Light.

 

Toddy flashed to the left, just behind the arc, and buried her second consecutive trey to open the third quarter. The Heels were en route to a 91-59 demolition of Jackson State. That moment, when the roof seemed to come off Carmichael, was an echo, or maybe just a reiteration, of the best moments of the past several seasons. We were here again, standing in our barn, watching the Heels cook. The defense was exactly what it was the last we saw them; a beautiful, exacting calculus of stifling precision. The offense, even with a hobbled Deja Kelly, was majestic. Toddy and 'Lys and Eva were pure fire, and Destiny Adams has clearly taken a massive leap from her freshman year. She jumped two passing lanes on the way to four steals, but the first is the one I'll remember. Snatched the ball out of thin air, hit the afterburners, and just streaked up the floor coast-to-coast for a bucket. She's miles ahead of last season on both ends already. And Paulina Paris, GOOD GAWD, y'all. Scores at all three levels and has absolutely FILTHY handles. They're not even fully healthy yet, but this team is about to wreck some shop.

We saw old friends on Wednesday too. Our beloved section mates Ginnie and Jean, and our seatmates from the past few years Jeff and Debbie, who we thought we'd lost last season but were back after some health issues. It was so wonderful to see them again, to hug them and watch Carolina put down a whompin' on an opponent. It felt like what it always feels like in Carmichael: home.

This past August, Ags and I went to the Outer Banks. We met up with our friend Joshie (who married us) and his wife Sarah and their adorable kiddo Frank. On the way down, we stopped at a botanical garden and at Kitty Hawk, where the Wright Brothers pioneered human flight. We also stopped at several lighthouses, relics long since out of both utility and time now, but they were beautiful and they fascinated me. I can't stop thinking about them, even now.

Out there, at the edge of the state, far from Tobacco Road, one thing still holds true of North Carolina: There is a basketball hoop in damn near every driveway. Back home in Chapel Hill, there are three courts close enough that we can hear the pick-up games grunting and calling fouls, or the kids standing alone, shooting free throws, from our back porch. On the Banks, you drive narrow, two-lane streets where people don't care about speed limits, but there are still kids getting up shots in driveways, dreaming of a time when they might be hitting shots in Carmichael or the Dean Dome or Reynolds or  or (if they have no taste) Cameron Indoor.

The lighthouses, though? They might be an even purer distillation of what UNC Women's Basketball is going to be this year.

The French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel was born in 1788. He devised a lens of sectional, concentric parts of glass, allowing the light to be channeled in a specific direction. Prior to that, lighthouses just lit what amounts to a very big lantern. After Fresnel's invention, they could aim the light, point it out the the specific dangerous waters they needed to warn people about. There was a a focus and purpose to this, a direction. If you've ever done time in a theater, you've hung plenty of lights with these lenses inside them up in the grid. You also may have seen them if you've ever been in a basketball arena, because they hang up there too.

Last year, the Sweet 16 showing, the sheer velocity and adrenaline, was an absolute light beam. It shone a light we all could see and it was lovely to behold. But this year feels focused, feels refracted and shined out to a specific point. This year, the Heels stand in a light with purpose, a light meant to shine and reflect on them and them alone. This year, they ARE the light.