Caleb Wilson played like a veteran and sounded very much like a team leader after the win.
The North Carolina freshman forward scored 24 points with seven rebounds, four assists and four steals in Friday’s 87–74 win over No. 5 Kansas.
“It was personal, honestly,” Wilson said in his postgame press availability. “I felt it even in warmups. They weren’t going full speed, just laying the ball up in warm-ups. That type of stuff pissed me off. Like Michael Jordan says, I took that personal. ’Cause like when I’m warming up to play Kansas, I’m dunking, I’m getting hype, and they just over there being nonchalant. So I’m like, bro, they really think they got us.”
Wilson praised veteran forward Henri Veesaar who anchored the front line and played nearly the entire second half.
“He’s a dog. I mean, I don’t got nothing else to say. Like, he holds me accountable on the court. If I don’t box out, he’ll come to me and say, ‘Come on, kid.’ But Henri’s my guy. Like, he pushes me. He pushed me to be better every day and he always holds me accountable. It’s nice to have a vet like him…because he’s taught me so many little things, like touch shots and things like that. He played a great game tonight.”
He also credited transfer guard Kyan Evans, whose second-half surge helped seal the upset.
“He just went out there and played confident like we wanted him to…At halftime, I was saying in the locker room we got to be aggressive…I was like, man, Kyan, you a dog, bro…he can’t guard you. I was telling him like Melvin Council was guarding him back to him full court. Like, you a top-tier guard, bro. You can’t let that happen. And then he just went off. So I was happy for him.”
MORE: Kansas star Darryn Peterson reacts to tough night in Chapel Hill
That maturity shows in his approach, too. Wilson begins each day reading The Daily Stoic.
“I read something yesterday that really stuck with me today, like ’cause we were playing such a big game. It was talking about you’re not spinning the thread. It really stuck out to me because it was talking about how everybody has something that happens to them, or somebody has trauma…but it’s not really in your control, it’s in God’s control. So you should always just keep moving on.”
He says that daily reading habit has changed his mindset.
“It’s helped me a lot honestly,” Wilson said. “I don’t really overthink at all. If I make a mistake, I just move on. I used to get down on myself so much more before I realized I can only control what I can control.”
In the last minute, with the game already decided, Caleb wasn’t about to let up. He forced a steal and sprinted down the court for an emphatic slam dunk!
“Man, that was ridiculous,” he said. “When I got that dunk at the end, I knew exactly where it was — and I had to let them know.”
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