During North Carolina's 'Road to Redemption', Joel Berry II played through two ankles leading the Heels to their sixth Championship.
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00:00 What did it mean to you personally to be able to get that done?
00:10 Yeah, it meant a lot to me.
00:13 That was something that other than getting my jersey up in the rafters, that was something
00:19 that I told myself when I got to Carolina that I wanted to accomplish.
00:25 And we were able to do that, and I thought we were going to do it our sophomore year,
00:31 and I guess it just wasn't our time.
00:33 And we came back, and people don't know how hard it is to make two national championships
00:39 back to back.
00:42 It's tough.
00:43 The amount of mental that has to go into it, and being ready for having to come and play
00:49 every night, I mean, it's tough.
00:52 And just at the end of the game, all I could do was just cry because of, I mean, for me,
00:59 like you said, personally, I was battling ankle injuries.
01:04 It was times where we were going from game to game, and I literally couldn't get up out
01:10 of the bed and walk because my ankles were bothering me so bad.
01:15 And you know, thanks to medicine.
01:17 And actually, we were in South Carolina, and I had to drive to Charlotte just to meet with
01:23 a chiropractor to be able to play the next game.
01:27 And so I had to, I was just on a different schedule than everybody else.
01:31 I mean, staying up late, working with Doug, working with Jonas, and that whole tournament
01:38 time, I barely got any sleep.
01:40 And just by the end of the time, I just let all my emotions go.
01:47 And that's why it just meant so much to me to be able to, the way that I sacrificed myself
01:52 and put my team, and it was just something that I wanted to do because I knew we had
01:57 the talent to be able to do it.
02:00 And just being able to get back and win it, I mean, it was special.
02:04 And just the way we did it.
02:05 So just when I got the ball and ran over and yelled at the crowd, and Coach kind of called
02:12 a timeout, I started crying in, and the game wasn't even over with.
02:17 But it was just like, we got back to where we wanted, and we're three seconds away from
02:22 winning it.
02:23 And it was just something special, and something that you really can't explain.
02:28 It's just a feeling that you have to be able to live yourself.
02:31 But I tried to do my best to explain it, but it was a surreal moment for me.
02:37 Hold on, so I remember asking you about your ankles.
02:41 I don't know if you remember that question.
02:46 That's one of my favorite questions because it made y'all laugh because I literally asked
02:51 you, you literally put the team on your ankles.
02:53 Like talk about the sacrifice.
02:57 You know, you're not only sacrificing, I don't know, you're sacrificing your body for a team
03:04 win.
03:05 You know, that's something bigger than yourself.
03:07 So just kind of just hint on the sacrifices of team basketball and the sacrifices to win.
03:17 Yeah, I think that's a big thing.
03:22 Sometimes you got to give up.
03:23 Sometimes you do have to give up for what you want and who you are to help the team.
03:30 And sometimes there's a lot of people that can't do that.
03:33 But like I said, we had all the talent in the world.
03:37 And if I went into it thinking that I was the best one on the team and that I needed
03:41 to have the ball in my hand and I was getting upset that I wasn't, we wouldn't have made
03:48 it back.
03:49 Because like I said, I had Justin to the left of me, I had Theo to the right of me, I had
03:55 Isaiah and I had Kennedy.
03:57 I mean, that's talent all over the place.
03:59 And if I didn't sacrifice a piece of what I wanted to do, we wouldn't have jailed as
04:04 a team.
04:05 And in a moment of in the in the tournament, when I twist my ankle in the Kentucky game,
04:12 I was so close to just calling it.
04:15 I laid there and I realized what had happened.
04:18 And I was it was actually my other ankles.
04:21 And I was just like, I think this is it.
04:24 And when I got up and walked back to the back to the locker room, I was about to just tell
04:30 the coaches and tell the trainer, tell Doug that I was just gonna call it and and not
04:35 play.
04:36 But then something just it just hit me and I got up and started running again.
04:41 And I felt fine.
04:42 And I was just like, you know what, I just can't give up on my teammates like that.
04:47 And that was just a turning moment for me.
04:49 Turning moment for me and just being able to sacrifice my pain and what I was going
04:54 through to help the team to know that we could get back to that point where we wanted to
04:58 be.
04:59 This is what we bring you ladies and gentlemen, we bring you the inside scoop.