A few more items before focusing on Miami.
- For all the talk we hear about the superiority of Mike Krzyzewski over Roy Williams in the coaching department, this game marked the 2nd straight UNC-Duke contest Roy got the best of K. The Tar Heel players made it clear that it was Roy’s adjustments at halftime to the spacing on offense that created the lanes for Ty Lawson to literally drive the team to victory. Yes the players needed to execute but Roy made some moves to get them in position to win.
- According to Ty Lawson in his postgame interview on ESPN, Mike Copeland threw a chair in the locker room and was one of the more vocal players at halftime. Tyler Hansbrough uncharacteristically made his presence felt as well. I am not sure how much help Copeland can be on the floor but as a senior if he can be the guy who fires the starters up off the court that might be as important as any basket or rebound.
- Much has been made of the conditions inside Cameron last night. With the seventy degree weather in the area and 9000 fans packing the arena two hours prior to the game, the place was a sauna. It reminded me of the game in 1998 UNC lost at Duke because the heat/humidity did a thin Tar Heel roster in. This had a similar feel to it. The Heels looked tired and flat during the first half Blue Devil run that eventually staked an eight point halftime lead. The problem for Duke is they expended a great deal of energy getting to that point. In the 2nd half, the Heels were fresher but more importantly because the game was at UNC’s favored pace even if both teams were tired, the Heels would have been better equipped to play at that point. The other issue was the humidity creating a slick floor which hurt both teams but during the Heels 14-0 seem to damage Duke’s chances more. It is easy to say Duke should do more to make the building cooler but given basketball is played in the winter you have to wonder how many games like this you end up having per season and is that worth retrofitting the facility to make it cooler. It did not cost Duke the game because UNC had to play in the same conditions. However I am not sure it helped matters either.
- Due credit has been given to Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green for finishing their college careers 4-0 at Cameron. The fact Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Deon Thompson are 3-0 is not too shabby either.
- What are the odds that Tyler Hansbrough would make another three late in the 2nd half near the end of the shot clock to extend a Tar Heel lead at Cameron and pretty much seal the deal?
- It will be interesting to see how much the Heels take from this game in terms of opening the floor up more for Lawson in future games. Granted matchups dictate how the offense works from one game to the next but don’t be surprised if Lawson is given the opportunity again to take control of a game.
- UNC has now won six of eight versus Duke since losing their first three against the Devils upon Roy Williams return. The results on the court and the clear edge the Heels seem to be enjoying off the court in recruiting makes it clear that the Heels have once again assumed the position of top program in North Carolina and the ACC.
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Gerald Henderson is tremendously talented and will make a decent pro. However, he will forever live in infamy with Tar Heel fans not only for breaking Tyler’s nose but for those frustration-releasing fouls late in last night’s game.
Who knows if this is correct, but on ESPN last night they said Cameron has air conditioning available, but they turned it off and sealed the doors at 2:00pm or something.
On the coaching matchup: there was talk before the game about Roy winning the recruiting war which is part of coaching. But how about managing players once they are on campus. Last night could have been the 4th and final Cameron showdown of Hansbough v. McRoberts. I don’t know the whole story, but would another coach have been more able to keep McRoberts from leaving early? Would McRoberts have helped Duke last night?
It would be hard to say which of the two coaches gets the most out of their players, but with the pattern of transfers at Duke, it sure seems tough to be a player there.
McRoberts had a poor freshman season, particularly when you judge it against an obvious comparison- fellow freshman big man Hansbrough. By his second season, experts were saying he was a great passing big man (take home message- he deferred in all other areas to his teammates). Soon after, he matriculated to obscurity in the NBA/overseas. Who knows what he could have developed into had he stayed on in Durham, but he certainly wasn’t on Tyler’s fast-track to NPOY.
And ultimately, if he was there last night, would he have been any better than Shelden Williams of Tyler’s freshman season? Would it have mattered?
THF, I was listening to David Glenn a little earlier and he said that for every Laettner and Henderson, we have a Rasheed and Makhtar Ndyie. Doesn’t it seem as if Duke is one up in the “cheap shots” department? Even if we are, we are not the program of self-professed “classiness”. Yes, we have it, but we don’t make a point of being vocal about it. There is a difference there.
