UNC 85, Maryland 88
Boxscore | RecapHere is a summary of the lead we blew today against Maryland to lose in OT: - 16 points at 14:13 - 8 points at 4:37 - 6 points at 1:37 Our offense was pretty anemic in the second half. Ty Lawson is the only reason we didn't lose in regulation. Wayne Ellington was non-existent for much of the game. Why can he not create shots for himself? He's supposed to be our best 3-point shooter and he can never get open. Tyler Hansbrough didn't have a great night, but he did get a double-double (11 and 11). Who had the worst night? The refs!! They totally sucked (two games in a row). Danny's 4th foul. The last charge against Tyler where the Maryland fatty flopped (so clear from the replay). The two travels against Tyler. The NO-CALLS when Ty got mugged at the end of the game which enabled Maryland to send the game to OT. Sure, we didn't play well at the end, but I really hate to see the refs be a determining factor in the outcome of a game. We have a week off before our next game and we need it.
NC State 80, UNC 89
Boxscore | RecapI heard on the radio before the game someone refer to playing NC State like playing Appalachian State in football. We expect to win so anything other than a W is a major disappointment. I feel the same. State has not been a program to be feared in many years. Tonight, they gave us a good run in the first half, but we were too much for them in the second. Tyler Hansbrough played, well, like Tyler again. He's had a couple of rough games (figuratively and literally), but tonight he scored 20 points in the second half on his way to a game high 27 (in only 33 minutes). Ty Lawson was fabulous again with 9 assists and 1 turnover. He also scored 17 on 7-9 shooting. I really wish we could play Boston College and Wake Forest again now because I think Ty would play much better this time around. Tyler Zeller made his much anticipated return at the 8:30 mark in the first half. He scored 2 points, but had 4 fouls in 8 minutes. He ran the floor well...I'm sure it will just take time. Wayne Ellington and Danny Green had nice games going a combined 15 for 25 from the floor for 35 points. As has been our MO this year, we came out firing on all cylinders in the second half. We had only 1 turnover in the second half and played better team ball. The game wasn't as close as the 9 point difference would indicate. Coach Williams seemed a bit agitated for most of the game (mostly at the refs). The refs were pretty bad. They clearly missed a hack on Hansbrough which the replay clearly showed. They also missed an intentional foul on Hansbrough. In the post-game interview a reporter asked about us pressing and Roy dropped the f-bomb. Its all over the Internet now and people are making a huge deal out of it. I agree that Roy shouldn't get so agitated at journalists and fans (ie, his radio show) when they ask him questions, but sheesh, let's not blow this one incident out of proportion. We continue to have a solid 2 game lead in the ACC with 4 games left in the regular season. Next up is Maryland at the Comcast Center on Saturday. Maryland has to play UNC, Duke and Wake Forest over the next 4 games. UNC gets a week off after Maryland.
Zeller likely back, Hansbrough and Lawson feeling better
Good news about Tyler Zeller! From Scout.com: Is there still a chance that Tyler Zeller plays on Wednesday? Yes, it depends on how he goes through practice today… He would really like to help this team. He would really like to play. He thinks that it would really help him in the long term, and hopefully, he would help this team this year. So he and I discussed it yesterday and I told him that was the decision we would go with, unless he went home and slept on it and came back today and said he's changed his mind. So if he comes back today and says he changed his mind, then he won't play. If he hasn’t changed his mind, he probably will play.
Ty Lawson is still clogged up a little from his cold, but he said his throat is feeling much better. Tyler Hansbrough sat out practice yesterday. He had a headache during the Miami game and some blurred vision. He's been taking a beating. Let's hope he's near 100% on Wednesday.
