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"We're definitely getting a lot more media attention. (However) we realize all the love will be gone almost immediately if we're not winning. If we win, it'll only help us and our school...and the guys to come." — senior guard Brendan Plavich
Niner head coach Bobby Lutz, like any coach, is a man apt to speak in cliche and platitude on occasion, but he's nonetheless rather frank about where UNC-C's basketball program is today: on the cusp. On the outside looking in and on the inside looking out, all at the same time. They're making invitations to The Dance an annual event, but once the team arrives they're spending much of their time by the punch bowl, watching others twirl about before they make their early exit.
Lutz says the biggest key with this year's squad is that the players, perhaps more so than in years past, are willing to play whatever role is called for in order to help the team succeed. Expectations for the 49ers in this year's NCAA tournament are high — at press time, most people predicted a six- or seven-seed for the team — but Lutz feels his team has the makeup necessary to meet or even exceed them.
"We're not concerned with (popular acclaim) so much," says Lutz. "But our success has definitely opened doors for us, no doubt. I think (the players) also appreciate and understand that because our team is successful, they're being given all these individual accolades. It all comes from playing together as a team. It's nice to see that you can have a squad where nobody averages 20 points a game and that people can still appreciate what it is we do to win games."
Good teams — teams that consistently end up in the Sweet Sixteen, The Elite Eight, The Final Four — play together too, of course. However, teams like Illinois, Duke, and North Carolina can put up with a certain amount of freelancing from their star athletes. After all, when all things are equal, a close-knit, unselfish team with superior athletes is going to beat a close-knit, unselfish team with mediocre-to-good athletes every time. But how to get these superior athletes?
Getting there early counts for a lot. The Niners have — inexplicably — received an oral commitment from Maryland forward Michael Beasley, the number-two-ranked player in the 2007 high school graduating class. Beasley is consistently ranked second behind guard O.J. Mayo, a player so well thought of that he has LeBron James on speed dial and has been announcing his intentions to go pro ever since he entered high school. No doubt Beasley would be a boon to the program, but assuming he enrolls and doesn't go pro himself — and that's a pretty big assumption — would he end up doing more to harm the 49er team than help it, considering that he'd probably leave after another year or so? A Carolina, Duke, or Wake Forest can swallow the loss of a star player or two to the NBA much better than a program like Charlotte can, at least at this point. The sudden signing of star freshman forward Rodney White to the Detroit Pistons as a 2002 lottery pick set the team back for at least a year or two, even as the program managed to sign Basden and point guard Mitchell Baldwin — and Brendan Plavich as a transfer a year or two later — to help replace him.
Junior-college players like junior guard E. J. Drayton and transfers like Plavich are good for the bottom line, and — as long as they're not simply trying to use the school as a springboard for their post-college basketball careers — a solid way to bolster a school's recruiting class. Along with a strong grouping of high school athletes, they allow a team to create a long-term, on-court familiarity that some of the bigger-name schools with all their blink-and-you-miss-'em NBA prospects have a harder time creating.
"Coach got in contact with me pretty quick," says guard Brendan Plavich, a regular on ESPN's Sportscenter due to his penchant for shooting three pointers from what seems a few steps inside halfcourt. "I arrived in Charlotte real late, like 12 o'clock at night, and he was already at the hotel waiting for me. I knew then that he was a player's coach. He was just easy to talk to. And the style of play was a big draw. I knew shooters did well in the program — Diego Guevara and Jobey Thomas and guys like that — and I knew the style was 'up and down,' which I like to play.