DETROIT - The hill stretches "about a quarter-mile," according to North Carolina forward Ed Davis, and it snakes through the bowels of Ford Field from the court to the locker rooms. Merely walking up the grade strains the calves and the stamina of those who haven't just played a basketball game. So why was everyone in Carolina blue - coaches included - sprinting up the thing after Saturday's 83-69 national semifinal win against Villanova.
Because it was a race. Actually, it was a rematch.
Not satisfied with walloping nearly every opponent this season, the Tar Heels are so hypercompetitive that that even the act of leaving the court has morphed into a game almost as important as the one they've just finished playing. The long, sloping tunnel at Ford Field only adds more spice to the track meet.
After Carolina thumped its national title game opponent, Michigan State, here on Dec. 3, coach Roy Williams ripped through the handshake line and tore off the court. "Coach Williams won - but he cheated," assistant Joe Halladay said. "He got out because he shook hands first." Head start or no, the fact that the 58-year-old Williams dusted his late teen and 20-something charges is pretty impressive.
So, after the Tar Heels dispatched Villanova on Saturday and Williams promised another charge up the hill during an interview with CBS, Carolina players took their marks. Guard Bobby Frasor was the rabbit, but he could sense the herd behind him. "I was leading everybody, then I saw them sprinting from behind me," Frasor said. "That put me into a different gear. I got back here first. I was out of breath, though."
That Frasor won Saturday shouldn't come as a surprise. He also led the Tar Heels in offensive rebounds with five in 19 minutes. On a night when Carolina's big men struggled with boxing out and with foul trouble, the 6-foot-3 Frasor stepped in and filled a need because, just like on the hill, he refused to be beaten.
That may be the critical difference between the 2009 Tar Heels and the ones who fell behind by 28 in the first half of a national semfinal loss against Kansas last year. To borrow a line from USC football coach Pete Carroll, they always compete. Naturally, they aren't always at the top of their games, but if everyone is competitive enough to turn the trip back to the locker room into the Boston Marathon, it's a safe bet someone will step forward to gut out an offensive rebound or poke away an entry pass.
