HOUSTON — As I write this, we’re somewhere in the sky above Texas.
At least, I think it’s Texas. Because the trip should be about over, and the clouds are much bigger outside the window now than they were when we took off in St. Louis — that’s how everything works in the Lone Star State, right?
Since you’ve got to pay for Wi-Fi on this particular Southwest Airlines flight, and since my partner in crime, Sports Editor Pat James, is dozing on the flight after staying up late last night preparing our Final Four preview, I’ve had a lot of time to just sit here and think.
Obviously, my mind has wandered to Marcus Paige and the 2016 North Carolina men’s basketball team.
That’s why we’re flying to Houston, after all — to try and continue telling the story of these players as they take another step closer to becoming one of those teams you and your children and your children’s children will never forget.
(By the way, we are in Texas, the pilot just said that we’re about to start making our descent.)
It’s surreal for me to think back on my first day as a member of the sports desk of The Daily Tar Heel back in the fall of 2012. When Paige was the scrawny point guard who wasn’t going to live up to what Kendall Marshall did. And Brice Johnson? Who’s that again?
I remember then-Sports Editor Brandon Moree asking all of us at orientation what we wanted to write about during our time here. Back then my biggest goal was simply to cover a few baseball games.
That isn’t to slight the baseball team, by any means. They’re currently the No. 10 team in the country. But you go to school here in Chapel Hill — you don’t need me to tell you this place revolves around basketball.