The funny thing about Cameron Indoor is that for all the talk about it being such a tough place to play because of the crowd, the only reason it still exists is because there aren’t enough folks in NC that care enough about Dook bball to fill a 20,000 seat arena. We all know that if the demand was there then the money would be there also to build K’s new house. Just look at the situation with Carmichael. I’d argue it was just as loud to play in as Cameron, and everyone knew that moving into the Dean Dome would hurt that. But fans/alumni dictated the move so that more folks could see the Heels play, and I think it was a good idea. The same can be said for Reynold’s vs. the RBC Center, except of course they can’t fill the RBC except for UNC games nowadays.
All the reasons UNC players love to beat Duke have been well documented, from tradition to bragging rights to payback. But last night I think Ty Lawson was possibly most pleased to silence the annoying Cameron Crazies, who had been jabbing at him about his drunken driving charge. His wave and two word suggestion to them as he was dribbling off the court, recounted by Seth Davis today on the SI site, was a not-so-subtle reminder of how personal this all gets. I really doubt we’ll see him around next year, but if he returns with a chance to go 4-0 himself, you can be sure it will be with a big smile on his face as he gazes at all of those blue-painted faces.
squint your eyes just a little bit in the second half when Lawson was working his game and tell me you don’t flash back to a decade ago when Cota blowing past Wojo was a semi-annual event.
overrated Dook PG too busy barking, hugging K, and slapping the floor to notice that his lunch is being repeatedly eaten by a superiour player.
Also, did anybody else notice what a beeoytch Lance Thomas is becoming? He has to strut, scowl, and/or preen after every play, no matter the result. He woofs like the big dog when he knocks the ball out of bounds, scowls when he commits a foul (perish the thought), and woofs when somebody steps out of bounds. He’s the latter day Casey Saunders, but with less talent and more mouth. Classic.
I immediately turned to ESPNews to see if they had a postgame reaction with interviews, to which they did. I watched Roy’s, and he was happy with the effort in the second half, obviouslym, but he told everyone how angry he got with Hansbough not calling out the crack screen at the halfcourt line. It looks like that was the reason he was benched for such a long time. In the postgame commentary from the talking heads, it was nice to see Jay Williams discount our defensive efforts in the second half. He couldn’t even acknowledge how UNC manned up on the defenders and took away the perimeter game. He couldn’t acknowledge the hustle in fighting through screens and contesting shots. He’s a joke and shouldn’t be allowed to be on TV.
Other observations:
Where has the first half Deon Thompson been all season? The jumpers were going down early, and he did pretty well on the defensive end (minus some careless fouls) but I wish he would take it to the hoop more.
It was nice to see Frasor hitting shots. Here’s to hoping he continues that and is more of an offensive threat from the bench.
Wayne was clearly off tonight from outside, and I think he was rushing. No need to get too worried about it, I think he’ll be okay. I think he also played better defense in the second half as well.
I can honestly say that Ty Lawson is now the most dominant player in the country. How he singlehandedly dismantled the vaunted Duke defense was amazing. He’s also an excellent enough FT shooter where he can do plenty of damage, and alleviate a lot of pressure on Tyler.
Speaking of Tyler, what a shot! As soon as he hit that three, my friends and I were saying, “it’s over!”
Finally, I think this team believes in themselves again. You could see some doubt on their faces in the first half run, but they were not only executing on offense and defense in the second half, they KNEW they were going to win that game without getting too cocky. If UNC can put out consistent efforts like that, no one can beat them.
Mark, I think PRGuy is talking about the well-known dissension/feud between McRoberts and K. I don’t know how well McRoberts will do in the pro’s, or Hansbrough, but I have seen what a situation like that did to Joe Forte, a kid that could score twenty points and grab twenty rebounds and who, hopefully saved some of his initial million dollars before falling off the edge of the basketball world.
Hansbrough makes that shot, 25%, no, say 20% of the time.