UNC 69, Miami 65
Boxscore | RecapEarly on it didn't look like this game would result in UNC's lowest point total of the season. It was a frenetic pace, but largely due to Miami's zone defense, we scored 23 points below our average. No one on our team had a great offensive night with one big exception. Mr Ty Lawson came through big for us. Despite battling a cold since Thursday (Roy said at the half that Ty was "sick as a dog"), Ty managed to score a team high 21 points including going 5-8 from the three point land. Ty made a clutch three with 10 seconds left to give us a 4 point lead and secure the victory. Miami went in with the game plan of shutting down Tyler Hansbrough and they did it for the most part. Tyler scored only 8 points on 8 shots from the field. He went to the free throw line only twice. But the no-calls are really starting to pile up. I wish I would have kept track of the number of times Tyler went flying to the floor. It is amazing to me when Tyler is 2 feet from the basket, goes up strong, gets mauled by 2 or 3 guys and there is no call. One of the replays showed it clear as day. I don't know how the refs could miss it. It seems just like last year, Tyler is starting to get fewer and fewer calls as the season progresses. I know the refs don't like calling so many fouls for Tyler, but he's going to get hurt one of these times if they continue to let other teams take pot shots at him with no whistle. I don't know how Tyler takes all of that abuse without getting upset. The refs called a combined 20 fouls for the whole game when they normally average 36 per game. Maybe their whistles didn't work so good tonight?? How can there be such a disparity? Back to the game....Wayne Ellington didn't shoot very well, but got a double-double on 15 points and 10 rebounds. He wore a wrap around his shooting arm stemming from an injury suffered at Duke when Lance Thomas got a little overzealous trying to take the ball away from Wayne. Thanks Lance. Danny Green didn't shoot well either going 3-13 from the field for 8 points. Deon Thompson wasn't much better scoring 9 points on 4-11 shooting. Of course the big reason Miami was in the game was Jack McClinton. He went off, scoring 35 on 7 of 12 shooting from three point range. And it wasn't like they were open shots. He'd do a turnaround jumper from 3 and swoosh it. He was amazing tonight (good for hims since there were reportedly 15 NBA scouts in attendance). Miami's Jimmy Graham also had career highs in rebounds (15) and blocks (5). This game had all the makings of a UNC upset, but Miami didn't have enough weapons to finish the deal. We desperately need more teams to play zone against us. It is clear we still aren't comfortable unless we are running and gunning. We need more games like this so our guys can get used to it before the post-season starts. With Duke losing tonight, we now have a 2 game lead in the ACC with 5 games to go. Next up we have NC State on Wednesday. State didn't give us much of a game last time around, but they recently beat Wake and I bet we'll be a better team this time around.
UNC 101, Duke 87
Boxscore | RecapOh Happy day. What a game. We started off extremely strong. Looked sharp. Then Duke took over and erased our 11 point lead. We were down 8 at half. But it wasn't enough for a UNC onslaught in the second half. We outscored the Dookies 57-35 in the second half! The first half was strange. We came out playing really tough. Good offense and pretty good defense. Then Duke turned it up a notch and we couldn't match their intensity. They had 4 turnovers in the first 5 minutes and only 2 for the remainder of the first half. Duke went into the half scoring more points than they in two halves against Clemson (where they lost). They shot 62% from the floor and went on a 22-5 run to end the half. Needless to say, our defense was not looking good at that point. But the second half was a different story. We started playing better defense and everyone started contributing more on offense. All 5 starters ended in double figures. Wayne Ellington had a rough night shooting going 4-15 from the floor, but had 15 points. Danny Green also scored 15, but didn't get many open looks. Tyler Hansbrough had 17 points including a 3 pointer as the shot clock was about to expire during one possession. Bobby Frasor even got into the action (in the first half) scoring 9 points on 3-3 pointers! He helped keep us in it during the first half. It was nice to see him finally start making some buckets. Deon Thompson was a force in the first half. He was hitting shots from all over the court. The story of this game was Ty Lawson. Ty was a total machine on the court. He couldn't be stopped in the second half. He scored a game high 25 points. He was driving the lane unlike I've seen him do all season. Why doesn't he do that more?? Duke did not have an answer for him. If we had that Ty Lawson every game, our chances of running the table would go up significantly. It was a thing of beauty. This fourth straight win at Cameron means Tyler, Bobby and Danny are undefeated at Duke during their career, which is pretty elite company. Tim Duncan was the last player to pull that off. UNC is in sole control of the ACC now. Wake Forest lost again tonight and considering we don't play another ranked opponent until our final match against Duke, we are in a pretty good position (knock on wood). We play Miami on Sunday, which will be another good test, but as the saying goes, our destiny is in our hands. Good night!
