I think Deon Thompson summed it up best on Twitter:
Why does it feel like we lost, even when we won? Lucky there is still time to improve before ACC play begins.
Yeah and Roy Williams had one of those press conferences which last about five minutes chock full of cutting reporters questions off and allusions to practices totally not designed for the player’s enjoyment. The last time I head Roy this pissed following a win it was the Nicholls St. game in 2007-08 season which the Heels won by a paltry ten points over a team NC State could have beaten. The beef then was the Heels’ defense. In this one it is…well…everything but mainly the careless decisions on offense.
Overall the game was fairly ragged with UNC only leading by six at the half. In the second half, UNC slowly took over pushing the lead out to 17 before the wheels came off or at least three of them. Rutgers worked themselves back into game following a combination of Tar Heel turnovers and poor shot selection. In the end UNC hit shots when they needed to while Rutgers did not which was more about Rutgers missing than UNC really be stellar on offense. Dexter Strickland led the Heels with 18 points and hit a big three late to answer a Rutgers run. Apparently the only sticking point for Roy where Strickland is concerned is his defense. If Strickland were better on the defensive end, he would probably see more time. And no, I think Roy might be going too far complaining about Strickland’s three saying it was “talent over coaching.” Well, Roy sometimes you want that sort of thing and ripping the guy in public over it seems counterproductive.
At this point it appears this team is still awfully disjointed on offense. Many of the turnovers seem unforced, especially passing the basketball. Far too often passes are made with poor spacing or because a player is in a bad position then panics attempting to get the ball to an open player. The offense simply is ragged in execution which is ironic considering six Heels were in double figures. The nature of the offense is such it feels like they happen into points at times. Despite Roy’s misgivings with Strickland, he is the best player on the court offensively speaking and the only true scorer out there. For my money, I would rather take chances on Strickland’s talent than some of the other options out there. Will Graves played another solid game and UNC continues to get good production from Thompson-Davis-Zeller on the interior. I think the biggest concern and possibly the rudder turning this ship is Larry Drew who is a bit haphazard at times. By no means is he as bad as Quentin Thomas was at the same career point. The problem with Drew is he puts himself in bad spots then throws a difficult pass in an effort to make a play. That usually ends up being a turnover. On the night Drew had 10 points, five assists, four turnovers and was 2-5 from the FT line. Ultimately Drew was less productive than Strickland who had 18 points, four assists and three turnovers in ten fewer minutes. At some point a conversation needs to be had as to whether Drew is the best option at PG over Strickland unless Drew gets more consistent, especially in his decision making.
The silver lining to Deon Thompson’s comment is the players do get it and they do have time to correct it. However, no one is happy right now. The fans are not but more importantly the head coach is not. Now let’s see what he does and how they respond. And for the record, following the Nicholls St game UNC won the next two games by 35 and 36 points.
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As ugly as this game was, I’d caution against viewing this game as a portent of the rest of the season. Taking the performance of a team in one game and extrapolating it out over the rest of the season is a recipe for a terrible prediction. Just look back at the comments following the WFU loss last year: at that point people thought UNC had no chance of winning a NC and Ty Lawson was overrated and could not compete against elite PG (which he was not). Obviously, this proved to be completely false.
Save for the 20 minute stretch where UNC outscored Rutgers 54-32, UNC basically laid an egg last night (including Roy Williams putting in a lineup consisting of 4 guys over 6’10 when the Heels were up 17, which really started the RU comeback), but it would really be jumping the gun to assume that a non-conference game right after Xmas break, and without Ginyard, tells us anything about how the rest of the season will play out.
It is a little bit surprising that there is almost no appearance of a set rotation yet. I would think the first thing you would want to do with a young team is get them settled into roles sooner rather than later.
Although I hate to admit it, I agree somewhat about Strick over LD at point. In fact, besides the decision issues, Drew may have to reinvent his dribble since he seems to carry the ball about half the time (which was a major contributor to QT’s weakness as a pg). No matter if the offense is taking time to come together, one can always play defense which is still a glaring weakness. They are still a very young team, and this is a very young season as CM wisely points out.
