UNC moves past NIT year

Moral victories just won’t cut it anymore. Not for a school that has been to the Final Four 18 times. Not for a coach already enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Not for a rabid fanbase two years removed from a national championship.

That was a lesson the players of the North Carolina men’s basketball team learned the hard way last year.

All the members of last year’s NIT runner-up squad know that this year must not resemble last season’s record. They know that second place in the NIT, maybe a moral victory at other schools, is an embarrassment at UNC.

“Last year wasn’t fun for anybody,” junior point guard Larry Drew II said. “Coaches, players, I feel like the whole state of North Carolina, nobody had a good time.”

The season’s failure left a bad taste in the mouth of coach Roy Williams, who failed to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time during his tenure at UNC.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to forget what happened last year,” Williams said. “I don’t think I’m ever going to put it out of my mind.”

But how does a team with no scholarship seniors rebound from a disastrous season? The answer may depend on whom you ask.

Drew, whom much of the blame for last season centered on after the Tar Heels finished last in the ACC in turnover margin, used the offseason to work around the clock on improving in the gym.

“With so much negativity, you just try to find a silver lining,” Drew said. “For me, it was just getting in the gym and just making a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to go through that again.”

Sophomore John Henson points to something a little more intangible. The power forward believes the team will benefit from improved chemistry.

“I think we’re just a lot closer in age, and we made that an emphasis to kind of do things together and always be together and work out together,” Henson said. “That’s something we made a conscious effort to improve.”

Disappointed in his team’s toughness last season, Williams brought back a conditioning program from 1981 with which he used to test the likes of Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins.

Williams also pointed to an increase in his team’s ability to put the ball in the basket. The Tar Heels ranked second-to-last in the conference in field goal percentage and seventh in scoring offense when playing ACC opponents.

Williams’ team frequently ranked among the top offensive units in the league and the country. But scoring should rise with the addition of three high-profile freshman, including preseason All-American Harrison Barnes.

“We have an ability to score,” Williams said. “Coaches love to talk about diving on the floor and drawing charges, but that thing that hangs from the ceiling or is attached to the wall up there is called a scoreboard, and we couldn’t score.”

All those improvements sound great in writing, but for Henson, the hard work manifested itself in August during the Tar Heels’ basketball excursion to the Bahamas.

“There were times in the Bahamas when I was sitting on the bench and I was watching this and we hit like three or four threes and a couple layups, so that kind of brought me back to how Carolina plays,” he said.

But as the season approaches, the pressure to rectify last season increases exponentially.

“There’s probably going to be more pressure this year, because we got to prove something this year,” sophomore Leslie McDonald said. “We found that little bond together and we feel like with us working together and us doing stuff together, we’re going to take this challenge.”