By Caulton Tudor
Raleigh News & Observer
This season is beginning to strike an eerie resemblance to 2004-05 for North Carolina’s basketball team.
That team, Roy Williams’ second after leaving Kansas, won a national championship. His 2008-09 team is four difficult games away from duplicating that achievement.
With a late-season mishap to a key player ó Ty Lawson’s injured toe now, Rashad McCants’ intestinal inflammation then ó the parallels are uncanny:
– The ’05 team won the early-season Maui Invitational by beating a team from the Midwest (Iowa) in the title game. The ’09 team won the same event by beating a team from the Midwest (Notre Dame) in the championship.
– In ’05, the Tar Heels were handed a surprising loss at Wake Forest on Jan. 15. This season, the Heels lost at Wake on Jan. 11
– Kentucky lost to the ’05 team in Chapel Hill by 13 points. Kentucky lost this season in the Smith Center by 19.
– The ’05 team, with McCants ailing, lost in its second game of the ACC Tournament. The ’09 team lost in its second ACC Tournament game, with Lawson inactive.
– In ’05, the team started its NCAA Tournament run in Charlotte. This season, it was Greensboro.
– Primary perimeter shooter McCants went on a late-season scoring binge, much like current marksman Wayne Ellington has produced of late.
– A lean, long exceptionally talented freshman, Marvin Williams, was the key sub in ’05. Near-copy Ed Davis works that role now.
There are some differences between the two teams, obviously. The ’05 team piled up a ton of assists (706) but also committed 594 turnovers. Coach Williams’ ’09 team is much more careful with a more acceptable 432 turnovers through 34 games.
But straight through the personnel composition, the correlation is inescapable.
The dominant post player was Sean May (NCAA Tournament most outstanding player), an award Tyler Hansbrough would like to have to punctuate his college career.
Right big toe aside, there’s little to choose between Raymond Felton, the ’05 playmaker, and Lawson. Felton averaged 12.9 points and 6.9 assists in 36 games. Lawson averages 16.1 points and 6.5 assists over 31 games.
Forward Jawad Williams, a senior in ’05, produced more offense than Deon Thompson this season, but the roles are similar.
Soon after the ’05 run ended with a 75-70 win over Illinois in the title game in St. Louis, a wave of underclassmen left the program for the NBA ó Felton, May, McCants and Marvin Williams.
Whether this team wins it all or not, Lawson and Ellington are likely to leave after their junior seasons, and Davis might have to give it a long look. In the Marvin Williams mold, Davis would be a high first-round draft pick.
Were the two teams to play with everyone in sound health, I’d pick the ’09 team for a couple of reasons.
For one thing, the ’09 group is slightly better on offense. But perhaps of more importance, the current team is entirely motivated ó the upshot of last season’s Final Four debacle against Kansas. The ’05 team was coming off a 19-11 record and actually caught a few opponents by surprise early. That group was never ranked No. 1 in the national polls.
Roy Williams was an assistant on Dean Smith’s staff in 1981-82, when Carolina won the national championship in New Orleans one season after a 63-50 loss to Indiana in the NCAA title game. That ’82 team, led by James Worthy, displayed an unwavering resolve throughout the season, as have the ’09 players.
All of this and fistful of dollars can score you a cup of coffee at a fancy shop, of course. Gonzaga’s players probably don’t know a thing about UNC’s karma. It’s for sure they could not care less on Friday night in Memphis.
Or, as 1992-93 Carolina leader George Lynch said at another New Orleans Final Four, “The only way what happened in 1982 could help us now is if they’d let us play Michael Jordan and James Worthy again.”
Lynch was correct, and that ’93 team made its own mark winning it all. But if nothing else, the ’05 and ’09 similarities are interesting.