Like Wayne and Ty, the odds are low that Danny will actually enter the draft. These guys just want to "test the waters" to see how they stack up with the competition.
Posted by Robbie Allen @ 4/27/2008 10:43:00 AM 1 comments
The speculation is over, now time for speculation
The various UNC message boards have been in a near frenzy over the past few weeks as various people said their "sources" were telling them one thing or another. I've heard every combination of the "big 3" coming and going and once that got tiring, rumors about Danny Green leaving started to surface.
The truth? Tyler is staying. Wayne and Ty are putting their names into the pot but not hiring agents. With Ty projected as a late first rounder and Wayne projected to go in the second round, there is a very good chance we'll still get all 3 back for next season. I imagine these guys want to see how the various team workouts go, but won't enter the draft unless they get a guaranteed contract (lottery), which isn't likely.
If either of them go I'm going to suspect they weren't happy with the idea of playing at UNC for one more season rather than they think they are ready for the NBA. Obviously both of these guys need at least another year in college and if they continue to improve will be in a much better position for next year's draft. Maybe they need the money now and there have been plenty of rumors floating around as to that being the case too.
Posted by Robbie Allen @ 4/25/2008 04:27:00 PM 1 comments
In case you need a little cheering up
A couple of people asked me if there was a picture of Danny Green's FACIAL on Greg Paulus when we beat Duke on their Senior Night (Youtube here). Thanks to Jim Hawkins from Inside Carolina here you go. This is classic!
Roy responds to criticism concerning him pulling for Kansas
My post on the "sticker incident" has garnered more comments than any other post I've written in 4 years. Fans are decidedly mixed on their opinions. Now Roy responds to what he calls "the most unsettling thing to have happened to him in the 5 years" since he's been back at UNC...
Roy and the Kansas sticker
Last night I turned on the championship game with about 3 minutes left to go in the first half. At one point they showed ol Roy sitting in the crowd. I was a little surprised to see what looked like a Kansas Jayhawk sticker on his shirt. At halftime he participated in an interview with CBS and had a jacket on, but you could still see part of the sticker sticking out.
I turned to my wife and said: I know some of the Carolina faithful won't like that.
What do I think?
I'm as big of a Roy Williams fan as you'll find, but it didn't sit that well with me. I know Roy spent 15 years at Kansas, but that was the team that just beat us badly a couple of days ago. Root for the Jayhawks sure, but why wear the sticker? I'm sure he meant nothing negative by it, but you have to know some Tar Heel fans won't like it. I also know Roy won't care if people didn't like him wearing it. Ultimately, this is a very small issue in the grand scheme of things and let's hope it doesn't get blown up more than what it is: a college coach rooting on his former team.
Posted by Robbie Allen @ 4/08/2008 07:34:00 AM 35 comments
It is an understatement to say that this game didn't go the way I expected. I imagined a tough game, but for Kansas to come out and punch us in the mouth the way they did--we couldn't overcome it. We got it all the way back down to a 4 point deficit, but Kansas took control again in the final minutes of the second half to secure a 18 point win. And despite the great comeback, Kansas still outscored us in the second half--40-39--so they won that half too.
StatSheet's Game Stats put this game into perspective. The first half was our lowest scoring half of the year. Our total points was our lowest of the year. It was our worst FG percentage of any game (35%). Our next worst percentage was 38% against Ohio State. It was also our least number of assists. So the numbers speak for themselves, this was one of our worst games from a stats perspective.
Now for the players. No one had a great game and outside shooting was especially lacking. Danny Green gave us a few bursts and shot relatively well (46%), but he also led the team with 5 turnovers. I was shocked when Wayne Ellington was named the UNC player of the game by CBS. I can only assume they did that because he led UNC with 18 points, but he was a dismal 1-9 from 3 point range. When your "best" outside shooter shoots 11% from 3 point range, you know you are in for some trouble. After a while I was screaming at the TV for Wayne to stop taking 3 pointers. At least Danny had some success.
Tyler played ok, but wasn't able to take over the game as he has previously. The Kansas bigs definitely gave him some trouble. Bill Self had a great game plan: take it to the UNC big men. And it worked. We couldn't defend their big guys. They were tougher.
Where in the World is Ty Lawson? That was a question I was asking myself for much of the game. Gone was the dangerous slasher. Gone was the consistent outside shooting he gave us. Gone was the leadership. Does he already have one eye on the NBA Draft? Was he still babying that ankle? At least Wayne went down firing. Ty went down without much of a fight. Extremely disappointing.
And what about Roy? Should he have called more timeouts? Every other coach seems to use up timeouts when their opponents go on big runs. Roy typically doesn't. He did eventually tonight, but it was too late. But that's just Roy. He's never used many timeouts and he probably never will.
