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Life on the Other Side: "They're Good"

December 11, 2003

Life on the other side.

Ten years ago, a walk at night on Franklin Street with former UNC Basketball player Scott Cherry, would display a confident player with long arms slinging a Subway sandwich in one hand and holding a Jumbo sized Pepsi in the other, while reciting lyrics from EPMD and A Tribe Called Quest at the drop of a dime.

Ten years later before last Sunday's game, the walk on Franklin Street displayed a different Scott Cherry. As Assistant Coach of George Mason Men's Basketball, Scott Cherry walked down the street pondering the upcoming game against his alma mater UNC. The walk had a different feel, the lyrics of "The Green-Eyed Bandit" had changed to the "coachspeak" comments of: "I just hope we can keep it close" and "I hope we come out ready to play."

Cherry's concerns were justified. His players were about to face a UNC team with four potential pros and ready to bang on an undermanned George Mason team all day long. Not only that, but a lot of memories were racing through his mind last weekend. The last time Cherry had walked onto the Smith Center floor. He left the home tunnel at the Smith Center to a full-house home crowd that was ready for his Senior game against Duke in 1993. This visit to the Smith Center would not be as warm.

Cherry has been back swimming in the waters of NCAA Men's Basketball for four years. After spending two years at George Mason and last season at Tennessee Tech, Cherry returned to George Mason this year as one of the Head Assistants under Coach Jim Larranaga.

When Larranaga approached Cherry about the possibility of scheduling a game with Carolina this past summer, it started a whirlwind of excitement that lasted all summer and fall for Cherry, who would be making his first return to the Smith Center as a coach. The excitement soon culminated with a pre-game huddle that gave him a feel for what life is like on the other side of the tunnel.

"It's funny, everything was cool in the visitor's tunnel, until the fight song came on. Real quickly, I said to myself that I was in the wrong tunnel. Looking back it was kind of strange."

A lot of the tension has been removed from Coach Cherry's voice when thinking about the past weekend's game. The thoughts from the George Mason camp are positive in a lot of areas, George Mason gave a stunning performance in the first half, leading the Heels 49-47 at the half. Despite the 68 point inferno his team allowed Carolina in the second half, Cherry was more amazed by how good Carolina played in the game rather than being disappointed about GMU's weaknesses.

"Defensively, we played well..We got really good looks at the basket. We did score when we wanted to on the help side. But they get high percentage shots, they pass well, they execute, and they're playing their roles. They're getting exactly what they're looking for off the secondary break...they're really good."

As a point guard playing between 1989-93 and playing behind King Rice and Derrick Phelps, Cherry had to learn the ins and outs of the Carolina system to grab any morsel of time that was available on teams that were loaded with McDonald's and Parade All-Americans. Working behind Phelps, he became an expert on Carolina's patented secondary break, a set that added a tremendous facet to Coach Smith's uptempo offense and pressure defenses throughout the years.

As Cherry pondered a bit on how Carolina was able to get easy shots off the break during the early 90's, he commented on elements of the secondary break of the current Carolina system, and why he thinks this team is so good.

"You don't really see the secondary break exactly run the way we did back then, and you see people running variations of it. Coach Brown runs variations of it in Detroit. Coach Lebo and Coach Peterson run it in their systems. As for Carolina right now, it's there big-time.

"Coach Williams runs it little differently, but it runs really great. They reverse the ball back, and there are ball screens...It puts guys into situations where they can shoot, and you also see a ton of screens to get guys open. They're getting great shots now. Felton finds guys in transition similar to Derrick Phelps and Ed Cota, and Sean May gets any inside shot that he wants. It's fun to watch."

After Sunday's game, I walked with Coach Cherry, his wife Cortney, and his family up the hill of Bowles Drive with the Smith Center to our backs. As with any walk after a loss, the walk was a mellow push up hill that was filled with discussion of what might have happened if one of their leading shooters, Lamar Butler, hadn't injured his foot.

The talk also turned to crowd reactions. "You know it's loud in there...When you go to other arenas, they berate and scream at you...In there (Smith Center) it's different, people know the game. It's just classy in there. You kind of forget that when you go to other arenas..."

As the walk continued up the Hill, Cherry then reflected back to the early minutes of the second half. He paused, and stopped mid-sentence. Perhaps he realized the thought was futile. He began to look back at the Smith Center while shaking his head and muttered with a chuckle. "They're good man...They're good..."

Life on the other side.

BD

Bret Dougherty is a UNC-Chapel Hill alum and current graduate student at UNC-Chapel Hill. Bret is a co-host of WXYC SportsRap (9 PM Sundays on FM 89.3 & www.wxyc.org). He also has a SoulGroove music show on Wednesday mornings from 6-8 AM on WXYC. His area of study is "The Revitalization of Public Spaces".

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