Isaiah Hicks, Kanler Coker friendship on display in win over Texas Southern

GREENVILLE, S.C. — This is a basketball story, even if it may not start like one.

Instead of inside the paint or outside the 3-point line or anything of the sort, look just off the court: To the sidelines, or more specifically, to the North Carolina bench. Or even more pointedly, look at two players — one a hulking forward with a resurrected post game of late, the other a converted quarterback with barely a bucket to his career basketball statline.

Look at Isaiah Hicks, and then look at Kanler Coker.

With almost 14 minutes left in No. 1 UNC’s 103-64 win over No. 16 Texas Southern in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Hicks checked out of the game.

He’d played just 17 minutes, but in that time, he racked up 17 points and six rebounds. It was entirely different from his performance several weeks ago, when even staying on the floor for that long would’ve been an accomplishment.

But Friday night was a different story. Hicks spun to the basket time after time, dropping the ball through the hoop with ease. On defense he was a wall, his length and frame a deterrent for any ambitious Texas Southern player.

He was, at times, unstoppable.

“When you’re getting stops on defense, when you’re getting everything you want,” Hicks said, “you can kind of feel that (groove).

So out he came, the game already decided, and plopped down in a cushy folding chair near the end of the bench. His work for the day was done. Next came the fun part.

And this is where Coker comes into play. He sat next to Hicks, and once the big man joined him on the bench, they started talking. Laughing. Playfully elbowing each other in the ribs, shrugging shoulders, just lollygagging around. Usually Coker’s the one cheering on Hicks — for once, they were sidelined together.

But what do you talk about in those moments, when the game is so exponentially far out of reach? What could these two — polar opposites on the court — possibly have to say to each other?

“Isaiah was saying, ‘You better shoot it,’” Coker said. “He always gets onto to me if I don’t. That’s my dude right there.”

Eventually, Coker got his shot. Head coach Roy Williams subbed him in with a few minutes left, giving the guard sufficient time to score.

So when Coker found himself with the ball near the baseline, he listened to his friend’s advice. He drove to the basket, splitting two defenders along the way, and spun the ball off the backboard for a reverse layup. It dropped.

“We were gassing him because that’s gotta be the most athletic move I’ve ever seen Kanler make,” Stilman White said. “We didn’t know he had that in him.”

For once, Hicks and Coker saw their roles reverse. For once, Hicks got to be the cheerleader.

And boy, did he embrace that. He leaped up once and then kept jumping, tiny little hops, over and over, clenching his fists like a kid half his size would.

When the game finally ended and the team retreated to its locker room in the Bon Secours Wellness Arena, those two found each other again. Away from the spotlight, they joked some more in the corner of the room. Coker smacked Hicks on the thigh, and the big man couldn’t swallow his laugh.

And then, Hicks told reporters something poignant — something he probably didn’t need to articulate, based on his in-game celebration, but did anyway. Something to remind us that, while this is a basketball story, it’s about more than that, too.

“When the game’s going like this,” Hicks said, “you’re just enjoying the moment.”

@BrendanRMarks

sports@dailytarheel.com