Photo courtesy of Dave’s Joint.
By David Cordova
It’s Dec. 5th and the Jimmy V. Classic is taking place at Madison Square Garden in Midtown Manhattan. This is one of the biggest events of the college basketball season, and it’s magnified by the fact that two of the premier programs in the game are matching up against each other. The defending national champions, the UConn Huskies are taking on the North Carolina Tar Heels.
On this night, the latter has three players from the New York metropolitan area on their roster. Senior guard R.J. Davis hails from White Plains, a city up in Westchester County, which is the suburbs of New York City. Then there is freshman guard Elliot Cadeau, who was born in Brooklyn, but was raised in New Jersey. At last there’s also guard and graduate student, Cormac Ryan, who hails from Manhattan.
On this night, all three of them who are also in the starting lineup, have turned in some good performances. Davis stole the show with 26 points on 8-for-17 shooting in 38 minutes, Cadeau had seven points & five assists in 27 minutes and Ryan had six points on 3-for-10 shooting from the field.
All three of them are the latest Tar Heels that hail from an area that is called the Mecca of Basketball. However, their program has long been synonymous for having players from the area.
It all goes back to the 1950’s, when the head coach of the Tar Heels was named Frank McGuire, who was also a New York City native from the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan and was a great teacher of the game. His coaching career on the college scene first started at St. John’s, the private Catholic school in Jamaica, Queens, where he coached both baseball and men’s basketball. On the basketball coach, he led the Redmen (now known as the Red Storm) to a 103-35 record and the NCAA Final Four in the 1951-52 season, when he went 25-6, and also made the quarterfinals of the NIT in the same season.
After that season, he made the move to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to coach the Tar Heels. In a New York Times article following his death in 1994, he was quoted as saying, “When I got to North Carolina, there was little to no interest in college basketball there. Everybody was a football fan.”
It took Coach McGuire just a few seasons to build something special in Chapel Hill. In 1956-57, he had one of the best teams ever in college basketball, as the program finished 32-0 and won the national championship.
What was unique about it was that four member of the starting five all hailed from New York City. There was Lennie Rosenbluth, a senior guard from The Bronx, Pete Brennan, a junior forward from Brooklyn, Tommy Kearns, a junior guard from The Bronx, Joe Quigg, a junior forward from Brooklyn and Bobby Cunningham of The Bronx. In total, there were seven players from the New York area, including senior forward Bob Young from Queens and Danny Lots, a sophomore forward from Northport, Long Island.
That crew would begin what would be a historic pipeline of players from New York City to the baby blue and white uniforms at the University of North Carolina down in Chapel Hill. After the players from the 1956-57 season, came players like York Larese, from the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan, future Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown, who was born in Brooklyn and then later moved to Long Beach, Long Island. Then there was another future coach from Brooklyn named Doug Moe, who also became a Tar Heel.
Even after McGuire left UNC in 1961, the Tar Heels still continued getting more New York players under legendary head coach, Dean Smith, who would have a Hall of Fame career from his appointment as McGuire’s replacement as head coach in 1961 until his retirement in 1997, which included two national championships, 879 wins and 13 ACC championships.
Under Smith came in a lot of legendary players from the city, starting in the mid-1960’s with Brooklyn’s own Billy Cunningham, who played his high school ball at Erasmus Hall High School in Flatbush.
Then there was another groundbreaking player in that era that played for the Tar Heels. His name was Charlie Scott, a native of Harlem, who also played for the Laurinburg Institute, the high school equivalent of what an HBCU is that is based in Laurinburg, North Carolina. Scott would become the first black player to play in the ACC and opened plenty of doors for many more black players to play in the conference at a time where there was racial unrest in the country and the Jim Crow laws in the South were still a thing.
He would end up becoming a three-time All-ACC selection and a two-time All-American, as well as a gold-medalist in the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico and was also named the ACC Athlete of the Year in 1970.
Plus, the 1981-82 national championship team had some top-tier talent that were either born or bred in New York. On the team that finished No 1 in the country and 32-2 were Bronx native Jimmy Black, an alumnus of the prestigious Cardinal Hayes High School, and there were two players from the borough of Brooklyn that would also end up being a part of the Tar Heels’ lore forever, and would also do seasonal work in the NBA for a long time: one was Sam Perkins, and the other was His Airness, Michael Jordan. Before they graced the courts of the NBA, they put in plenty of work at Carolina, and their presence is still felt to this day.
