How big of a deal was it when Harrison Barnes made his college selection Nov. 13, 2009?
North Carolina head coach Roy Williams and the rest of the team took a break from practice to tune into Barnes’s announcement via Skype.
“It was kind of awkward because I don’t know if we’ve ever seen Coach stop practice like that,” junior forward Tyler Zeller said. “There was like a 10-minute gap in practice, and we didn’t know what was going on. We went in [to watch the feed], and we had all seen him on his official visit, so we were very excited to be able to get him. We knew we got a special player.”
In choosing North Carolina, Barnes, the No. 1-ranked high school recruit in the Class of 2010, also spurned Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski—and the Cameron Crazies. Barnes said he was “very close” to coming to Duke, and it was among his final choices, along with Kansas, Iowa State, UCLA and Oklahoma.
Barnes is expecting a polar-opposite reception versus the one he received during his official visit in Oct. 2009 when he visits Cameron Indoor Stadium tonight. Students painted benches, hung signs, distributed fliers and even brought a life-sized cutout of him in a Duke uniform to the Blue Devils’ exhibition game against Pfeiffer then to try to lure him to this side of Highway 15-501. Now, he will most likely be the subject of boos and jeers.
“That’s the rivalry,” Barnes said of his expected reception. “The fans build the rivalry. We just try to go out there and play the best that we can and leave it all out there.”
Zeller, the Tar Heels’ leading scorer and a veteran of two rivalry games in Cameron, expects Barnes’s reception to be “interesting.”
“I’ve never been good enough to have anything for me,” Zeller said, laughing. “It will be interesting to see what they come up with [for Barnes]. They’re a tough crowd, and I know they’ll have something.”
Barnes, who initially struggled to live up to the expectations that come with the title of preseason All-American, has increased his offensive productivity dramatically in the last five games, averaging nearly 19 points per game and shooting 51.5 percent from the floor.
One difference between Barnes’s play now and his play earlier in the season is his adjustment to the speed of college basketball, Zeller said. Both Barnes and Williams also cited his increasing experience and familiarity with his teammates as factors in his improved play.
“Freshman, when they come in, they’ve heard of some of the guys they’ve been on all-star circuits with, and they think that everybody else can’t play,” Williams said. “And then they find out that those other people are pretty doggone good as well, so it’s just a maturation process.”
While the Crazies still might feel the sting of Barnes’s rejection and undoubtedly will let him know, Krzyzewski dismissed the notion that he might still be thinking of that as well.
“I’ve had triumphs, disappointments and whatever,” he said. “I always get to the next thing right away. I would never let a loss of any kind influence how I did the next thing I did in a negative manner. That’s not allowed. You get commitments and you get kids who say, ‘No.’ That’s going to happen to any coach.”
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