The Kansas City Tarheels 2015 traveled to the elite Real Deal on the Hill, held April 18-20. The Real Deal on the Hill is held in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and surrounding communities, and is considered one of the major exposure tournaments for elite high school players. Teams from all over the country come to this tournament, along with coaches from universities and colleges across the nation.

The 11Under Division wasn’t as crowded as the high school division, but still boasted a field of 12 well-coached teams.

The Tarheels started out by dominating their pool, giong 3-0 against the Gym Time Hoops from Oklahoma, the CSAS Soaring Eagles, and the Benton Hawks from Arkansas.

By winning their pool, the Tarheels earned a bye (and a sleep-in) for the first round of bracket play on Sunday morning. They would face the Arkansas Magic in the semifinal round. The winner would move on the the championship, while the loser would go home.

Before that, though, the Tarheels had the rest of a beautiful Saturday to spend any way they pleased. Several of them took the opportunity to go watch the high school games, and were treated to some great ball games featuring such teams as the New York Gauchos and Team Breakdown. They also got to see all of the college coaches in attendance, like Bill Self from Kansas, Ben Howland from UCLA, Coach K. from Duke and Roy Williams from North Carolina. A couple of lucky Tarheels, Fuzzy (Anthony) and D-Lo (DeAngelo), got to meet Roy Williams. He was pretty impressed when they told him what their team name is! And then he made their day by telling them he’d be watching for them in a few years.

Sunday rolled around, and the Tarheels got ready to face their semifinal opponent. The Arkansas Magic featured guards with good ball handling skills and some decent team speed. The ‘Heels went up by a few baskets early, but the Magic battled on and soon the game was neck-and-neck. After half-time, though, the Tarheels’ relentless defense started to wear on the Magic. And while the ‘Heels had missed their fair share of shots in the first half, their shots were falling more consistently in the second stanza, so the Tarheel lead steadily increased. The Tarheels ended up running away with the game.

The Tarheels had earned a trip to the championship against the Tulsa Titans.

The Tarheels came out blazing, going up 10-2 within the first few minutes against the Titans. Those first 10 points featured scoring by four different Tarheels, four Tarheel assists and 2 Tarheel steals. It was a knockout punch that the Titans never recovered from. And although the outcome of the game was never in question, the Tarheels played their A-game all the way through, cheered on by their enthusiastic fans.

On another note, in the championship game, each team had a Most Valuable Player award given by the opposing coach. The coach for the Titans gave the game MVP award to Tarheel center Kevin Puryear. In a gesture that exemplifies the Tarheel team spirit, Kevin tried to give the award to his teammate, wing/power forward Anthony Bonner, telling Anthony that HE deserved it. Anthony, in turn, insisted that Kevin deserved the award. After some back and forth, the award stayed with Kevin. But the award mattered much less than the mutual respect that these two teammates showed for each other.

Congratulations Tarheels!