BTW…
THF pre-game prediction: UNC 82 – RU 65
Actual score: UNC 81 – RU 67
Vegas is going to start coming here before setting their O/Us…
I’m still perplexed as to why our bigs have a hard time dunking the ball…….
Larry Drew is not playing as well now as he did at the beginning of they year, which is very worrisome.
It drove me nuts to watch our guys jack up quick jump shots with a 17 point lead last night. They have to learn that in those situations the clock is your friend. Might be a good idea to use a timeout to remind them of that (anybody remember Georgetown?)
I agree with C.Micheal – I think over substitution brought the offense to a grinding halt after it had started to click in the second half last night.
Even the announcers are commenting about how our guys are big in size but small in the way they play.
We have a lot of work to do….
Oh – and one more thing. I think Roy is the best coach in the country, and I know he doesn’t give a flippin flappin floop what I think, but ripping Strickland for taking that shot was wrong… for three reasons:
1) He did it in public, which I’m never a fan of. Praise in public, criticize in private – thats the way Dean did it, and thats the way it should be done.
2) At some point doesn’t this team need to develop a playmaker? Doesn’t it look like Strickland is the leading candidate? Do we not want a playmaker?
3) He was left wide open, and we’d been turning the ball over all night (actually, we’ve been turning it over all year…). If he shouldn’t have taken that shot, then what should he have done? Dribble/pass the ball around until we turned it over again? The 17 point lead was gone – the time to use the clock (which we never did) was over – at that point in the game we needed to keep responding to Rutger’s made baskets.
“1) He did in the public, which I’m never a fan of. Praise in public, criticize in private – thats the way Dean did it, and thats the way it should be done.”
agree in sentiment, but Dean did rip Ranzino Smith very unfairly one time after a Tournament loss–uncharacteristic for sure, but worth noting.
I don’t understand the “talent over coaching” thing. Is it a trust issue with Strickland at this point?
I’ll admit, while watching the game, I had a similar response to Dex’s shot as Roy did (bad play, good outcome). After re-watching it my opinion is changed slightly, and I can also see why Roy, from his vantage point, hated the shot.
When Dex took the shot, Roy was seated on the bench. From where he was sitting, all he would have seen was Deon and Dex in a 2-man game, with Deon on the low block and his man pinned on his back. In that scenario, the absolute correct play is to feed the post. However, what Roy would not have been able to see was the fact that Dex’s man was much closer to Deon than he was to Dex, eliminating any angle for the ball to be delivered to the post. The reason why Dex hesitated was because he was looking to feed Deon the ball (he even pumped a fake pass). I would be interested to hear what Roy says after watching the game film.
In the end, I still feel it was a bad shot given the time and score, but I don’t think the blame falls entirely on Dex. Ideally the team would have worked the ball for 15-20 more seconds in search of a better shot, but at that point, no one else on the floor appeared to be willing to take a shot, so maybe Dex’s 3 was the best of a bunch of bad options…
^^I don’t know, but I haven’t seen Strickland make a lot of reckless decisions out there. He was very shaky in the first few games but those were his first few games. Ever since then he has looked quite poised. I mean, its not like he’s just jacking up shots every time he touches the ball, so I really am at a loss over the criticism he got last night.
“I don’t understand the ‘talent over coaching’ thing. Is it a trust issue with Strickland at this point?”
I think that might be a misquote. I thought he said it was “talent over intelligence,” which makes much more sense in this case. It was a bad shot (in terms of selection/intelligence) but it when in because he is talented.
To me, that shot was very similar to the ill-advised 3 that Green took in the G’town game, with two very obvious differences (magnitude of the game and outcome).
I don’t know what we can expect Roy to do to coach guys who are 6’9″+ how to make lay-ups. Fade-away layups, getting your shot repeatedly blocked, and failing to jam the ball when you’re that tall and long is baffling, and I’m not sure that Roy can do any more than he’s doing to remedy that.
Maybe he can call up the recently retired George Lynch (smaller than all of our bigs, and my all time favourite Tar Heel) and show these soft post players how to operate around the rim with some toughness. Love me some George Lynch.
