Justin Watts spent nearly three years as his roommate and still hasn’t heard a word. In fact, no one on the entire North Carolina team — coach or player — has received any communication from former starting point guard Larry Drew II since he up and left in early February.
Good riddance.
If it weren’t for Drew’s departure, the Tar Heels wouldn’t be headed to the Sweet 16. They never would have been in position to hang on to beat Washington, 86-83, Sunday and advance to the NCAA tournament regional semifinals in Newark, N.J. They would have been back in the NIT.
“I guess you can say that,” Tar Heels freshman Harrison Barnes said.
“It was a blessing that Larry left,” admitted sophomore John Henson.
“I don’t think we’d be in this situation,” North Carolina guard Leslie McDonald added.
I know they wouldn’t be anything close to the team they’ve become.
This was a team headed in the direction of a second consecutive NIT appearance. There were the two losses in Puerto Rico back in November, and the setbacks against Illinois and Texas in the non-conference slate.
But it was the 20-point drubbing at Georgia Tech on Jan. 16 that had everyone ready to throw in the towel.
“I didn’t know where to go from there,” said Barnes, who looked completely lost the first half of his freshman year.
But that was actually the best thing that could have happened to the Tar Heels. It forced Roy Williams to finally make an overdue change in the starting lineup.
In came freshman Kendall Marshall. Out went Drew.
North Carolina proceeded to win the next four games. Everything was clicking and the Tar Heels looked like a legitimate Final Four team when they came into Chestnut Hill and pounded Boston College, 106-74, on Feb. 1.
Marshall was terrific and Drew had nine assists at BC, and was invaluable coming off the bench.
But days later, he bolted back home to California. Without telling a single one of his teammates.
Watts came back to a note in his apartment.
“He apologized and said he hoped I’d understand,” Watts said. “And (he) wished us good luck the rest of the season.”
The Tar Heels didn’t need luck. They needed chemistry and a pass-first point guard.
They got both in Marshall, who is averaging 7.7 assists per game since Jan. 18.
“That’s a point guard’s point guard,” Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said after watching Marshall dissect his Huskies for 13 points and 14 assists.
“He is a coaches’ dream,” added Romar. “He’s not concerned about the perception. He’s all about his team.”
With Marshall, Barnes has turned into the player that most anticipated when he was the first freshman ever to earn a spot on the APs Preseason All-American squad.
In the pre-Marshall Era, Barnes averaged just 11.7 points and was shooting 37 percent. Following his insertion into the starting lineup, Barnes has been one of the nation’s most dominant scorers, putting up 18.9 points while making 46.6 percent of his shots.
Junior 7-footer Tyler Zeller is getting easy looks that he only saw in his dreams back when Drew was in Chapel Hill.
And the locker room is, well, lively.
They are joking around with another, making fun of one another.
As a certain actor likes to say, these guys are winning.
Zeller had 23 points against the Huskies, Barnes added 22, Marshall and backcourt mate Dexter Strickland each had 13 and John Henson added 10 points and 10 boards.
These guys were having fun after their latest win. And don’t expect anyone to place a call out west to their former teammate.
One source said that multiple players on the Tar Heels team didn’t even have Drew’s number in their cell phones.
So, one move literally turned the entire season around in Chapel Hill. Somehow, North Carolina wound up winning the ACC regular-season title over Duke and earning a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament. The Tar Heels beat Long Island in their opening game and then got past a talented Washington team on Sunday afternoon.
Now they will head to Newark and face the Syracuse-Marquette winner with a trip to the Elite Eight on the line.
“At times, it looked very dark,” Barnes said. “But we kept working and even though we lost players along the way, we stuck together.”
Once Drew left without saying goodbye, the Tar Heels said hello to a brand new season.