Virginia 61, UNC 76
Boxscore | RecapThis game is a great illustration of why our defense has to lead us in post-season play. In a stark contrast from the last game against Maryland, we were not shooting well in the first half. We shot 28% from the field early on and ended the first half shooting 33% percent. We played pretty good defense so we went into the half with a small lead after scoring 33 points (we scored 60 points against Maryland in the first half). In the second half, our shooting finally came around. Wayne Ellington had a nice game scoring a game high 20 points. Ty Lawson had a very nice game with 9 assists and ZERO turnovers. Tyler Hansbrough scored 15 points and grabbed 13 rebounds. Danny had another good game, but he was questionable where he was going to play at all. He's been ill and was a game-time decision. Everyone is hopeful he'll be good for Wednesday's showdown with Dook. Duke's been struggling of late, but playing at Cameron Indoor is never an easy proposition. I don't think we can have a first half like we had today and come out victorious.
UNC back at the top of ACC
Thanks to Duke and Wake losses last night, UNC is tied for first at the top of the ACC. http://statsheet.com/mcb/conferences/acc
Ginyard and Graves out for the Season, News on Zeller Expected Soon
It is official, Marcus Ginyard is out for the rest of the season. This isn't all that unexpected because Marcus "still feels pain". All indications are that Marcus will be eligible to return next year for a 5th year. Let's hope his foot fully recovers. In unexpected news, Will Graves has been suspended for the remainder of the season. He didn't play at State and didn't play against Maryland. Roy said he just made the decision in the last 48 hours. There aren't any good rumors yet as to why he was suspended, but if I hear anything I'll post it here. Tyler Zeller returns to the doctor on Wednesday to determine if he will be cleared to play. Rumor has it that he's already been practicing with the team and there is a 50-50 chance he'll return to the team this season. Some may view this as a waste of a season for him when he could redshirt, but seriously, what are the odds that a 7 footer like Zeller that played as well as he did at the beginning of the season would want to stick around for another 4 years? Pretty much a zero percent chance. At this point, we could use another big man and it is my belief that if Zeller kept playing like he did, he may be starting right now in place of Deon who has been ineffective for much of the conference season. Cross your fingers Tyler returns!
Maryland 91, UNC 108
Boxscore | RecapI came away from this game not knowing what to think. Sure, we had our highest scoring first half of the season (60 points), but we also gave up the second highest points in a game for the year (91). We got out to a rare fast start. Wayne Ellington had 8 points in the first 6 minutes. He went on to score a game high 34 points on 7-9 shooting from 3. He was on fire. In the second half he scored 7 points in a 1 minute span. But he didn't just do well shooting. He also led the team in rebounding including 7 offensive rebounds! Outstanding game for Mr. Ellington (I won't mention the 4 turnovers on a few bad passes, ok, I guess I did). Tyler Hansbrough had a pretty solid game scoring 24 points, but was only 7-16 from the field. Ty Lawson scored 21 points on 4-5 from 3, 6 assists, 4 steals and ZERO turnovers. Great job. Danny Green scored 16 on 4-6 shooting from beyind the arc. As a team, we shot 64% from three! That's 11 percentage points higher than our next closest game (53% against Kentucky). It goes without saying that we were on fire. After a quick check over on StatSheet, this was our 5th best three point shooting game since 1996. While it was nice to see us shooting so well from outside, the game was ultimately a little disappointing because we let Maryland shoot 48% which is higher than any other game this season. In all honesty, there is a good chance we would have lost this game if we weren't raining threes. But a win is a win, especially in conference play, so onward and upward. Next up is Virginia on Saturday. If you recall, we beat UVA pretty easily on January 15th. I watched a little of their game against Duke this past weekend and they didn't look good. Let's hope they don't bounce back against us!
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