Just a year after that title run, they had another New Yorker come down to Chapel Hill. Today, you may notice him as one of the hosts of NBA on TNT. This guy hailed from the Rego Park section of Queens & lived in an apartment complex called LeFrak City. His name is Kenny Smith, and he too would play in the NBA just like his predecessors, both of whom were upperclassmen when he was a freshman with the Tar Heels.
Then just several years later, there were two other guys that were also All-Americans from the city, just like Smith. And also like the guy they call “Kenny the Jet,” they also played in the CHSAA (Catholic High Schools Athletic Association), a prominent league where many made a name for themselves before they would end up playing college basketball. One was Derrick Phelps of Queens and the other was Brian Reese of The Bronx. Both would be a part of the high school class of 1990, which had five players from New York City. But not only that, there would also be four players in the McDonald’s All-American Game that would end up playing for the Tar Heels: Reese, Phelps, and two other standouts in the late Clifford Rozier and the late Eric Montross. Just three years later, as juniors, Phelps & Reese would be a part of the 1992-93 Tar Heels squad that would win the national championship.
A couple of years after that, came a guy from Brooklyn by the name of Ed Cota, and he was a dynamite guard that played in the PSAL (Public Schools Athletic League) and made a pit stop at a prep school in Connecticut. By the time he was done with the Tar Heels, he played in the NCAA Final Four as a freshman, was named the ACC Rookie of the Year and scored more than 1,000 career points, more than 1,000 assists and more than 500 rebounds, becoming the first player in NCAA history to accomplish the feat.
Around the same time as he, he also had a teammate named Shammond Williams that was born in The Bronx, but was then raised in Greenville, South Carolina. After a superb career at UNC, he would also play in the NBA.
Although he’s not exactly from New York City, Danny Green from North Babylon, Long Island, represented the culture as well, and was a standout for the Tar Heels that would leave Chapel Hill as a third-team All-ACC selection as a senior, an All-ACC Defensive team selection and a member of the 2008-09 national championship team. He would then go on to win three NBA championships with the San Antonio Spurs, the Toronto Raptors and the Los Angeles Lakers, respectively.
Last, and certainly not least, even though he was there for a year, the most recent New York City guy to go pro out of UNC was none other than Orlando Magic guard Cole Anthony, who was known for his playmaking ability and his athletic ability at Archbishop Molloy High School, the alma mater of Kenny Smith.
For many years, there has been plenty of Tar Heels from the city or surrounding areas that have made the program a go-to. There’s something about the raucous fans in the stands and just the aura of being a Tar Heel that is special.
These days, it’s a great look to be a Tar Heel, especially on the recruiting front. There are definitely plenty of five-star recruits around the nation that either dream of playing in the baby blue & white or have the program in their thoughts as an option.
However, the city has one such player that will one day grace the court of the Dean Smith Center. And that one day will be sometime within the next ten months. The player in question is none other than Ian Jackson, most commonly referred to on social media and on the New York City basketball scene as “Captain Jack.”
Now a high school senior, the Bronx native has had quite a resume. Through his first three seasons at Cardinal Hayes High School in The Bronx, he led the Cardinals to two CHSAA city championship appearances, and one championship, which he won as a sophomore just two seasons ago. At the present time, ESPN has him rated at No. 17 in the Class of 2024, as there’s plenty of reasons why. His ability to showcase his athletic ability and his playmaking style that endears many to him. From the mixtape companies to young fans to the basketball enthusiasts, the world can’t help but love the aura that Jackson brings every time he steps on the court.
This season, Jackson is finishing off his high school career at another powerhouse program in The Bronx, Our Saviour Lutheran High School, where he played middle school basketball (the school goes from kindergarten through 12th grade), and which has been responsible for producing plenty of high-level and high major players that are currently playing college basketball at the present moment.
Last January, Jackson would shock the world by announcing his commitment to North Carolina through a national television audience at the Hoophall Classic in the birthplace of basketball, Springfield, Mass. At that moment, Jackson was the third commit in that class, alongside a local kid from North Carolina in forward Drake Powell, and another forward from Chicago in James Brown.
On Nov. 11th, Jackson solidified his commitment to the Tar Heels by signing his letter of intent in front of a crowd of supporters, including young kids participating in a basketball clinic put together by the Wiz Kids AAU program, of which Jackson is an alum. The crowd inside the gymnasium inside John Philip Sousa Junior High School Campus in the North Bronx was elated to see two of their own in Jackson and fellow Our Saviour Lutheran guard Elijah Moore, who signed with Syracuse, showing the youth that you can make it through hard work and determination.
