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NEW ORLEANS – It is one of the more famous scenes from the movie Hoosiers.
As Hickory High’s team walked into the cavernous gym a day before its surprise appearance in the Indiana state championship game, set in 1952, the players looked around in astonishment at the size of the 10,000 seat arena.
Actor Gene Hackman, playing the role of Hickory Coach Norman Dale, had one of his players get on the shoulders of another, and using a tape measure, had him hold it at the rim, while the rest stretched to the floor.
“Ten feet,” the player said, to which Dale replied, “I think you’ll find this is the exact same measurement as our gym back in Hickory.”
The players collectively exhaled, smiled, and relaxed.
It was okay. Basketball was basketball, no matter the venue, because the court and baskets are the same everywhere.
North Carolina released a clip on its Twitter handle Thursday afternoon of the Tar Heels walking onto the court before their first practice at the Superdome, site of the Final Four, in which UNC will face Duke on Saturday. And one of the clips showed sophomore guard Caleb Love looking around and mouthing, “Wow,” as he slowly turned gazing at the enormity of the mammoth building.
“It's surreal being here,” Love said Friday during a breakout interview at the Superdome. “Like I told them earlier, I'm just taking it all in, soaking it all in. I'm just grateful to be here. Watching the Final Four growing up, it's crazy that I am actually playing in it.”
The Superdome most certainly is huge, much more so than any of these players have ever experienced as athletes. So, shooting in it might be a challenge, at least that is what conventional wisdom suggests.
The depth perception is unlike anywhere the players have shot the ball before. Or is it? Brady Manek drew a correlation to something most everyone has done in their life, including each member of the Tar Heels.
“If you never shot outside the driveway with the wind blowing, and you miss it and it rolls down the street, you haven't really shot a basketball,” Manek said. “So, I don't think it will be too big of a problem for us.”
As simple as that sounds, it does require some adjusting for the players, one of several reasons the NCAA added a day to the long weekend for the teams that are here.
They used to arrive on Thursdays and pack in one open practice and all of the media demands, which are considerable, into one day, the Friday before the Final Four. But teams now get a full closed practice Thursday before the open one Friday.
“It was definitely a different court, different arena,” UNC sophomore guard RJ Davis said. “But at the same time, I'm still learning and getting a hang of things on the court. I'll get another feel for it today, so right now I’m on the right path.”
Carolina Coach Hubert Davis didn’t feel any need to have anyone measure the height of the rims or anything, because he doesn’t see it as much of an issue.
Playing inside the equally massive RCA Dome in Indianapolis in 1991, Davis went off as a junior for the Tar Heels in their Final Four loss to Kansas. He scored 25 points on 9-for-16 shooting from the floor, including 2-for-4 from three-point range.
He has been-there, done-that, but his players haven’t. Yet, the rookie Carolina coach isn’t concerned.
“A number of people have talked about depth perception and the sight lines,” Hubert Davis said. “I'm just not there. Just give me a basketball, two baskets and let's shoot. So, I don't buy into it's a big arena, the depth perception, the sight lines.
“I don't know what the background is. Just shoot the ball. And if it goes in, it goes in. If you miss, you miss. Let's just play basketball.”
An equalizer is that the building and any intricacies about shooting a basketball inside it are the same for both teams. Duke also doesn’t have anyone on the roster that has ever played in a dome, and neither has Kansas or Villanova, the other two teams in New Orleans.
If the Tar Heels don’t shoot well, it is because sometimes that happens, and they likely won’t give any excuses. If they are red-hot, then the myth is nothing more than just that.