Agree about Dex…he’s the player on the team showing the most (any?) evident improvement in most aspects. Let Drew come off the bench until he can stop throwing the ball to either A) big guys’ ankles, or B) Rams Club FatCats sitting behind Dick Vitale.
Drew IIs confidence is a little shaky right now. Wouldn’t yours be if Strickland was coming off the bench being the “star” right now. Drew II is a brilliant point guard, he just needs others to tell him that.
Old Roy needs to figure out a way to give these guys confidence and swagger. He needs to stop humiliating his players and acting so tiffed and figure out a way to help this young team with their confidence.
I blame last nights performance on Roy, who will not own up to it, please take your pain medication.
I was there; it always looks different in person. I was kind of surprised at the intensity of Roy’s comments b/c it just didn’t look that bad, and Rutgers, especially Rosario, is a decent team. Ed had a good game, and Dex and Graves played well offensively. Z’s defense–doesn’t move his feet well–is still a problem and will limit his time even though we need him on offense. Graves can shoot but he can’t catch the ball. Henson is overmatched in almost every imaginable way. Drew and Deon have had better games, but it wasn’t a disaster for either of them. Like I say, it wasn’t that bad, but not up to the standards we’ve all come to expect. Especially Roy.
Roy did get on Strickland during the post game interviews, but we all know more is to be said this morning at practice – to the whole team.
I felt like I was watching a video game at certain points, where you surround the offensive player and push “steal steal steal” and they lose composure and the ball just sort of falls out to the defense. We have to be stronger with the basketball.
All of the comments about the bigs not dunking — I couldn’t agree more. They missed a lot of baskets at point blank range.
It would be difficult to bench a starting PG such as Drew because he needs all the confidence he can get. I think he will respond the most by keeping his playing time. Some kids react differently to other approaches, but I think Drew just needs to keep playing. I wouldn’t want him to develop the lack of confidence that plagued Deon his first three seasons.
Henson had some impressive blocks and it’s only a matter of time before he controls swatting them into the stands
I get a little uneasy when Roy starts calling out kids by name in the press conference. Obviously Roy is a much more successful coach than TOB in Raleigh, but this type of statement reminds me of TOB when he said publicly (after a win) that his team wasn’t very good. I know it’s meant to motivate, but I can’t imagine ranting out loud is helpful, especially to freshmen. Keep it in the practice gym.
This team is going to have ups and downs on a grander scale than last year. I think one the keys is to keep developing Larry Drew and let Dexter play beside him, IMHO.
I agree with UNC RAJ on all counts as respects Strickland’s shot. In particular, RAJ is correct on the merits of taking the shot and Roy was incorrect. It was a good shot. He was open, squared himself, and didn’t rush it.
More importantly, as I and others have noted, this team desperately needs a go-to guy, and Strickland has both the talent and the brass to be that person. Roy was wrong to call him out, and I hope he’ll admit it. Trashing the player who pulls your chesnuts out of the fire is just dumnb.
The fundamental problem with this team is that our players are not playing up to their potential. This is most obviously true of Zeller (who should have improved his anticipation on defense by now); Graves (who should have better floor sense); snd Drew (who has shown flashes of what he can do, but has yet to do it consistently, even in a single game).
I once said that the team has won the games it should have and lost the games it should have, and that remains the case. But that isn’t good enough, because our talent pool is not quite at top five level, so we’re going to have to make up the difference with savvy and grit in order to be a serious contender for the national championship.
It’s easy to coach a team with Hansbrough, Lawson, Ellington, and Green. It isn’t going to be as easy to coach this one. Just yelling at the press conference and having quasi-torture practices isn’t going to get it done. The problem isn’t that the players aren’t trying. The problem is that players’ specific deficiencies are not getting worked on (see above).
Finally, Strickland should start getting more time at the point (as well as more time generally). It’s not just that Strickland is more gifted than Drew (although he is). It’s that the team operates better with Strickland at the point, something that last night you could see clear as a bell.
