The Final Four: North Carolina is relying on Sean May
Just as Indiana did with his father did at 29 years ago
Saturday, April 02, 2005
By Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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Sean May: Hoping to follow in his father's footsteps as an NCAA champion.
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</TABLE><!--END PHOTO-->ST. LOUIS -- Marques and Kris Johnson did it. Marques won a national championship at UCLA. So did his son, Kris.
Henry and Mike Bibby also got it done. Henry won three national titles at UCLA. Son Mike got his at Arizona in 1997.
That's it, the only father-son combinations to win championships since they started playing the NCAA tournament.
North Carolina's Sean May has a chance this weekend to make it three sets.
His father, Scott, the national player of the year on Indiana's 32-0 championship team in 1976, will have a hard time watching North Carolina play Michigan State tonight in the second semifinal game. He has asked CBS to limit his exposure on camera because he's too nervous at his son's games. That seems contradictory to the advice he has passed on to Sean.
"He told me, 'You just got to go out and play and treat it like it's another game and block out all of the outside distractions,' " Sean May said yesterday.
Say this about the kid: He listens to his old man.
May has blocked out the hysteria enough to be, arguably, the top player in the NCAA tournament. His 21.5 points and 11.8 rebounds per game are tournament bests. He was named Most Outstanding Player at the Syracuse Region after 29 points and 12 rebounds against Wisconsin Sunday.
May has dominated all season. He had a staggering game against rival Duke March 6 -- maybe the best individual game of the season -- with 26 points and 24 rebounds, prompting North Carolina coach Roy Williams to call it "just about the best performance I've ever seen." A finalist for the player of the year award his father won, he will finish the season tonight or Monday night as the 13th player in North Carolina history and just the second in 29 years to average a season double-double.
May can thank not just his father -- "The greatest role model in the world" -- but also Williams, a demanding taskmaster. The first time they met after Williams took the North Carolina job two years ago, Williams told May he was a jack of all trades and a master of none. "I needed to try to make my niche rebounding the basketball," May said. "I pride myself on trying to get 10 rebounds a game." Williams also told May he needed to get in better shape. Finally, May listened after last season, losing 10 pounds and reducing his body fat from 14 to 11 percent during the offseason thanks to grueling early morning workouts and eliminating pizza and cookies from his diet.
"His hard work is the biggest part of it," Williams said. "His body wasn't as good last year as it is now. He didn't have as much bounce or as much strength. He's more explosive now."
Maybe May felt he owed it to Williams, if not to Williams, then the North Carolina program. Fairly or unfairly, he and fellow junior teammates Raymond Felton and Rashad McCants were blamed for getting Matt Doherty fired as the Tar Heels coach after the 2002-03 season. Even Michael Jordan -- the biggest name of all in Carolina basketball -- criticized them for going to athletic director Dick Baddour shortly before Doherty was let go.
May, like the others, insists Baddour called for the meeting and the players merely responded honestly. The truth? May did far more damage to Doherty unintentionally; his left foot was broken in late-December of his freshman year. North Carolina was 7-2 at the time and finished 19-16, missing the NCAA tournament. Even Williams has acknowledged he'd still be coaching at Kansas and Doherty still would be at North Carolina if not for that injury because the Tar Heels certainly would have made it to the tournament with a healthy May, who was averaging 11.4 points and 8.1 rebounds.
All of that seems like ancient history to May now that storied North Carolina is back at the Final Four for the first time since 2000. Once, he dreamed of following his father to Indiana and would have played for the Hoosiers if Bobby Knight hadn't been fired. Now, he merely dreams of following his father as a champion.
Last night, May planned on watching a highlight tape of Indiana's perfect season and re-living his dad's magical moments. Tonight and Monday night, if May has his way, he'll be the star of his own highlight tape.
