Article by Turner Walston
Chapel Hill, NC--After playing out of position a year ago, Isaiah Hicks is
finally comfortable at power forward. Last weekend, he earned the
coaches’ defensive award for the fourth time this season for his efforts
against Kentucky.
TW: You seem to be a more confident player this season. Can you feel that on the court early in the season?
IH: Yeah, because it’s making me more assertive, more
aggressive, just more of an impact on the team now. Just coming out and
playing hard has its results.
TW: You were over-thinking last year. This time around, are you more confident in what you’re doing?
IH: Yeah. I learned a lot throughout the whole year:
postseason practice, weightlifting, pickups . . . Now, I’m just applying
everything I learned from that year and now it’s showing, getting the
ball to the basket and just going up hard, just doing stuff that I
probably would have struggled with last year because I would just get
the ball and hesitate, or slow myself down, thinking too much.
TW: It seems like you are getting the ball in a
better position to score, and you know better what to do. Last year, you
might get the ball out at the three-point line and have almost too many
options.
IH: That’s the easiest way to put it, basically. I would end up like a deer in the headlights. That’s how it would seem.
TW: Early in the year, you’re seeing a lot of time with the second unit. What are you asked to do as a group?
IH: We always talk about coming out with energy, something
to help the starters. Everybody wants somebody to come out with energy
and lift the team up when they need it, so everybody can feed off of it.
Not just me, but Nate, Theo, Joel, anybody can bring and that’s
something we try to do.
TW: You have played nine games, and it’s been more
than two months since Late Night with Roy. Does it seem like it’s been
that long?
IH: It seems like Late Night was a year ago. It feels like
we just got to the Bahamas. Everything’s going slow, and I like that
because last year it seemed like everything was coming super fast, and I
didn’t know what to do. Now, it’s just slowed down, and I like that so
much better.
TW: Coach Williams loves the quote about how it’s
amazing what can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit.
Does that apply to this team?
IH: I think we are at our best when that applies to us.
When nobody cares about credit, people will be out there getting
rebounds and not worrying about anything. We’ll be working hard, not
caring what the outcome is. That quote just says a lot about a team,
period, not just us. If any team follows it, the sky’s the limit for
that team, because everybody will be going all out for the team instead
of themselves.
TW: Is this team on the track to peaking at the right time?
IH: As Coach always says, he wants the perfect game, every
game. I would say we are on track right now because we still have the
rebounding problem, and it’s something that us bigs, we’ve got to get
right.
TW: You have a brutal early portion of the
schedule, even before conference play begins. Do you like that, or would
you prefer to take things easier?
IH: It’s always good to see where you are, to see what
you’ve got to work on, because at the end of the day, when it comes
tournament time, it’s down to one win, one loss. So, it’s always good to
see where you’re at early, so you know you can build upon it.
