McCants ready to lead the Tar Heels

Senior confident, driven to succeed

Rashanda McCants sat at a locker deep inside of the Louisiana Super Dome last March and wept. She couldn’t help it — the disappointment of another loss in the women’s NCAA Tournament, the sullen faces of teammates, the reality of a less-than-stellar performance — drove her to tears.

“Yeah,” she said. “That was crazy.”

Top-seeded North Carolina, carrying the nation’s leading scoring average, fell to Louisiana State, 56-50, in the Regional Finals, canceling any chance of vying for a national championship. After two consecutive trips to the Final Four, the Tar Heels (33-3 overall) were out, the careers of seniors Erlana Larkins and LaToya Pringle over without the title they desired.

As the Tar Heels open a new season this weekend, McCants looks back to March as a senior with a renewed sense of purpose.

Averaging 15.8 points, 6.6 rebounds and a team-high 3.3 assists, she was one of the Heels’ best players last season. But she was not at her best against LSU, with just nine points in 35 minutes after shooting 4 of 13 from the field. She finished with four assists and five turnovers and never went to the free throw line.

“It’s a feeling of incompleteness,” McCants said. “Not getting the job done. It’s kind of a harsh word, but personally ... it’s like a failure. ... I feel like I didn’t do my job as a teammate.”

If the Tar Heels, ranked No. 6 in The Associated Press preseason top 25 poll, are to compete on the national stage this season, McCants said she must do her job every time out.

McCants’ coaches and teammates say they expect her to fill the dual role of dominant player and team leader as Ivory Latta, Camille Little, Larkins and Pringle did during past four seasons.

They also expect something special from McCants, who has seemed to tease them with athleticism since she enrolled as a freshman.

“Before, she could step back and let somebody else fill in for a while,” UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell said. “She can’t do that.”

Hatchell said it’s up to McCants to seize her opportunity. She has moved her from small forward to power forward this season to take advantage of her post skills and speed.

Hatchell said that many of the program’s better players have excelled at power forward, including Charlotte Smith, Tracy Reid, Camille Little and Pringle.

“That’s a great position to bust loose in, especially in our system,” she said. “So it’s right there for Rashanda to do.”

The 6-foot-1 Asheville native, sister of former Tar Heel standout Rashad McCants, has set her sights on the Final Four in St. Louis. The city holds significance for McCants — her older brother’s 2005 team won a national championship there.

But before she could talk about national championships, McCants said she had to address her self-confidence.

“I lacked confidence from my freshman year all the way until last year,” she said. “You’d never know that, but my coaches always kept me up. My teammates were the ones that said, ‘You’re good, let’s go, let’s play.’”

Over the years, there have been times when McCants seemed to drift away for long stretches on the court. She was out there but not engaged.

Hatchell said McCants would dwell on mistakes and carry them over to the rest of the game. To encourage her to shake off errors, Hatchell told her how golfers, after a mistake, pick up a blade of grass and let it go in the wind. “Let go of it and move on,” she told her.

Smith, an assistant coach in her seventh season, had McCants write “Be kind to yourself” on her sneakers.

McCants said she had a talk with her brother and came away realizing that she’s been a leader all along.