Thank goodness I have THF to keep me in the
know!

Basketball (and maybe soccer) are much less clearly defined into offensive and defensive aspects than football or baseball. There is an organic integrity between the two in basketball. Two famous NBA teams from the 60′s and the 70′s, Russell’s Celtics and Frazier’s Knicks were known for their great defense, but they were also known for their fastbreaking style and great shooters and scorers like Bill Sharman, Sam Jones, Jerry Lucas, Earl Monroe and Bill Bradley.

Defense and the break started the offense for these great NBA teams, which is how it often works best for Carolina, going all the way back to Dean Smith’s first great teams from the 60′s and 70′s who were usually among the highest scoring teams in the country.

One thing that Pomeroy has suggested, but not implemented, perhaps because it is not predictive, is whether stats should be counted differently during blow-outs, or at least some break-out should be made.

Except for the Notre Dame game, Carolina has now had its best two offensive games of the year by far. Is it reasonable that the defensive numbers would lag, or should they have remained the same as well? I do think that at times, paradoxically, by giving up easy baskets, UNC takes the other team out of their game, turns the game into a running game and may actually benefit from giving up some lay-ups. This is in opposition to the BC game, where we didn’t give up many lay-ups or easy baskets in transition and accordingly, could never get the game to the pace we needed.

The other thing that seems to be a constant is that UNC has problems when its opponents hit over 1/3 of their three pointers. In most of the games that Carolina has lost the last two years, they have gotten torched at the three point line, if not the entire game, at least in the first half.

BC was 7-16 from the three point line in our loss to them. Duke was 13-29 from the three point line when they beat us last year. Kansas made 4-6 three-pointers in the first half against Carolina and hit three of them in one three minute span. Wake Forest was 6-14 against us, for an outstanding 43%.

Obviously, no team does particularly well when they give up a lot of three’s, but it seems as though UNC might do better in games like the ones this week, where over all we are not great on defense, but where we do defend the three well. UNC was excellent defending the three in both games against State and Maryland, particularly in the first half, when the games were still at risk, so maybe we should take some of the poor points per possession stats with a grain of salt.

In short, our style works in the NCAAs, which the Pomeroy ratings bear out, especially for 2005. With that said, we only go as far as our starting 5+Davis takes us. Right now, I could beat Bobby in a game of HORSE, no problem.

It wasn’t really a suprise to me that Ginyard will not be back this year. What really suprised me was Graves. What happened? Anyway, with that said, our depth is one man short. We’ve been without Ginyard for the whole year. When he did play this year, he didn’t do anything.

What we need to do now is Focus!!! Focus!!! Focus!!!! on DEFENSE!!!!!! If we get better on DEFENSE, we will be unstoppable!!!!! No one will beat us!!!!

An another thing, I’m not worried about the NCAA Tournament right now let alone next year in 2010, Like I’ve said before, we need to take one game at a night and improve from our mistakes and learn from them. When we get to the tournament, we’ll worry about that then but until then, Let’s play Carolina basketball like it should be played!!!!!!!

The key is bringing to the table what you need to win each night. The Heels are more than capable (both mentally & physically) of playing good defense. They are also even more capable of playing good offense. As long as they can add enough of one to compliment the other, I’m not too worried. I guess I’d rather have the tools and figure out which ones I need each night to win than to not have the tools at all.

Defense this season: Moderatley ok
Defense last night: Crappy

Our main problem was transition defense. I mean Wayne would go down and make a three, the MD would get the ball and score a quick layup with nobody gaurding him. Problem? Yes. With teams like Maryland. Team that take their time shooting, wont be as big of a problem, unless they shoot threes, which we can’t defend at all.

For those of you that say defense doesn’t win games, I have to disagree. For teams like MD who really are not that good offense can win games but when we play better teams we can’t win by pure offensive production. We need defense.