INDIANAPOLIS – All throughout North Carolina’s often-disappointing, always-confounding regular-season, Brendan Haywood was the center of attention. The 7-foot, 264-pound junior wasn’t just the Tar Heels’ biggest player, but their biggest scapegoat. The demanding UNC fans expected him to dominate every team every night, and they let him hear about it when it didn’t happen.
They never forgot or forgave his one-point, no-rebound performance in last year’s NCAA first-round upset loss to Weber State, and held it over his head as he struggled through the early parts of this season. But it was his recent surge in this year’s tourney that powered eighth-seeded North Carolina’s shocking run into last night’s Final Four nightcap with Florida at the RCA Dome, and quieted even his most vocoiferous critics.
“I’m the type of person the criticism never bothered me,” Haywood shrugged. “I was so used to it after what happened in the Weber State game, the criticism people tried to put on me all summer long, that the criticism we received this year was nothing. It was light.
“So I got used to it, I just rolled with the punches. I just keep going. I’m just glad we could shut up a lot of people that were saying so many negative things about us.”
Oh, and there were plenty of people saying plenty of negative things, especially when the Tar Heels – who are the only team in the land to start five McDonald’s All-Americans and who climbed as high as second in the AP poll – bottomed out at an unranked 18-13 after a stunning first-round loss to Wake Forest in the ACC Tourney.
Fans booed them off the floor, they ranted about coach Bill Guthridge being outmatched, they complained of the slow-footed Tar Heels’ sieve-like defense. But most of all, they spewed venom at Haywood, a Greensboro native son who struggled early on this season.
In his first 10 games of the season, he averaged 11.7 points and just five rebounds; in the 25 games since, he’d averaged 14.0 points and 8.4 rebounds – including 14.8 points, 9.0 boards and three blocks in the NCAAs leading up to last night’s clash with the Gators. And the player many ripped and called soft led the nation in field-goal percentage at 69.3 percent, with a career mark of 65.5 that is the best in ACC history.
“Everything’s picked up; our offense is moving so much better, we’re getting better ball movement, I’m posting harder, everything’s just coming together. Offensively we’re executing and our defense is great,” said Haywood, who has shown much better chemistry playing the two-man game with senior point guard Ed Cota.
After having had the luxury of passing to Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison for two years, Cota has adjusted to Haywood’s game. And while the light-hearted Haywood has taken the high road about the heat he’s taken from the UNC fans, his teammates are more blunt.
“Everybody blamed him, like it was all his fault,” said senior guard Terrence Newby. “People think because he’s bigger than everyone else, he should dominate. That’s not fair; he can’t do everything.”
True enough, but he has been able to make his teammates better; or at least more effective, with his post play opening up the perimeter. Until this year, Haywood had a history of wilting in the NCAA Tourney, with only seven points total in six career games, the last being that Weber State meltdown. But in the Tar Heels’ 84-70 first-round win over Missouri two weeks ago, he broke out with a career-high 28 points and 15 rebounds.
He’s faced constant double-teams and junk defenses in every game since then, creating space for his other teammates to work on the perimeter. It’s no coincidence freshman guard Joseph Forte, who’d been averaging 16.2 points on 45.5 percent shooting, has gotten free for a team-high 22.3 points on 54.5 percent shooting in the Tar Heels’ next three wins.
“As far as [Forte] leading the team in scoring, I think he certainly owes that to Brendan Haywood, and the way other teams play Brendan,” said Guthridge.
“It means a lot to him, especially with all the criticism he’s taken this year. A lot of people [doubted him],” Haywood said. “Look at the fact he’s in two Final Fours in three years; [he] looks like a pretty good coach to me.”