I'm left with a feeling much like that after the Georgetown game last year. In fact, if I look at my blog post after that game, I had similar comments. Ty lost his aggressiveness, Wayne couldn't hit anything from deep, etc. Is this a trend? Can we win even if Ty and Wayne stay? Maybe they just don't have what it takes to win at the Final Four??
But I don't want to get too down. This was one heck of a season. We beat Duke on their Senior Night. We went undefeated on the road. We won the ACC Championship and ACC Tourney. And we went to the Final Four. All good stuff for sure. It is just a shame because this team could very well be the best team in the nation, but will not be taking home the NCAA trophy on Monday night.
Time to decompress. The end of the season always seems to come so suddenly. Now another 7 months before Late Night with Roy....
Worst half of the season
Great timing to have our worst (and lowest scoring) half of the year in the Final Four. Kansas made us look like we were walking out there. We went 9 minutes without a field goal. That's almost half of the half!! We finally got our act together toward the end of the half, but do we have any chance coming back from being down 17?? Kansas was totally unstoppable, and let's hope they don't have that much energy in the second half. Regardless, someone on our side has to make a shot. Come on Wayne!!
Posted by Robbie Allen @ 4/05/2008 10:02:00 PM 12 comments
If anyone had any questions about Tyler Hansbrough being the national player of the year, I hope this game answered them. As he did so many times when Ty Lawson was hurt earlier in the year, Tyler put the team on his back--and now they are going to the Final Four.
This is the second game in a row where our guard play wasn't quite up to the level that it was the first two games in the tourney. Danny and Wayne went a combined 7-20 and 2-8 from 3 point range. And most of the made buckets by Wayne came in the first half. Ty had a better game scoring 11 points and dishing out 9 assists with 4 turnovers. However, I can't fault him too much for the turnovers because he had to do the lion's share of the work in getting the ball across half court since Louisville pressed almost the entire game. It is next to impossible to trap Ty in the open court. Don't even try it!
Deon and Alex had ok games, but Deon got in foul trouble early. Alex only played 9 minutes. Marcus Ginyard had his usual quite, but solid game.
We did very well in the first half, but Louisville battled back tough in the second. This is different than the way UNC played much of the year, not getting warmed up until the second half. Now we are coming out of the gates ready to play in the first half and have to withstand runs by teams in the second. Our Heels are tough as we showed again in this game. If it wasn't for Tyler, I'm not sure if the outcome would have been much different than last year's season ending defeat to Georgetown. Louisville was guarding us extremely well on the perimeter. Wayne couldn't get good open looks and wasn't sinking them as a result.
Now, for the first time ever all four #1 seeds will be going to the Final Four. We have a tough Kansas team next, which I feel is a slightly better team than UCLA and Memphis. If we can beat them next Saturday, I'm going to be feeling good about the Championship game. But first things first, we have to get by an experienced, talented and deep Jaykawk team. They love to run too, so it should be an exciting game!
Do you think UNC will get a little respect now? The fashionable upset to pick in the sweet 16 seemed to be WSU over UNC. Or at least analysts thought UNC would have a tough time. It is easier to slow a team down than to speed them up. WSU has the second best defense in the country. UNC doesn't have a half-court game, etc. etc.
WSU is a good team, but don't equate giving up the second fewest points in the country to the second best defense. That has to do with pace, not how good your defense is. And our boys from Chapel Hill showed how true that to be. Ultimately, a slow-em down kind of team is doomed against a speed-em up kind of team unless the speedy team is having a horrible night. The reason? You have to assume that UNC would get at least a few fast breaks or makes off turnovers. Once a team like WSU gets behind, they can't come back (again unless their opponent misses a bunch of shots). In the second half WSU had to play more to Carolina's liking and the result was a 21 point blowout.
We won by 21 and yet we still didn't play nearly as well as our previous two games. In fact, the only person I'd say had a great night was Danny Green. Danny came out of his mild slump to pour in 15 points on 6-10 shooting. He gave us a needed boost in the first half when everyone else was missing shots.
WSU was able to shut Tyler down in the first half, but he got on track in the second once that tempo picked back up. And he still isn't getting the calls. Ever since the Duke game, the refs must have gotten together and agreed to stop calling fouls for Tyler. But he still went to the line 10 times. He only made 6--I'm not sure what is up with his free throw shooting lately, but both he and Wayne Ellington have been struggling from the charity stripe.
Ty Lawson had an uncharacteristic game with 2 turnovers and 0 assists (but he did score 12 on 5-11 shooting). All-in-all, WSU was successful in slowing us down, but UNC is still clearly the better team.
Next up we have a resurgent Louisville team. We beat them in about every stat category except blocks and turnovers. I saw them pressing Tennessee a bit. It should be considerably more up-tempo than the WSU game. We got this far last year, let's see if our boys can get to the Final Four!
