North Carolina has almost zero chance of beating Kansas and advancing to The Final Four.
Not if Kendall Marshall’s wrist stays unplayable.
Not if The Tar Heels look as dysfunctional as they did in Friday’s 73-65 overtime victory against No. 13 Ohio.
And certainly, not if Harrison Barnes plays that embarrassingly bad again.
Did I properly convey angst? If not, reread with breathy, angry inflection because freaking out seemed to be the accepted response to North Carolina not drilling Ohio en route to a date with Kansas in the Elite Eight. Being basketball royalty has a price. It is acceptable to be good, not lucky. Even Williams talked about feeling faint and needing a hug afterward.
Oddly enough, the only person not freaking out about was the perpetrator of the horrible, awful, embarrassingly bad game, Harrison Barnes, which is funny because he is the cause of like 99.9 percent of the angst.
He seemed mollified by scoring five of Carolina’s 10 points in overtime, and winning.
“Moments like these, getting to go to the Elite Eight instead of having regrets about what if—‘What if I had taken more shots? What if I had been more aggressive?’” Barnes said when I asked what enables him to keep shooting when most players cave. "I figure ‘go out there and leave it all out of the court and see what happens and deal with the consequences after.'"
The thing you have to wrap your brain around with Barnes is he is an NBA talent who has been great, phenomenal really at times, yet fails to live up to expectations because people want more from him.
More has yet to come, though, not for lack of trying.
If fact, the uglier things got against Ohio the more Barnes doubled down on himself. I do not know if I admire this trait or not, though, I lean toward admiration. He kept shooting—fade-away jumpers, driving runners, 3-pointers, crazy shots, easy shots, lots and lots of shots despite limited to almost zero success.
He airballed a 3-pointer at a critical juncture.
Nor were his shooting woes his biggest flaw. He had five turnovers, his biggest coming on the final play of regulation. The score was tied. Carolina was going for the win, and Ohio almost got it.
The play call was for Barnes was a clear out, get the clock down to six seconds or so then make a play. It was a disaster from the moment he started moving, the ball being knocked from his hands and into Bobcats guard D.J. Cooper’s. He just barely missed on a half-court heave for the win.
“He was 3 for 16, I think, and I was the one dumb enough to put the ball in the guy’s hands at the end of regulation,” Williams said, at his self-deprecating best, “because I felt like he could make a play.”
He was right. It was horribly dumb.
“If I had it to do over again, I’d put it in his hands again,” Williams said. “He is willing to try to make plays. Three for 16, and he’s still willing to try to make plays.”
Not everybody appreciates this about Barnes. Afterward, he was being called selfish and overrated, with former Kentucky great Rex Chapman tweeting he had no heart. His defenders were talking about his tattered confidence, how Williams has screwed him up and how coming to Carolina was a big mistake.
North Carolina seems to have a Harrison Barnes problem, unless of course you talk to Harrison Barnes.
I stood in front of this guy for 10 minutes in the post game locker room talking about his awful game and his mild redemption in overtime and why so many view him as a disappointment and how he views himself and mainly why even on his worst day he never stops shooting.
If he was crazy mad, he has an awesome poker face.
And if his confidence is in tatters, well, actually that is just simply not possible.
“I didn’t know numbers. Obviously, it was some terrible percentage,” he admitted, “but you got to make plays no matter. You got to keep playing.”
This seems really hard, what with confidence being such a big part of shooting and in a game when many players play scared, play not to screw up, play not to be a goat.
“For 99 percent of the basketball players, it is extremely hard,” Marshall said afterward. “When you have a player as special as him, you always believe that shot is going in and I think he feels the same way. Big-time players step up and make big-time plays in big-time games and that is what he did.”
I do not know if this is about Barnes being special or big-time. It seems more about how he is wired, which is not to get freaked out when things are going terribly wrong.
This makes him crucial on Sunday.
The chances of Marshall’s wrist being capable of playing seem small. He could barely clap on the bench Friday. “There was a couple of times when I got up and went to do it and I was like ‘Aaah, that kind of hurts,’” Marshall admitted. This is not to say he will not try, probably will, just that he is not likely to be a savior. And North Carolina has almost zero chance of beating Kansas and advancing to The Final Four if Marshall’s wrist stays injured and if the Tar Heels play like they did against Ohio and if Barnes is that embarrassingly awful yet again.
Yes, by all means, freak out.
Just know Harrison Barnes is not, and he believes that more everybody is waiting for is coming. Possibly Sunday. I tend to agree.
