UNC 83, Louisville 73
Boxscore | Recap | Game FlowIf 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!
UNC 68, Washington State 47
Boxscore | Recap | Game FlowDo 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!
UNC 108, Arkansas 77
Boxscore | Recap | Game FlowI 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.
UNC 113, Mount St Mary's 74
Boxscore | Recap | Game FlowIt 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.
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.
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!
UNC 86, Clemson 81 (ACC Champs!)
Boxscore | Recap | Game FlowUNC 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.
UNC 68, Virginia Tech 66
Boxscore | Recap | Game FlowInstead of continuing to improve as we did to close out the regular season, we look like the UNC team of earlier in the season. If I had to describe the "typical" competitive game flow for a Carolina game it goes something like this: opponent is the aggressor in the first half. We may go down 4-8 points, but with 2 minutes left to go in the half we pick it up and either tie the game or go into the half with a slight lead. In the second half the other team comes out with more intensity for the first 5-10 minutes before we finally wake up, get stops and close the game on a run. That describes several of our games this year and it describes our first two games in this year's ACC tourney. Virginia Tech was up for almost the whole game. They played excellent defense against us. They kept making their shots. The refs would make a few terrible calls that stopped us from making a run. All of that led to a tie ball game in the final minute. Ty Lawson attempted to drive and score in the final seconds, but missed. Fortunately Tyler picked up the rebound and scored on a jumper to put us up by 2 with .8 second left to go. I'm not sure what has gotten into us. Is the team tired? Are they not motivated? What happened to that intensity we saw against Duke? I know it is hard to get up for every game like that, but it is almost like we are daring teams to beat us and we are giving them enough rope to do it. Ty Lawson continues to be an issue. Despite Coach saying Ty played well at the end of the game, I thought he was a liability at times. That's right, I called Ty a liability (never thought I would). He missed two layups and is not displaying any of the quickness he is known for. To top it off, he's not making good decisions like he usually does. He had 1 assists and 4 turnovers! The injuries are still affecting him--Coach said that Ty feels like an old man right now. He's playing like it too! Danny Green and Wayne Ellington didn't do much for the team either until the end. Wayne finally started making a few shots in the final minutes of the game. However he and Danny weren't very impactful for much of the game. Tyler had another Tyler kind of game, but he also forced several up and missed a wide open layup. But we squeaked it out and I'll take it! In other happy news, Dook lost to Clemson. We beat Clemson twice this year, both games going to overtime. Clemson looked good and if we don't bring our A-game, the game won't be decided on the final play. PS. Per my previous post, I thought the refs did an absolute horrific job (no comments please that I'm complaining about UNC not getting calls). The refs were bad on both sides.
UNC/Virginia Tech (HALFTIME)
Do the refs suck or what? There was the phantom foul against Quentin as he was scoring on a fast break. The no-calls against Hansbrough that seem to be all the more common. What about the Ty Lawson steal and subsequent tie ball after the VT players jumps on top of him on the floor?? These refs are horrible. Let's hope they get their act together in the second half.
UNC 82, FSU 70
Boxscore | Recap | Game FlowAfter playing our best game of the year against Duke, we reverted back to old habits in the game against FSU. In the first half, FSU looked to be the aggressor. We had chances to open up a lead at times, but wasn't able to do it until the final minutes of the half. In the second half, as is our tendency, we stepped up the intensity on the defensive side for several minutes and was able to go on some runs. FSU was able to trade baskets with us, but never stop us long enough to eat into our lead in a significant way. FSU (and the refs) were able to keep Tyler in check for much of the first half. He was able to to do more in the second half and ended with 22 points. Wayne Ellington had an excellent game scoring 19 points on 7-13 shooting. Quentin Thomas had a couple of nice buckets as did Marcus Ginyard who scored 10 points on 4-5 shooting. Ty Lawson had an off game. This was his least productive game since he came back. He still favors his ankle and you can tell he doesn't want drive to the basket (especially against FSU's Ryan Reid who bodyslammed him in their first meeting). Let's hope it was just an off night for him. Danny Green didn't have a stellar day either. Given his performance against Duke, I'm not going to criticize his 2-8 shooting. Next up we have Virginia Tech in a rematch of an earlier game in which we blew out the Hokies.
ACC Tourney Time
UNC is the #1 seed and will be playing at Noon on Friday against the BC/FSU winner. If you want to stay up-to-date with the latest news and results from the ACC Tournament, check out StatSheet.com. It has a dynamically updating tournament bracket (which is also printable) and an RSS feed for news. Interested in another conference? StatSheet has that too.
