Here in Chapel Hill, during basketball season, the motto has always been that championships are won by playing “The Carolina Way.”

A phrase coined by legendary coach and hall of famer Dean Smith, “The Carolina Way” came to be revered as a national model for how to run a successful college basketball program. Players came to school to stay in school. They played for the name on the front of the jersey, not the one on the back. Championship teams were built with integrity over the long haul. The legends knew they would be revered as local heroes forever.

The national title-clinching jumper by a freshman named Michael Jordan, Eric Montross going to the foul line with blood flowing down his forehead, Danny Green soaring over Greg Paulus for a dunk that silenced Cameron Indoor; they’re all moments that are etched in Tar Heel lore, but moments that feel oh so long ago.

The game simply doesn’t work that way anymore. Times have changed.  Nowhere will that be more evident than noon-time this Saturday at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky.

Heard of this guy? (hoyabasketball.com)

Heard of this guy? (hoyabasketball.com)

The instituting of the NBA’s age limit kicked off the “one and done” era of college hoops, and no school has used that rule to their advantage as much as coach John Calipari’s Kentucky Wildcats. A revolving door for the top prospects in the nation year in and year out, Kentucky is not a college basketball team. They are a professional basketball factory that churns out NBA players on an assembly line. These guys come to campus to become all-stars, not scholars, and certainly not college heroes.

This season, on the way to the top national ranking and an unblemished 10-0 record, the Wildcats have demolished opponents by an average of 30 points a game, with nobody coming closer than 10 points. Analysts can’t stop gushing about their “platoon system.” Five guys come in and five guys come out every four minutes. Of their ten rotation players, nine were high-school All-Americans. Only one player is smaller than 6’6”. Their coach claims they don’t have substitutions, just reinforcements. With a national title in 2012 and an appearance in the championship game just last season, Kentucky has proven to the nation that, for better or for worse, titles these days seem to come “The Kentucky Way.”

Five Kentucky players check in (Kentucky.com)

Five Kentucky players check in (Kentucky.com)

The Tar Heels (6-2) will come in to this matchup as huge underdogs, just like Rocky Balboa against Ivan Drago in Rocky IV.  Rocky went into the fight as the champ, but he was past his prime and on the down-side of his career. Carolina will arrive in Lexington with a great past filled with history and championships, but also not quite at its peak.

Kentucky, on the other hand, comes in looking like a mirror image of Drago, a beefed-up super-human ready to crush anything in its path.

Rocky and Drago served as symbols for the United States and the Soviet Union, much as UNC and Kentucky each represent their own “way” of program-building. With the tides already beginning to shift in college basketball, Calipari and his boys are looking to validate their methods by making a statement against a Tar Heel squad that has looked shaky in recent weeks. Don’t be surprised if you catch UK’s 7 foot center Willie Cauley-Stein staring down Kennedy Meeks at tip-off by saying “I must break you.”

How Kentucky has looked so far this year (MGM)

How Kentucky has looked so far this year (MGM)

UNC coach Roy Williams came away from his team’s loss last week to Iowa in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge questioning his players’ effort level. Players lazily went through the motions on offense, often times stopping to watch as Marcus Paige hoisted yet another contested jumper from deep. Shot after shot clanged off the rim en route to shooting below 30 percent. While Coach Williams has also proclaimed this to be one of the best offensive rebounding squads he’s ever had, it’s become very clear to opponents that outside shooting is this team’s Achilles (Tar)Heel. There just simply isn’t enough shooting talent on this team.

The battle on the boards becomes crucial if Carolina’s outside shooting woes continue.  Forward Brice Johnson, coming off a 19-point, 17-rebound performance in a win over East Carolina, will need to find a way to crash the offensive glass for put-backs against a much larger Wildcat frontcourt. Even with his offseason weight-loss, Kennedy Meeks’ stamina will be seriously tested against the platoon system, so it may become crucial for UNC to find another source of rebounding off the bench, such as Joel James or Isaiah Hicks.

Marcus Paige has often struggled creating space against big guards like Kentucky’s Andrew and Aaron Harrison, however, he remains the Tar Heels’ only respectable threat from the three-point line to this point in the season.  It remains to be seen what kind of consistent offensive contributions will come from freshmen Justin Jackson and Theo Pinson, but as defenses continue to pack the paint and force UNC to shoot from outside, any production they provide from outside could be the key to not only this game, but the entire rest of the season.

 

Brice Johnson reacts with Joel James against ECU (Todd Melet)

Brice Johnson reacts with Joel James against ECU (Todd Melet)

At a time when it’s clear that college basketball has changed forever, this game between two of the top three winningest programs of all-time will be a portrait of two different eras, the old and the new. Kentucky will play at home as heavy favorites against a Carolina team that has been plagued not only by effort and the recent academic scandal, but also by a refusal to make changes to its sacred “Carolina Way.”

Even Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski has adapted his style of recruiting to appeal to “one and done” type prospects in order to re-enter the national title competition after long refusing to change his own program’s once sacred ways.

The truth is, though, as we all remember, Rocky beat Ivan Drago. When he did, he won the support of the Russian crowd by declaring, in that thick Sylvester Stallone voice, that “If I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!”

For the Tar Heels to rise from their recent dark spot, they may just need to take a lesson from the Champ. It may be time for Carolina to change its Way.

 

Game Notes: UNC won last year’s meeting 82-77 at the Smith Center, and holds a 23-13 lead in the all-time series between the two teams. UNC has been to 18 Final Fours (most all-time), while UK has been to 15 (T-3rd all-time). Kentucky has the most wins in college basketball history, while Carolina is 3rd on that list.