K says Carolina is just better, after earlier saying that this was just another game. Isn’t this sort of like, K saying, “Hey, this loss has nothing to do with my coaching”?
from this game, two things come to mind about k:
1) “e-mail” and plumcake (the supposed building blocks of dook’s future) didn’t play a single second. on the other hand, ed and drew played 14 and 7 mins, respectively. obviously, PT in such games is critical in building young players’ experience and maturity.
2) the yelling, shrieking, harassing, throwing f bombs and licking the faces of his players in the huddle in the 2nd half.
keeping these things in the background of your mind, hear his rat-like voice say the following:
“I am a leader who happens to coach basketball. When they get out into the workplace, they’re armed with not just a jump shot or a dribble. I want you armed for life. I want you to develop as a player. I want you to develop as a student, and I want you to develop as a human being. My life isn’t about playing games. That’s why my card is American Express.”
I’M LEFT SPEECHLESS…
I’d like to know how the Heels managed to shut down Henderson in the 2nd half. It seemed like he barely touched the ball. Who was playing D on him? Green, Ellington? I was amazed to see him become such a non-factor in the game. That was what really made me feel good about the game.
green was 1st half. i have to watch it again but i remember it was mainly wayne in the 2nd. wayne’s defense seems to have gotten miles better in recent games. but maybe guarding his best friend is easier than someone he barely knows.
All of you should take a few moments and read all the crying and whining on the Duke Basketball Report. A number of those colossal idiots actually believe the damp floor caused Duke to lose and that Singler’s hand slipped off the ball, causing him to elbow TH in the face. I suppose Lee Harvey Oswald’s finger inadvertently pulled the trigger, too. I wonder if any of them would buy Ocracoke Island if I geve them a good deal? Can’t wait until March 8!
Seems to me that it’s Dook’s arena, so if they don’t like the condensation then maybe they should do something about it. I don’t ever remember the Dean Dome’s floor having condensation problems. And didn’t the Heels play on the same floor that night?
did I miss anything?
Not really…just Ty Lawson doing absolutely sick and unholy things to anyone wearing a Duke uniform trying to guard him.
lol–we did manage to scrounge up a tv. that was an awesome performance by Ty! haven’t seen all the comments, and probably someone else referenced it, but I agree with PR guy about GH, and his late-game cheap-shottery. that crap only serves to further debase the entire Duke team. Tyler showed a lot of class.
One thing is absolutely clear, and I’ve been saying this since the winter of 2007; which is, Duke clearly benefit from being so closely linked with the Heels. Now, I remember a time, say somewhere in that black hole that was 1999-2003, where we clearly used the Duke game as a promotional tool for Carolina basketball. They had the edge, the swagger, and the coach. Now, we’ve got the power back, and they know it…so they milk it for all it’s worth. The truth is that they are consistently overrated, a jump-shot heavy team that tires by mid-February, and are coached by a man who still acts as though he’s suiting up Elton Brand and Grant Hill, or even JJ Redick. The talent is not there because Krzyzewski has become more interested in watching Lebron James and Kobe Bryant win gold medals (while having the audacity to take coaching credit!) rather than getting out on the recruiting trail and attempting to find some big men. Duke are simply no longer in the Heels’ class, plain and simple.
Wow Dean. It seems to me as if the matchup and regular season reords is going to have to favor us for a while before the rivalry REALLY swings back in our favor. They still have the Mannings, Bill Cower, former players show up to their games like it is some sort of hall-of-fame gathering. I agree 100 percent that we have had the edge in recruiting, and maybe coaching. With that being said, they could be feeding off of our smorgasboard. You were just down-right mean with it Dean, and I like it!!!!!!! I think Bomani Jones has one word for it though, “ah man, hate,hate,hate,hate,hate”
JBowling,
Are the Dukies holding out Laettner as a classy player? We can eliminate him with his stomp on the Kentucky player in 1992, not to mention other antics.
What about Ricky Price and a tattoed, pierced Greg Newton, both of whom violated the honor code in a – gasp! – dance class? (So much for the rigorous Duke academic curriculum.) Let’s not forget Corey Maggette, whose payments constituted an NCAA violation.
There are many others, but I think you get the drift.