henri Veesaar

Caleb Wilson

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