Posted by Robbie Allen @ 3/28/2008 08:21:00 AM 3 comments
I was a little surprised watching ESPN SportsCenter this morning. When Digger Phelps and Dickie V were asked what was the most impressive team of the weekend, their answer was Davidson. Later there was a segment on the most confident team in the tourney: Memphis or UCLA. Excuse me, but did anyone watch the 100+ point drubbings Carolina had against its two opponents? Sure, Mount St Mary's isn't a powerhouse, but Arkansas just beat Tennessee and was playing some good ball down the stretch. We made #9 Arkansas look in the same league as Mount St Mary's.
This was one of the most impressive games I've ever watched as a Tar Heel fan. Sure, we've had some good games, but to thoroughly dismantle a team like we did against Arkansas from whistle whistle is rare. Remember, we are supposed to be a second half team. That's when we get going. Not now. Something is different. Our guys, as Eric Montross said, have a workman like attitude. They want to win the tourney bad.
I don't think I've ever seen a game against respectable competition where virtually every UNC player was unstoppable. All of the regulars had very good games. Usually at least a couple of players will play ok, but not great. Not in this game. Even Deon Thompson and Alex Stephenson killed it going a combined 13-13 from the floor!
Without a doubt, if we play like that this the rest of the way we will be bringing home the championship. But I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. We have Washington State up next. They like to slow things down. They want it to be a half court game. This will be a contrast in styles like we've seen several times this year. Let's hope we can keep bringing the same intensity as the last two games.
It was blowout city for our Tar Heels in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Mount St. Mary's played well for the first part of the first half, but as Coach Roy said after the game, we have a lot more talent than they do. Our defense could have been better in the first half, but as we normally do, we tightened the belt in the second half. Other than that, there isn't much to critique about this game.
Perhaps the best news of all was Ty Lawson's performance. He scored 21 points in only 18 minutes of play and looked 90-95% of pre-Ryan Reid body slam. He was driving, beating people off the dribble, beating multiple people down the court on fast breaks. He looked great.
In other positive news, both Deon Thompson and Alex Stephenson played very well. This was Deon's first double figure scoring game since he got hurt in the Virginia game.
We appear to be firing on all cylinders. We play a scrappy Arkansas team today who beat Indiana in the first round. I've been told Arkansas likes to run. I hear that a lot about different teams, but teams are rarely prepared to run the way UNC likes to run.
Pics and Video of UNC Open Practice
I attended the open practice UNC held at the RBC Center yesterday between 4:25pm and 5:05pm. They didn't do much--just stretch, shoot around, and a little dunking. I took some pictures and captured a video of some of the dunks. Tyler did a 360 right before I started filming. Enjoy!
My interview with the Sports Docket
The guys from the Sports Docket Talk Radio Show asked me if I'd chat with them about UNC and the NCAA Tourney. Here is the Episode.
Posted by Robbie Allen @ 3/19/2008 10:05:00 PM 0 comments
UNC #1 seed overall
It is not all that common for the Preseason AP #1 team to end the season in the same spot. But our Tar Heels did this year! As a Carolina fan, you couldn't ask for any better situation. We are playing some of our best defense of the year and our offense seems to click when it needs to. As long as we can bring our intensity, we should do well.
Is there any question the EAST region is the toughest in the whole bracket? Tenn, Indiana, Wash St, Louisville, Butler, and Notre Dame all in the same region. Sheesh. Much like the ACC Tournament, if UNC goes to the final foul, we will have earned it!
Posted by Robbie Allen @ 3/17/2008 09:37:00 PM 5 comments
UNC earned this championship! The Heels kept scraping against a very tough Clemson team and proved to be too much for the Tigers. Clemson looks like a top 10 team to me. They are going to do well in my bracket.
Tyler, Wayne and Marcus made the All Tourney team with Tyler getting most outstanding player. Wayne played like an all-star for the 3rd time this year against Clemson. Because Clemson spreads the floor so much, he gets open looks that he normally doesn't against teams that pack it in. Ty Lawson stepped up his game. He's still not 100%, but he looked better than the first two games of the tourney.
Clemson was able to force a lot of turnovers due to their press, but nothing makes me smile quite like seeing UNC score within 5 seconds of the other team scoring. Because Clemson pressed, they weren't always able to get back on defense. This was a track meet in the literal sense and UNC was in better shape at the end.
This makes 2 ACC Tournament Championships in a row. The celebration afterwards was subdued. Everyone on the team has their eyes on the big prize: the NCAA Tournament Championship.
PS. The officiating was horrendous for the third straight game. I'm not saying all the calls went against UNC--I'm saying they were bad in general. I won't dwell on it here, but it amazes me that a group of referees in different games can decide to call games differently than they did during the season. Fouls that were typically called for Hansbrough just weren't called.
