Four seasons ago, Carolina's senior class arrived on the college basketball scene like a brazen punk band. They were The Clash. They were The Ramones. They were the Sex Pistols. They were freshmen, who everyone doubted. The 2005 championship team was gone, except for David Noel, Reyshawn Terry, and Quentin Thomas. This team played hard every night. They crashed the boards and played defense because they didn't realize yet how talented they were. They didn't realize that in Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green they had the foundations of an offensive juggernaut. They played hard because they had to play hard for anyone to notice. Movements in music and basketball just don't happen. People make them happen with sweat and fire. Movements also die and disperse when the adrenaline of what's new wears off. Punk kicks rock and roll in the ass, and then it becomes new wave music, and bands filled with gasoline and raw spit become The Police. They're nice to listen to, but they lack the same grit. They seem too exposed and worldly. Good punk bands are kegs of dynamite; they are explosives trapped in their local music scenes, and when they break out, it's chaos, a punch to the gut, a transformation of what was through pain. Bands like The Police don't break through with that same intensity.
Right now, the North Carolina basketball team is The Police, or any supergroup, that eventually crumbles under the weight of the world's and their own expectations, or at least, that's what they've appeared to be since they took finals at the end of the fall semester. Since then, they've looked more vulnerable and dropped two conference games. Now, they're a band trying to rediscover their earlier sound. They're trying to rediscover what made them successful in the first place. They're trying to go back to the start. The only problem is the bands that stay successful are hungry for the future, not the past. It's the difference between Pearl Jam's Pearl Jam and Guns 'n Roses Chinese Democracy. Pearl Jam's Pearl Jam is a band moving forward with the hunger of a new purpose, to comment on the struggles and pain that bind everyone, to peel back the avocado, until there is only a pit of truth. Chinese Democracy is a forced effort to be relevant again.
Carolina, starting with tonight's game against Clemson, will reveal the core of who it is, its pit of truth. Is this team The Police, a collection of talent that will break under the pressures of its own egos and their failures to compromise? Is this team Guns 'n Roses, a band who was always more flash than substance? Or is this team Pearl Jam, a team that ducks #1 rankings and accolades to carve its own path into history?
Whatever this team is, I hope they figure it out soon. I hope the second half against Miami, where Tywon Lawson buckled down to play defense and Wayne Ellington lit up the scoreboard are signs of things to come. I hope their actions in that game were done for their teammates as much as for themselves. This team has got to play for one another and no one else, including the fans. Hopefully, the losses they've suffered so far this season reminded them of who they're fighting for--each other.
2 comments:
I think the Clash belongs in the first paragraph. In 1978 they released the self titled album--a truly punk album--and then followed it with the equally raw "Give 'Em Enough Rope." But by '79, they were singing songs about Spanish terrorism, fallen Hollywood kings, and depression. The last song on "London Calling" is one of the best break up songs ever. Then they did a concept album about the revolution and genocide in Nicaragua. And "Combat Rock" is not punk.
January 22, 2009 at 1:51 PMSO with my tangent done, they fit in the first paragraph with Led Zeppelin--the "hardest rocking" band ever who sang "Fool in the Rain."
I agree with you, and in my defense, I wrote this during commercial breaks of the LOST premier, while simultaneously flipping over to the UNC-Clemson game.
January 22, 2009 at 4:41 PMPost a Comment