UNC 76, Duke 68
Boxscore | Recap | Game FlowDespite it being DeMarcus Nelson's Senior Night, the Heels were able to withstand a second half rally by the Dookies to secure the win and the ACC Regular Season crown outright. This team continues to get better every single night. Early in the season I said we barely looked like a top 25 team much less the #1 team in the nation. Now I feel comfortable saying that we are easily one of the top teams in the nation if not THE best. We played our best first half of the season. This was a little surprising since we don't normally play our best ball in the first half. Our perimeter defense was VERY good--significantly better than when we played Duke at home. Duke missed a few 3s early and Danny Green got hot. That combination led to a 20-9 lead with 9:25 to go in the first half. At the 5 minute mark in the first half, Duke was shooting a measly 22%! If it wasn't for Greg Paulus going 4-4 from three point range, we could have had a 20 point lead going into the half. But I'll "settle" for a 11 point lead at Cameron any day. It was Duke's lowest scoring first half all season and biggest halftime deficit all season. Who says Carolina can't play defense?? (I used to, but don't anymore) Duke came out fighting in the second and for the first 10 minutes the roles were reversed. Duke looked to be the aggressor and UNC was on its heels. The Dookies came all the way back and even took a 2 point lead with 3:30 to go. At this point I thought it was anyone's game although the momentum had swung in Duke's favor. Tyler had a tough night--he had to fight and scrap for every point he got. In some cases he forced things up, but he wasn't getting the foul calls like he normally does (more on this in a minute). Our guard play was the difference. Danny and Wayne let us down in the first meeting, but they did not disappoint this time around scoring 34 points combined! Especially Danny. He was huge. In the final 3 minutes we went on a 10 point run and shut down Duke completely. They missed their last 10 shots! Ty Lawson had a huge steal that sealed the deal. Ty looked maybe 75% against BC. Tonight I thought he looked more like 80-85%. Maybe he'll prove me wrong and will be 100% by the end of the season. He was a difference maker for us scoring 10 points and making many good decisions on the court. The win means we get the regular season crown and secure a #1 seed in the ACC tourney. It SHOULD also mean a #1 seed in the EAST regional for the NCAA Tourney, but some "bracketologists" are saying that if Duke and UNC meet in the ACC tourney and Duke wins, then Duke should get it (or maybe both teams get a #1 seed, but UNC has to go to another regional). I disagree. UNC is the best team in the ACC--even with a loss in the ACC tourney they should get a #1 seed in the EAST. Ending the regular season as the #1 overall team in the nation should count for a lot. Some other notes on the game....one reason we were able to shut Duke down was that we changed up our defensive scheme. Roy made everyone switch on ALL screens. That means sometimes Hansbrough was guarding Paulus or Danny Green was guarding Zoubek. Because of Duke's lack of post presence, the plan worked brilliantly. Duke maybe got 3 or 4 wide open 3 pointers compared to the 10-11 wide open shots in our first game. They didn't necessarily take that many fewer (3) than last game, but the looks were mostly contested. Oh and did I mention that UNC had 15 blocks!! That's right 15. Danny Green had 7 and Deon Thompson had 5. Wow!! This game (and the season overall) shows why Roy should be Coach of the Year in the ACC. While the team had high expectations early in the year, it was unjustified at that time. We were more like a #15-20 team the first 3 months of the season and Roy coached his team to be #1 by the end of the season. Boy was Dickie V sweating a lot! I know it was hot, but someone at ESPN get that man a replacement shirt every hour or two! FLOP TRACKER I saw Kyle Singler flop early in the first half so I thought I would keep track of all the flops the Dookies did over the course of the game. It is obvious Coach K must teach his guys the fine art of the Flop and it sickens me. What they are really looking for is something for nothing. Just play ball. Here are the flops by my count: - Kyle Singler: 3 - DeMarcus Nelson: 2 - Greg Paulus: 3 I would be surprised if I didn't miss a few others. I haven't said anything about them yet, but the officiating was horrible. There is nothing I hate more than inconsistent officiating. In the first half the refs were calling everything in sight. It looked like Duke was going to have to contend with foul trouble throughout the game. The second half was a totally different story. The only fouls they called were the completely obvious ones. They swallowed their whistle on everything else. Tyler Hansbrough didn't shoot 1 free throw all night! That is only the second time in his career that's happened. And it wasn't like there was no contact. It was extremely physical. I just don't understand referees sometimes. Now we have a few days off before we play 12pm on Friday against the #8/#9 winner. Check out StatSheet Conference Tournament Central for more on the tourney.
Hoop it Up: Part II
I participated in an interview with NBC Sports the last time Duke played UNC, and they had me back again to talk about the game on Saturday. One of the questions I got that didn't make the show was: Which Duke point guard do you dislike the most? I told it was a hard question because I dislike them all.