This is off point, but I was at the game and noticed that during the usual montage of coaches and former players saying “I am a Tar Heel” that Butch didn’t get much cheering (in fact it sounded like some cheers and a lot of grumbling). He usually gets thunderous applause. I wonder if that is a microcosm of how fans are viewing him after 3 years?
As far as the basketball game, Rutgers looked pretty solid (Rosario has some skills), but we looked mediocre for most of the game. We play way too soft on the interior, our offense looks disjointed, and we often look slow on defense (and got burned several times because we didn’t get back). Can these things be corrected? Ask me in April.
“we’re going to have to make up the difference with savvy and grit in order to be a serious contender for the national championship”
IMO, this team will by no means be a contender for a NC this year. Next year maybe, but this year I think our ceiling is Sweet 16. I’m actually OK with that as long as we can start to show some improvement.
HeelYeah –
Our winning the NC this year is a long shot for sure, but not entirely out of the question. Our best five are not a match for the best five of several other teams, but our best ten might well be.
The key is to get everyone playing to his potential. Just think aobut what we’d be like if Zeller were quicker on defense, Graves could be trusted with the ball, Ginyard cut out the mistakes, Drew played at all times as he has shown he can at some times, and Strickland was out on the floor for 30 minutes.
Just think about it. We’re not that far away.
“I think the biggest concern and possibly the rudder turning this ship is Larry Drew …”
I do not fully agree with this….not in response to last night’s game. I did agree with your comments after the last game about players receiving the ball in awkward position or spacing and I thought that LDII was much better last night. Our offense looked best last night when LDII made things happen with dribble penetration and the bigs crashed the board. Of course crashing the boards does little good if…(see the following 2 statements…)
a) Why can’t our bigs make a basket from 3 feet-in? Ed Davis must finish.
b) Although we enjoyed a significant height advantage, Rutgers seemed to get a number of critical rebounds that were directly under the bucket….particularly on their offensive end.
I want to see our bigs play big.
Other notes:
a) Roy played a 2-1-2 zone one set late in the second 1/2. rutgers hit an open 3 against it.
b) Henson had at least 3 walk calls against him. Did he walk or was it perception?
oh he walked. when he moves, its like a (edit: shipment of pool cues) falling down stairs.
like i have said before, i have been saying why dont our bigs dunk for over 25 years.
i think Roy prefers working the ball around, running a play, cutting, finding the open man, not shooting 5-9 seconds into the shot clock. a miss by Strick and the lead could be 1.
maybe if its a junior or senior wayne ellington, but not Strick.
but maybe Strick is going to be just that clutch.
i see the problems mostly stemming from the young guys letting the game dictate to them, instead of them dictating the game. panic instead of poise. a lack of focus, etc.
sounds like a guy headed to Calipari:
http://www.wralsportsfan.com/voices/blogpost/6701802/
here’s a look at the team situation, from a close source:
http://tarheelblue.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/122909aab.html
HTTE –
Adam Lucas’s statement that the Strickland shot was “horrible” is absurd. It might not have been the preferred shot, with Deon under the basket and the defender on his back, but the idea that it was “horrible” is nuts.
We hear a lot here about the importance of building player confidence. Does Roy think he’s doing that by trash-talking the one and only player on this team who shows star potential?
Yikes.
I just want to throw my two cents in, well it’s more than that, but here you go.
-Roy’s remark about Dex’s shot is not like Roy at all. Frankly I still think he is being influenced by pain and/or pain meds. Once his shoulder heals more, he should be back to normal. Maybe it was wrong, but really, I don’t think he did it on purpose.
-We are going to be okay. This is December. If this was Feb. or March I would worry, but it’s not. It is December. We were without our leading defensive stopper and senior leader. We are fine!
-Dex is looking great, he could be a fantastic sixth man for us. But I don’t think that he is ready to start. He made some major blunders last night. But he’s looking really good and he will get better with practice.
-Henson has no control over his body. This could be because he is a stringbean. But with more fine-tuning he will get better.
That’s really it. That was about a dime’s worth of my opinion, not two cents. But, oh well.
