As Tyler Honeycutt departure becomes official, another sort of open secret is now out. Tracy Pierson broke the news that North Carolina junior point guard and rapper Larry Drew II is enrolling at UCLA. Tracy reports that "Drew was officially enrolled as of Monday," which is the first day of spring quarter at UCLA. The news was just made official by UCLA Athletics on Twitter.
If you have not followed the Larry Drew saga, he was a junior in Chapel Hill and quit on the Tar Heels during the mid-season, after he lost his starting job to freshman phenom Kendall Marshall. He was a highly recruited PG out of Southern California - a McDonald All American - who flopped just as badly in Carolina as Jerime Anderson did in his first two years in Westwood. Anderson decided to address his issues by accepting a demotion behind a JC recruit and contribute any way he can. What did Drew do? You will have to read after the jump.
Drew is not only a potential "bridge" point guard between the Jerime Anderson and Zeek Jones and whatever freshmen point guard Bruins bring in for the 2012 season, he is also a rapper:
Instead of speaking with reporters or revealing his thoughts via YouTube or Twitter, ex-North Carolina point guard Larry Drew II found another way to explain to fans why he's no longer a Tar Heel.
He did a freestyle rap on the subject on stage at his 21st birthday party in Los Angeles.
Video of Drew's rap surfaced early this week, quickly drawing the ire of North Carolina fans still furious that the junior abruptly left in the middle of conference play soon after losing his starting job to freshman Kendall Marshall. It's difficult to understand all of the lyrics, but some of the most inflammatory parts are below.
• "Everything I'm hearing is untrue. The media, they talk, but they never confront you. The past three years, I can't undo, so now I'm making all the moves that I want to."
• "They tried to tell me just to play my role, but who's really trying to stick to a script full of typos."
• "Like a horror flick they made me out a monster. Cut the bull----, I should have won an Oscar. It ain't over till the fat lady sings, right? [Forget] it, I brought the whole opera."
Drew's Feb. 4 departure appeared to be a blow to North Carolina at the time, but instead it has become one of the catalysts for the Tar Heels' recent surge to an ACC title.
This is the guy who will solve our point guard crisis?
It is funny to read UCLA fans taking solace in Honeycutt's departure as "addition by subtraction" while overlooking the irony of adding of a player in the program, who just flat out quit on his team in the mid-season.
I cannot decide who was worse - someone like Honeycutt who quit on his team-mates by nonchalantly going through the motions or someone like Drew who was more direct about his "quitting" on the program.
No one also missed the fact that after Drew left UNC went on a huge run with its freshman guard, winning 12 out of 13, taking the regular season conference title and then falling just short in the Elite Eight.
Don't worry friends. Here is a silver lining for UCLA basketball. Thanks to Howland's latest move, we are now going to have an opera in Westwood (please contain yourself Fox71). What remains to be seen just what kind of "showtime" we will be treated to Westwood in next two seasons.