UNC 90, FSU 77
Boxscore | Recap | Game FlowSenior night at the Dean Dome was memorable for both of our seniors Quentin Thomas and Surry Wood. It was undoubtedly Surry's best game of his career. He got the start as is the tradition on Senior night and scored 4 points in 4 minutes of action on 2-2 shooting. The rest of the team wasn't quite as hot. We had 5 turnovers in the first 6 minutes and Q didn't look good for the second straight game. He would bounce back in the second half to score on several drives and ended with an all-around nice performance. As has been the case many times this year, we looked sloppy in the first half , but by the time the second half rolled around we were ready to play and cranked up our defense. It was close until the final minutes of the first half when we opened up a 12 point lead to go into the half. FSU didn't get near us after that. Last time we played the Noles, Lawson got body slammed by Ryan Reid and hasn't been the same since. Reid was up to his usual thug-like tactics again in this game swinging elbows at Hansbrough. That guy is only a sophomore too. Ugh. I guess when you don't have skill you have to resort to other things, in Reid's case, body slams and elbows. Ty Lawson played again, but he didn't look good in the first half. He was timid and didn't even want to take jump shots. He ended up getting a hip pointer and had to leave the first half early. He didn't return until 4 minutes into the second half at which point he looked like a different player. It is clear he isn't 100%--maybe more like 75%. He can't turn the corner quite like he used to. But he nailed his jumpers! He scored 10 points on 4-6 shooting on what had to be a big confidence booster. He still makes the "right" passes most of the time and we play better even with a 75% Ty in the game. With only a month left to go in the season, I seriously doubt Ty will be 100% before the end of March. Overall this was a very balanced game. We had 10 players score and 4 in double figures. We look in fine form at the right time of the year. Still a concern is the lack of consistency from outside. Ellington had an off night last night after putting together several good performances in a row. We need Ty, Danny, and Wayne in top form against Duke or we won't win. Simple as that. I don't like being ranked #1 at the beginning of the season because of all the expectations put on the team, but going into the final week of regular season #1 isn't so bad. Now it is down to 1 game. This will decide 1) if we win the ACC regular season crown, 2) end the regular season ranked #1 overall, 3) get a #1 seed in the ACC tournament, and more than likely 4) determine if we get a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament in the EAST regional. Wow, there is a lot riding on this game. At least we have a few days to rest up. P.S. Can someone please tell Greg Fishel to only cut into a Carolina game if you need to warn people about imminent danger due to a tornado? I missed the first 5 minutes of the game because Greg wanted to show everyone exactly what a "storm signature" looks like (thanks for the zoom in Greg), and had to repeatedly tell us that he'll cut back in if he feels like it. He must not be a Carolina fan. It was bad enough that we had to watch the scroll at the bottom of the screen for almost the entire game. But then right before half Greg cut in one more time. Possible torndado? Yes. How many people impacted? Well it looks to be NO BODY because the area the "possible tornado" is at is not populated. So how many trees were in danger Greg? Did you really have to break into a game like this to tell us? Why not just say: "Possible severe storms, if you are at all interested, check out wral.com." Done. That would take about 10 seconds. But alas it would steal away from his 5 minutes of Primetime to inform the Triangle about "storm signatures". Sigh.
Tyler is SI Player of the Year!
SI has made Tyler Hansbrough its Player of the Year. Here is a nice article from Grant Wahl covering the story. Let's hope there is no SI curse tonight against FSU! [Note in the article that Tyler says the only way he is not coming back next year is if we win a NCAA championship.]
UNC 90, Boston College 80
Boxscore | Recap | Game FlowThis was one of the most impressive games I've seen all season, and I'm not sure what was more impressive: Tyrese Rice's 34 point performance in the first half on 6-6 shooting from behind the arc, or Carolina's 28 point swing to win the game in the second half. Ok, I'm more impressed by Carolina's come back, but I'm biased. Regardless, it was one heck of a game. The only other time I can recall watching a player as on fire as Rice goes back to Tayshaun Prince when he was at Kentucky. He had a game (I can't recall which one) where he was shooting from 35 feet out and draining them. He literally couldn't miss. That's how Rice was except even more so. Despite being down 14 at half I thought Rice's performance would prove to be "fools gold" as Coach Williams likes to call it. When a team (or an individual) gets very hot in the first half behind 3 point range it does two things: makes the team think they can rely on 3 pointers to win and doesn't get the rest of the team involved in the offense. And that's exactly what happened to BC. In the second half, Marcus and Ty Lawson shut Tyrese out and the other BC players couldn't contribute enough to offset the loss in production. Did I say Ty helped shut Tyrese out? Oh yes, for the first time since the FSU game, Ty Lawson saw some PT. He didn't look 100%, but it is amazing the effect he has on the team. Even Marcus said after the game how everyone feels so much more comfortable when he is in the game. And the results show it too. We had only 9 turnovers for the game-- our lowest total since Lawson went down. And Quentin had 3 of the 9 turnovers. In fact this was Q's worst game since he started filling in for Ty. Hansbrough continues to solidify his resume for the top player in the nation. He led UNC with 25 points and 9 rebounds. But he difference in this game was the play of Wayne Ellington and Danny Green. Wayne scored 20 points on 7-12 shooting and Danny had 18 on 7-11 shooting (including 4-8 from 3 point range). Those two together outscored BC in the second half and were key in the run that got us the lead. If they can play like that against Duke, we shouldn't have any problems. (I should also mention Will Graves scored 5 points in 4 minutes of action.) While our offense was good in the second half, our defense was better. After Roy removed the starting 5 after BC scored the first 4 points of the second half, the team came out swinging on defense. We got some key stops and converted on the other end. If we could just play like that for 40 minutes (or maybe just 30 minutes), there is not another team in the country that could compete with us (and I've seen everyone in the top 10 play at this point). Next up is FSU on Tuesday. If we beat them, it will come down to the final game against Duke to determine the regular season ACC champion. I like our odds.
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