Later on that night at the ACES Hustle & Heart Classic at Baruch College in Manhattan, Jackson was wearing a black UNC Nike/Jordan dri-fit sweater with the Jumpman logo on display, letting everyone knowing where he was going once and for all.
If there is someone that knows about basketball in New York City firsthand that’s aligned with UNC, you must look no further than Tar Heels head coach, Hubert Davis.
After four great years as a Tar Heel, where he scored over 1,600 career points and led the program to a Final Four appearance as a junior in the 1990-91 season, and two ACC championships, he was selected as the No. 20 overall pick in the 1992 NBA Draft by the New York Knicks.
For four seasons from 1992-96, Davis was one of the key pieces of a franchise that were competitive every year in the Eastern Conference. During the 1993-94 season, they made it past the Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference Finals and advanced to the NBA Finals, where they went the distance with the Houston Rockets, before losing in seven games. During those years, Davis was definitely making his presence felt on those teams, especially in the playoffs.
He was also respected by Knicks’ fans around the city and even ingratiated himself into the culture of the city by making a cameo appearance on the hit TV show, “New York Undercover,” alongside teammates Patrick Ewing and Derek Harper.
Being that he did seasonal work at the World’s Most Famous Arena, Madison Square Garden, for four years, he can definitely relate to Captain Jack in many ways, and also with R.J. Davis and Elliot Cadeau, as well. He’s definitely knowledgable about the city game.
This season, the duo of Davis and Cadeau have been solid for the Tar Heels.
Davis, the senior guard has seen plenty in his four years in Chapel Hill. As a sophomore, he averaged 13.5 points per game and added 4.3 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game, as the Tar Heels went 29-10 and made it to the national championship game, where they lost to Kansas.
Last season, despite missing the NCAA Tournament, he led the Tar Heels to a 20-13 record and averaged 16.1 points, 5.1 rebounds & 3,2 assists per game. But this year, it’s a complete turnaround, as UNC is currently rated at No. 8 in the AP national poll. Davis is on a scoring rampage, averaging 21.1 points per game and he has been on a tear throughout the last five games.
In the CBS Sports Classic on Dec. 16th in Atlanta, Georgia, Davis had 27 points, seven rebounds and four assists in the 87-83 loss to Kentucky. In the Tar Heels’ following game against Oklahoma on Dec. 20th at the Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte, he had 23 points, five assists and three steals in the 81-69 win. But then in the Tar Heels’ final non-conference matchup against Charleston Southern at home on Dec. 29th, he had an amazing game with 20 points, 10 assists and five steals in a 105-60 win.
Cadeau, the freshman guard has been learning plenty on the fly, after reclassifying back to his original graduating class (Class of 2023), and deciding to go to college after leading his Link Academy squad to a 27-1 record last season and a GEICO Nationals championship and then having a dominant spring on the Nike EYBL circuit with the New Heights Lightning, before letting the world know that he would be going to North Carolina on May 30th and would be enrolling in college immediately.
As of late, he has been in the starting lineup and has been putting up some good performances, including the game against Charleston Southern, when he had 13 points, four rebounds & three assists. Against Tennessee on Nov. 29th at home, he only scored five points, but had 10 assists in the 100-92 victory in the ACC/SEC Challenge. His play has been superb, but he’s still learning, and because he’s learning, he will be a better player for it.
Ryan, who is a graduate student that has previously played at Stanford and Notre Dame and has also been a force on the court and has also been an elder statesmen on the Tar Heels. So far, he’s had a solid season, as he’s averaging 11 points per game and has been magnificent in the last few games, including during the matchup against Kentucky, where he scored 20 points in the loss. One of the things that Ryan brings to the Tar Heels is his scoring ability and experience, as he played in the NCAA Tournament with Notre Dame back in the 2021-22 season.
Just like Davis, he has also scored over 1,000 points in his college career, after having played five years of collegiate basketball due to being a redshirt and also after a COVID year that was given to him by the NCAA, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now in his last year of collegiate eligibility, this is his chance to play for a squad that could potentially go even further than the squad at his previous school. With the way this year’s UNC squad is looking his experience will definitely be a great look moving forward.
Now, three of the New York area’s very own are shining on the national spotlight. And they’re doing it with the baby blue and white of the Tar Heels. Whenever you watch a game inside the Dean Smith Center or watching them on TV or any other device, you must know that you’re watching two guys from a basketball Mecca that has and will continue to produce great players. They’re not the last, but just the latest. Who knows? Maybe there will be more players from the area that will wear that Royal blue. But for now, it’s time to embrace the current two.
davesjoint.net 