IMO, it’s not trash talking. I wouldn’t call it tough love either. It certainly isn’t Mangino’s way of thinking that “you have to completely tear a player down to build him back up” either.
Roy never said he was a bad person or a bad player, but that he took a bad shot. I’m not trying to go the “he’s the coach” route, but he did the same thing with McCants a few years back. Strickland is good, and Roy wants him to be great. It’s trying to develop him to see more of the game. Did he do it the best way possible? Probably not, but ask Dexter about it in March.
I think the whole thing could have been much much worse. Anyone think or know of a player telling Roy to back off a little in press conferences? I mean, if Dexter really had a problem with it, do you suppose that he could talk to Roy about it?
Rath, to me, the play of Henson & Strickland, and even McDonald is going to be predicated on how well they can build confidence. You could/can see that Strickland didn’t have much in the way of confidence earlier in the season. He wouldn’t have taken last night’s shot 4 games into the season. That could also be credited to his Basketball IQ. They guy is smart. He understands when to dribble-drive, when to pass post-entry, and when to take a shot. It appeared to me he thought about all of his options before jacking that shot up. He surveyed the floor, saw little moving and cutting, saw 2 defenders sinking down on Deon (Rutgers was prepared for Dex to pass down there) and said “Hell, I’m wide open, my confidence is high, let me shoot it”. He did, and it went in. Simple as that.
Now I understand there is a time and place for such a shot. Dexter is aware of his abilities and is riding on confidence. It is a much different thing when we were all mad at Danny Green for taking HIS ill-advised shots against Georgetown. For one, we had many “STAR” quality AND PROVEN players on that team. I must say that Dexter (at least to me “caveat”) is that star guy. I just don’t see why his shot was a bad option given the fact that Dexter himself may not have wanted to take the shot, but knew based on the offensive flow of that trip down the court that he would have to be the one to deliver.
To me, when you know you have a guy who is getting better, mainly because his confidence in himself is growing and directly affecting his play for the better, why you would feel the need to openly criticize him.
Let’s hope he doesn’t become too cautious while taking future shots. God knows that if you have to think about whether you’re even worthy to take shots at that point, most likely your confidence is going to be shaken, and it just might be the difference in making that shot miss the net.
Has everyone seen this? I thought it was a pretty good read.
http://northcarolina.scout.com/2/932859.html
I’m sure it was explained to Strickland why it was a bad shot. Time left on the shot clock. Had he missed it, it could have lead to a quick 3 at the other end and we’re talking a 1 point game, not a 7 point game.
the scout article makes sense. its like telling your kids the same thing over and over again.
at least the players seem aware of it, and might not be hurt by the criticism.
And Strickland’s shot taken in a vacuum is not a huge deal or if UNC played better then Roy simply says “well I hated it but it went in, we need to improve on decision making”
However he was pissed about six other things so that got the same treatment as players not doing as they are told on the court.
Bright side: UNC outscored Rutgers by 10 in the last 3 minutes of the game.
Dark side: I was watching a basketball game and a theatrical mime performance broke out. The place was quiet! I miss Carmichael and its “Watch Head” signs.
wow, it is quite the day for basketball stories.
check this one out, and compare it to CJ Leslie’s story.
http://www.wralsportsfan.com/college_basketball/story/6701058/
JBowling –
Apt analysis you have there.
The kids on our team could use more poise and self-control. With all respect, so could their coach. This public temper thng is getting old. If there were evidence it had positive results, that would be one thing, even though I would still be uneasy with it from the man to whom we have entrusted the legacy of Dean Smith. But there is no evidence of positive results, and one has to wonder what the effect is on player confidence.
Yes JB is correct.
Rath, I do agree with you about Roy as it seems there is more public ranting than in the past. However, this is nothing new because we knew about the 2005 “no rims practices”, and other events since Roy returned.
I would argue that we certainly have seen positive results from Roy since we’ve just witnessed the best 5 year period in UNC history. I suspect you were referring to this year, but the Heels haven’t played one conference game yet so I’m withholding judgement.
