Tar Heels struggle to replace Breland’s production

What is delayed is not denied.

It’s a simple phrase, but one that resonates deeply with both Jessica Breland and Sylvia Hatchell.

Those words of advice were given to UNC’s head coach Hatchell by Kay Yow, the former N.C. State coach who last year died of cancer. Even though the initial context has since faded away, Hatchell has taken the words of her fallen colleague and applied them to her own player’s battle with cancer.

ACC Tournament schedule

Quarterfinals Today

No. 4 Georgia Tech v. Wake Forest 11 a.m.

No. 1 Duke v. Maryland 3 p.m.

No. 2 Florida State v. Boston College/ Va. Tech 6 p.m.

No. 3 Virginia v. N.C. State/ Clemson 8 p.m.

Semifinals Saturday

Winner of quarterfinal No. 1 v. Winner of quarterfinal No. 2 1 p.m.

Winner of quarterfinal No. 3 v. Winner of quarterfinal No. 4 3:30 p.m.

Championship game Sunday

Semifinals winners 1 p.m.

Breland was a preseason All-ACC pick, but this summer — the summer before her senior season in Chapel Hill — she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. On Feb. 25, she had her first press conference with the media at-large since she was diagnosed in May.

Breland had been slated to anchor UNC’s young frontcourt, a solitary senior along a frontline littered with underclassmen. But instead of playing the “coach-on-the-floor” role, Breland has just been “coach.”

“I see things differently (on the bench),” Breland said. “Sometimes my teammates will say something, and I’m still a part of them, so I can understand what they’re saying.

“But then I’m like, ‘OK, the coaching staff is absolutely right, but this is how they should have said it, and this is what you should take from it.’”

It was easier to accept missing the entire season and redshirting when the wins were rolling in for the Tar Heels, who passed into the New Year 11-1 and carrying a No. 7 national ranking.

But after UNC ran into a buzz saw against the No. 1 Connecticut Huskies, the young players abandoned what they had done so well before. The swoon led to a five-game losing streak and a 5-9 stretch to end the season.

Left with no other choice, Breland bided her time, waiting to get back in the game.

“I hate to see my teammates struggling,” Breland said. “I don’t like losing at anything.”

The sitting wasn’t just hard on Breland. It was also tough for the coach that had been banking on being able to rely on her go-to All-American for points and leadership.

“Eight of our team are freshmen and sophomores,” Hatchell said.

Without Breland’s production and leadership, UNC dropped from a No. 4 seed in the 2009 ACC Tournment to a No. 8 seed this season.

“They don’t have a lot of examples. Coaches can tell them; we can show them film and have people come talk to them,” Hatchell said.

“But unless you’ve got juniors and seniors out there who have been through it, they’re just like, ‘Okay, what do we do here?’”

Sometimes, Hatchell said, when Waltiea Rolle picked up cheap fouls that only a freshman can pick up, or Chay Shegog would make the wrong read against a double team, she would fantasize about the game and how it would be changed if Breland were playing.

“We might have lost a couple of games, but there wouldn’t have been many we would have lost,” Hatchell said. “She is the perfect 4 player, and that’s what we don’t have.”

This season would be very different if they had Breland from junior year — and that season was while she was in the throes of the lymphoma.

Last season Breland’s stamina was so sapped by running up and down the court that she could barely handle two to three minutes at a time.

That didn’t stop her from putting up some impressive displays.

To start the season, she outplayed Courtney Paris at Oklahoma by racking up 31 points in 30 minutes off the bench.

At the time, no one knew why Breland — who was otherwise an All-American — could not play very long. But when she went to Las Vegas to train with the U.S. National team in the summer, they uncovered the Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

By next season, however, Breland will be all the way back, as her teammates are reporting her as close to 100 percent already in practice with them.

“That’s my roommate, actually, so I was there when she needed anything,” guard She’la White said.

“As she’s recovering, she’s gaining more weight, she’s becoming more fit. It’s exciting.”

And, once Breland regains the lung capacity that dwindled during her months of inactivity, she could easily be better than the numbers that she put up during her junior season last year.

In which case, what is delayed is not denied.

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.