Chansky’s Notebook: Picture This!

The famous Superdome picture is now 29 years old.

Very early in his first season as Carolina’s new head coach, Hubert Davis told a small group of UNC athletic sponsors that his staff had placed a picture of the Superdome in each player’s locker before the first day of practice.

The picture represented the long-term goal of reaching the Final Four in New Orleans. Few people realized, or remembered, that Davis’ first mentor, Dean Smith, had done the same thing before the 1993 season. But there was a difference in each move.

Smith had painstakingly put together what would eventually become his second national championship team, anchored by senior forward George Lynch and junior center Eric Montross, plus junior point guard Derrick Phelps and junior small forward Brian Reese along with sophomore marksman Donald Williams, the MVP of that Final Four after wins over Kansas and Michigan.

Davis, on the other hand, was not only in his rookie year as head coach of the program he has worshipped for most of his life, he did not have the fine-tuned machine Smith had built in ‘92-93. Several starters remained but the departures would be profound.

When his team was 12-6 in January, Hubert said he thought his maiden Tar Heels could get much better. “I wasn’t sure what it would look like, but I believed we could be a good team,” he said Thursday during his first press conference from New Orleans.

He had faith, both spiritually and athletically, that the new pieces and returning parts could fit together and improve as the season wore on, and now he is emphasizing to his team “what is real” more than what hung in their lockers six months ago.

In reflecting on the journey, Davis said his guys weren’t playing with the emotion he wanted early in the season, perhaps because they were still trying to figure it out under their rookie head coach. He wanted them to always play with “energy, effort and toughness.” They weren’t and were deservedly criticized.

He knew members of the media had disparaged his team for lacking toughness but added he couldn’t be mad at anyone who said that because they were right. “But they can’t say that now.”

We can’t even picture it.

Featured image via Associated Press/Jack Thornell

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