VT 76, UNC 79
Boxscore |
RecapWhat a game! I'm not exactly sure how we pulled it off, but we did. I thought we looked pretty bad for much of the first half, but somehow we were able to go into the half with a 1 point lead. Ty Lawson didn't play (and may not play tomorrow either) and it altered the look of our team dramatically. Bobby Frasor played in his place, but it wasn't he same. We stopped being a transition style team. VT was eating our lunch in transition points. We had 5 turnovers during the first 10 minutes of the game.
You can tell we are depleted because Justin Watts came in at the 7 minute mark after Danny Green picked up his second foul. Justin has only played in mop-up duty this season (although I thought he did well while he was on the court). This is quite a change from what was potentially the deepest team in history at the start of the season.
The big story of this game was Tyler Hansbrough. I don't know Tyler sees the writing on the wall in terms of his Carolina career coming to a close, but he has been unstoppable the last few games. He's easily playing the best ball of the season for him right now. He scored a game high 28 points and grabbed 8 rebounds. If he had played more like that throughout the season, I think he would have gotten ACC POY instead of Ty. But Ty deserved it this year.
Bobby Frasor and Larry Drew II did decent jobs, but not great. Larry is still struggling a bit. I sure hope he blossoms by next season or we could have a tough year next year.
I've already seen a bunch of VT fans complaining about the refs, but it definitely goes both ways. The refs called a phantom foul at the end of the first half, which I believe resulted in 2 made free throws. They also called a tie ball that went against us in the first half much like the tie ball at the end of the game went for us. I think there were many questionable calls (at least 2 missed travel calls against VT), but it it went both ways.
Next up we play FSU in the semi-final game. This is going to be another tough one, especially without Ty Lawson. Let's see if we can pull off another one!