Hard Work:
In 2002… “We made the Final Four, and in the NCAA semifinal against Maryland, we started the game by taking several bad shots that all went in. During a timeout I told my team, “Guys, let’s not live by that, because we could die by that. That’s fool’s gold. Let’s get the shots we want.” Then we took a few more bad shots and they didn’t go in, and we started panicking and never really recovered. Looking back on it, I don’t know if I did the right thing by questioning those shots, but I thought taking bad shots would eventually cost us the game, and it did.”
Page 124
HTTE – thanks for posting that link. Sounds like Bullock will be perfect fit at UNC, and Leslie would be a perfect fit at Kentucky (and that is NOT a compliment). I saw Harrison Barnes’ team play on ESPN about 3 or 4 weeks ago – he is going to be a perfect fit as well. If Ed Davis comes back next year we will have a good shot at a National Championship.
A few things in this game stand out as different from UNC’s more successful outings earlier in the season.
First the dribble drives by Drew and Strickland were more frequent and more forced than they have been previously. Drew can drive, but he was forcing it frequently, and he didn’t play his best ball then. That is not what he has been up to. Strickland did the same a few times, although less frequently. Drew was facing his defender in a weird way also and was almost palming the ball in an unusual way as well. There has been some coaching on this point. I don’t know by whom, maybe paypal.
Second, when several players have been substituted in a way that they are comfortable playing together (like the “blue” team), they were doing better in earlier games. Some of the team’s mistakes come from not knowing what to do with each other. There were lots of crazy cross court passes, near misses and loss of flow. They have done better before. There were lots of dumb passes as a result of this, especially to out of position inside players. Zeller is especially comical when he takes off balance fade away hook shots. I know he is only 5’11″ but still.
I know the players are taking this seriously. No kidding the coaching staff is serious. They just need a bit of time and a regular way of going about it.
Boulderheel, crowds are definitely a problem this season. I’m going to be at the Albany game and I know I’m going to be screaming my head off. But even the student section of late has been disapointing. I guess we’re so spoiled by being NC contenders a season like this is not very interesting. I wasn’t around for the Carmicheal days, but it sounds much louder.
My wife and I go to as many games as possible, and sometimes we get lucky and get some lower level seats with the “Fat Cats”. We scream our butts off, but sometimes we get looks from folks around us like we’re crazy. We’re in our mid-30s, so we are not exactly youngsters. I can understand not cussing and acting a fool (like I do at home during games), but what’s wrong with a little enthusiasm? It’s not as if the folks in the lower level are in their 80s, so is it too much to ask to stand up and cheer? Carmichael was loud, but why can’t the Dean Dome be louder since it has more people? I think it can (and has been at certain times), so any Ram’s Club members with great seats who are reading this then please act like you have a reason to be there. Otherwise give your tickets to someone who really cares.
Rath,
The reason that Strickland’s shot was horrible, was not because of where he shot it or even because Deon was open, it was because just six seconds had run off the shot clock… In a tight ball game, up four with less than 2 minutes to play, you should run more time off the clock and work for the high percentage shot…
The reason that Strickland was called out by Roy and the whole team for that matter, is that they all need to be smarter in in-game situations, i.e., knowing the clock, knowing the play that the coach just called in the huddle…
Plus, Roy called out Strickland not just for the shot, but for his defense, when he said Strickland made a good layup, but he gave up a shot before the layup and a three-pointer after the layup, saying he basically earned two points while giving up 5…
These are things that Roy was mad about… He knows his players’ psyches better than we do and knows what will motivate them to be better…Roy’s track record speaks for itself..
Let’s see, Roy’s tactics don’t work….Hmmmmmmmm. Final Fours in 1991, 1993, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2009 and Championships in 2005 and 2009… I’d say they work quite well and he has been giving press conferences like this since his days at Kansas and since he has been back…They do work…
I think one of the reasons Roy singled Strickland out is one, he knows he can handle it… Two, he had a team-high 18 points and he didn’t want him getting a big head thinking he played great, when he made some bad mistakes…Mistakes that could cost Carolina if he does them again, especially against better competition… Talent can only take you so far and I think that is what Roy’s point was…