Defense(clap-clap), Defense(clap-clap)
Tar Heel Blue has a preview for next season up with Roy Williams exploring various aspects of the coming season. Priority numbers one through seven and possibly eight will be defense.
One area Williams always emphasizes is defense and improved play there is a priority.
“There’s no question we became an above average defensive team, but we’ve got to be even better this year,” says Williams. “This may be one of those years we take the rims off the baskets for the first week of practice, not just the first day.”
Williams says outstanding defensive teams play hard every possession and making individual stops each possession leads to better team defense.
“We’ve got to be better individual defenders, and some of that is giving a more consistent effort. Our kids give good effort overall, but to win championships it has to be more consistent and it has to be more intelligent. If they do those kinds of things then they can become better individual defenders. The next step is to become better defenders away from the ball, because then your team becomes better defensively.”
Williams wants to take advantage of the squad’s depth and push the pace of play with an aggressive, pressure defense. He also expects his veterans to make fewer mistakes.
“We want to create more opportunities and possessions with our defense by playing a faster tempo. More people get to play more with a faster tempo. But with this kind of team I am going to push them more. There’s no need to put up with anything mediocre now. If you are not going to do it right, there is somebody else who will do it right. They may not like it when it happens, but they are going to like the overall objective. It’s going to be a lot more attention to detail and suffer the consequences if you don’t do the small things.”
The offense will take care of itself. I see no reason to focus too much on the offense. The Heels will have enough offensive weapons and with the exception of Will Graves, Tyler Zeller, Ed Davis and Larry Drew, everyone is on the same page as far as their roles go. This team will be made or broken by their defensive effort and most of that has to do with mental focus. Anything short of this team being a top five defensive team is going to be an issue in my mind and sorely disappointing, especially with as much as Ty Lawson talked about how well he plays defense during the draft process.
Speaking of the draft guys, Roy is well aware of the tendency for individuals to look out for their NBA hopes at the expense of the team:
“It will be a challenge for all of our kids -not just Ty, Danny and Wayne- to see how hungry they are going to be,” adds Williams. “They must focus on the team as opposed to how they are doing individually and understand how our team is doing will dictate how successful they are as individuals. I am confident they’ll do that because our kids have such good character that they will take care of it. But they have to be aware of that every day.”
And where Lawson is concerned, Roy sent a fairly unambigious message to him in this interview basically stating that Lawson needed to be more aggressive, tougher(i.e. no limping around over little dings) and own his defense on the opposing team’s primary ball handler.
“Ty is a unique offensive threat because of his ability to break down defenses and attack the basket,” says Williams. “He takes care of the ball, which is so important, and isn’t afraid to take a big shot. We need him to apply more defensive pressure on the ball. Everybody knows he flirted with the NBA. The NBA people told him he had to be more consistent and tougher. He can’t let little things bother him. I am confident he will have a great, great year and help us play at the pace I really like.”
The rest of the article covers the rest of the players. Roy points out that Will Graves and Deon Thompson have been working hard and he expects Thompson to be more confident plus be a more effective shot blocker. Ed Davis will be breathing down his neck for that spot at power forward so Thompson better step up his game. Graves could be a significant factor if he plays defense enough to keep himself on the court and make some impact shots.
I just checked the calendar and it is still July…which really sucks.
![[Bloglines]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/bloglines.png)
![[del.icio.us]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[MySpace]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Technorati]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
July…Boo
A fantastic football season would do much to help with the anticipation of what could be: THE GREATEST SEASON in the history of Tar Heel basketball.
I’m awaiting the schedule release…may be heading to NC in late Nov and I’m hoping to catch a game
With four NCAA basketball championship trophies in Chapel Hill, including the undefeated 1957 season, it will obviously take a lot for next season to be the greatest season in the history of Tar Heel basketball. Although it’s possibile keep in mind: (1) As Chris Berman often says, “That’s why they play the game” when a game doesn’t go according to “script”. (2) Everybody always wants to beat Goliath. (3) One or two key injuries and we could be toast.
Of course, I’m hoping for the greatest season myself, but I’m not going to look too far into the future since my crystal ball is in the shop.
Heels Perspective,
I’m with Sam. The ‘Heels would pretty much need to go 38-0 or so to top 1957. The 1982 season is the one I would consider the THE GREATEST SEASON in my lifetime. That can be surpassed by the 2009 squad even with a couple Ls on the schedule.
Here’s what I hope the team’s goals are for the upcoming season:
ACC regular-season champs
ACCT champs
NCAAT #1 seed (preferably in what was formerly known as the East)
FF appearance
NCAA title
Did I miss anything? (NPOtY isn’t a team goal, btw)
That’d be pretty great, I think.
Just trying to put a positive spin on the upcoming football and the “possibilities” of the basketball season. Of course, going undefeated in this day and time would have to surpass 57. Would love to see Tyler go Four and 0 in Cameron!
If they go 38-2 and win the three titles(ACCR, ACCT and NCAAT) I will declare them to be the best UNC team ever simply based on the level of parity you have now. Had 2005 won the ACCT and not lost to Santa Clara they could make a run at being the greatest ever because their only two losses would have been at the hands of top five teams Duke and Wake on the road.
I have no doubt that if the 2005 team could’ve jumped in Dr. Brown’s DeLorean and gone back to 1957, the former would’ve beaten the latter by double digits. But, I’m a numbers guy, and an undefeated season is still impressive in any era. Debates like this are good problems to have, no?
So, does that mean we know what your top 2 picks in the countdown will be?
So, does that mean we know what your top 2 picks in the countdown will be?
Well, I think everyone knows that the three title teams would be the top three in some order. You will have to wait however to see what I order I choose to put them in.
Wake killed us in 2005. I thought we were the cats meow until that game.
I don’t know where to rank this one among the best – we’ll see. But it clearly is an upgrade over last year’s very good team, with the top six scorers back, including the national player of the year, plus Davis and Zeller adding depth and height in the posts and Frasor a solid point guard backup (though I still would like to see him play some shooting guard – I think that would help his outside shot). Plus the way they lost in the Final Four can be a motivator all year and hopefully once they get to the Final Four again, with some experience there, they won’t have stars in their eyes, which Roy sorta implies happened last time when KU knocked UNC out.
“There’s no need to put up with anything mediocre now. If you are not going to do it right, there is somebody else who will do it right. They may not like it when it happens, but they are going to like the overall objective.”
That’s some quote. Getting the big boys working a little harder.
daz what I’m talkin bout! sounds like Roy is willing to use his leverage! my personal hopes: to see Tyler become a defensive monster, and Marcus an offensive one (yes-still holding out hope). Deon will have to step up several notches to hang onto his spot. These guys are likely to crush teams so severely, there will no doubt be a backlash fan-factor by the time March rolls around. It will take a tough coach, and a tough team to fulfill the expectations this team will have.
This could turn out to be like after we won in 93 and the next year we were still loaded and brought in Wallace and Stackhouse. Not enough time to keep everyone happy. Mean Dean the Coaching Machine had a tough time with this as well.
Didn’t the Wallace and Stackhouse recruits brag they beat 93 championship members in pickup games?
I also would love to see a monster season from Green, who to me is the X factor. I still think he should start, despite the emphasis on defense a la Ginyard.
Must … Keep… Unreasonable … Expectations… In… Check.