UNC 82, Boston College 85
The experience of Boston College proved to be too much for UNC as the Eagles calmly won by 3 after being in control for much of the game. Craig Smith is a load inside and easily deserves his first team All ACC recognition. He also is worthy of a first team All American spot. However, I think the real game changer for BC was
Jared Dudley. Dudley is a 6-7 junior that can shoot the 3 just as easy as he can score down low. He made the 2nd team All ACC and next year he's a no-brainer for the first team and potentially a candidate for preseason ACC player of the year.
So what went wrong for the good ol carolina blue? We started off the game with good intensity, but it was clear that we weren't as sharp as before the tournament. I saw a long clip of the Duke game and we didn't play nearly as well against BC (or UVA) as we did against Duke or State or UVA before the tourney. We made a lot of turnovers to start the game but calmed down eventually. The biggest problem for UNC was BC's shooting. It seemed like they could not miss, shooting 63% on the game! At times our defense was shaky, but even when it wasn't, BC would score. It is hard to win when your opponent is shooting that well.
On the offensive side of the ball, Wes Miller was tearing things up in the first half. At the half, he was still perfect shooting-wise for the tournament scoring on several really deep 3 pointers. His first shot in the second half was an airball and we never could get him open looks (and it didn't look like we were trying very hard either). When a player is on fire the way Wes was, why not try to manufacture some more shots?
Our free throw shooting was a problem, particularly for Hansbrough in the first half. In the second half he did better and ended up going 7-11 for the game. The team went 10-16 on the game from the charity stripe. Hansbrough played well overall leading the team in scoring with 23. It was clear though that Craig Smith and Sean Williams were giving him problems down low. They blocked a few of Hansbrough's shots and he was never able to get in a rhythm.
We went into the half down 1 thanks to a deep 3 by BC with just a second left on the clock. This wasn't a good sign for the heels. To start the second half, we didn't come out fired up. Coach Williams made 5 substitutions after just 3 minutes to wake the starters up. We were down 4 and when Roy put the starters back in just a couple minutes later, we were only down 2. I thought he should have left the subs in longer because they were playing well and with much higher intensity.
Reyshawn Terry had a good game, but got in foul trouble. He picked up his 4th foul with 15 minutes to go in the second half. We missed his scoring presence. David Noel made a couple of big-time 3s to help us stay in the game.
Another sign that it wasn't our night was the number of times we got beat up the floor by BC. I can't even recall a game (maybe USC a couple of months ago) where we got beat up the floor so much. BC is supposed to have a slow, methodical game, so when they started beating us up the court I started to get concerned.
BC had a 9 point lead with 12 minutes and led by as much as 14 with over 8 minutes to go. We made a run and cut the lead to 5 with just over 3 minutes, but BC's experience and accurate shooting was too much to overcome.
