GLENDALE, ARIZ. — Redemption. Finally, sweet, sweet redemption.It’s what this North Carolina men’s basketball team has preached all season long, in interviews with the public and text messages to one another: Get back to Monday night. Only this time, don’t leave empty-handed.And with a 71-65 ...
GLENDALE, ARIZ. — The seniors on this North Carolina men’s basketball team, like all those who have come before then, say they don’t talk about it.
GLENDALE, ARIZ. — Everything was hitting Kennedy Meeks at once: the sweat droplets splashing his cheeks, the stray shouts and steady boos from a green-and-yellow-clad army of Oregon fans inside University of Phoenix Stadium — but maybe more than anything else, the magnitude of this moment.
GLENDALE, ARIZ. — There’s big, and then there’s these two.
GLENDALE, ARIZ. — Early Saturday morning, somewhere in the Kimpton Hotel Palamar Phoenix Cityscape, Kennedy Meeks rolled over in bed.
Most of you will probably recognize my stories better than my face or my name.
Rewind back to that moment: How, in the midst of a funnel of navy blue shirts and with an entire orchestra of boos serenading the North Carolina men’s basketball team, the most unlikely of players found himself with the ball.
MEMPHIS — The checklist is lengthy, of everything the North Carolina men’s basketball team brings on its road trips: Kennedy Meeks’ favorite pair of UGG boots, for instance, or Nate Britt’s extra earrings. They’re frills, sure, but anything to make a hotel room feel more like home. It makes sense, then, that Joel Berry and Theo Pinson would bring their own piece of home whenever the team travels.
MEMPHIS — They announced his arrival in grandiose fashion, making a marvel of his entrance after his marvel of a performance. Or, something like that. Sort of.
Think about everything going on in that moment: siren blaring, thousands of butts rising all at once out of thousands of seats, a parade of pom-poms ruffling on the sidelines — and yet, the most important thing was a teensy, tiny little poke.
