UNC 105, UCSB 70
To address William's comment about whether I'm happier today than a few days ago: in some ways yes and in some ways no. We blew out UCSB in convincing fashion. This was a good blowout as opposed to a bad blowout like we've seen earlier in the year. Obviously the two hard practices Roy put the team through had an effect. Ty Lawson, Tyler Hansbrough and Marcus Ginyard all had outstanding games.
Marcus scored a career high 17 points and had his best offensive game since he's been at Carolina. I was thoroughly impressed by his aggressiveness (which he's had most of the season), but he sank most of his shots this time around (going 8-10 from the floor).
Ty also put up some nice numbers (15 pts, 6 assists, 4 steals). He's as dominant a point guard as you'll find at the college level. He dribbles through double teams, drives at will, and runs the floor with the pace Roy wants. You rarely see Coach Williams telling the team to push the ball faster when Ty is in the game.
Tyler didn't get his sixth double-double, but he had 21 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 steals, which isn't shabby. He got a steal at half court and proceeded to do a 360 dunk! It was awesome.
Overall I was very happy with our intensity and defensive pressure. But we still have a couple of warts. Our outside shooting was pretty bad. We didn't hit a 3 pointer until 12 minutes left to go in the game. We finished 3-16 from behind the arc. Wayne went 6-13 from the field, which doesn't sound bad, but many of the makes were layups and many of the misses were from outside (including 0-4 from 3). Outside shooting isn't an issue as long as we can control the pace, but against teams that slow it down successfully, we could have some problems.
Another glaring problem yesterday was Deon's free throw shooting (1-6). His form doesn't look bad, which makes me think it is in his head now. He wasn't even close on most of his attempts. Roy said that Danny Green would be a starter, but we need a second big man when it gets to be tourney time. We need Deon to be there at the end of games, so he has to improve his free throw shooting.
Next up is
Nevada on Thursday.
