UNC will try to keep the state of North Carolina from being swept in ACC play this weekend. Duke, NCSU and Wake Forest all lost their ACC games yesterday leaving UNC(once again) to defend the honor of the Big Four. Yeah, it is a tough job but someone has to do it.
Another fun fact? The last time both Duke and NCSU lost, UNC won. It was during the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. UNC beat Michigan St. NCSU lost to Northwestern and Duke lost to Wisconsin. May that be the case again.
Roy Williams’ coached teams have a great bounce back quality, much like a rubber ball. Hopefully there will be plenty of bounce today.
Comments if you have them.
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Tyler Zeller you are seven feet tall. Some of theses mistakes can be avoided by holding the ball above your head and/or throwing above your opponent’s heads.
Much better play from the team this half but Zeller is getting embarrassed.
They can also be avoided by gripping the ball in your hands and your elbows extended out.
I’m surprised Zeller’s getting as many minutes as he is.
Our team looked really confused on that offensive set. We really need an outside threat to keep defenses honest. Wow.
Liking Strickland more and more. He’s got spark and desire.
Dex continues to impress me. That #5 jersey seems like it works wonders.
still no 3s and Zeller with 4 turnovers, all from the ball being TAKEN from him.
he would be in some serious drills tomorrow, if not tonight, of the football team slapping at a ball he’s holding. but thats me.
hopefully i continue to eat my earlier words….
Great hustle by Zeller.
McDonald has played well the last few games.
Get the defensive rebounds!!!!!!
Dumbest fouls ever!
But how ’bout it? We’re looking pretty good!
Delaney might end up fouling out 3 of our guards… the last one by MacDonald was a foul, but the one prior to that was Delaney throwing his arm and smacking MacDonald in the chest – - in other words, it should have been a foul on Delaney.
I’m really liking both McDonald and Strickland the last few games. I think it took about this long for Lawson/Ellington to start looking comfortable too (and Lawson was just thrown into the fire with Frasor’s injury…).
Henson, as much as he makes me pull my hair out, is looking a little more at ease as well.
There’s hope, dadgummit!
What is with all these fouls?!
Yeah, there really hasn’t been a lot flow to this game. Foul after foul after foul.
This is one of the most confusing games ever…
How many blocks have we had tonight?
It’s raining threes baby! Look at that! OH MY GOD!!!!! WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Anyone else seeing Graves as the MVP of this game? Who would have thunk it? He hasn’t been lights out, but his hustle has been awesome, and those two three’s couldn’t have come at better times.
Drew again! Wow, I’m with you guys. Most confusing game ever.
I think that’s more threes in one game than we’ve had in the past couple games.
Yeah baby. Love the response from this team in this half on both ends of the court. Now is the test: Can they stayed focused and finish the job?
We need a good run……….the 4 minute mark approaches.
10 blocks
Thanks, THF.
Three ball!
On a random note, THF, did you think it was gonna be this cold down here in Texas? It’s bloody freezing.
Look at that baby! And Roy calls a timeout to talk about getting back on D.
Jebus! Graves, seriously. He decided to turn the hat backwards, over the top style.
amazing how the game changes when you make more than ZERO 3s.
two turnovers and a made basket since lead went to 11 with 5 minutes left. not exactly stellar.
^^That’s legit.
TexasFan,
I actually ran four miles on Friday morning. It was about 17 and windy. But it was flat so my legs felt great…everything else was frozen.
I am still here…wasn’t that bad today.
No! Deon can’t foul out! What? What did he even do? No!
If you were actually from Texas, I’d say you were insane. But you’re not. *shakes head* Due to the weather, I’ve had two days of school since coming back from Christmas break. We closed b/c the school doesn’t have good heating, and then the pipes broke and the school flooded. It’s been pretty bad. (Not that I’m complaining about missing school.)
did Delaney and Scheyerface have a summer romance?
wow, that guy falls over if youre in the same building.
We are a rubber ball. Bounce, bounce, bounce.
I’m calling it!
Deon was in this game? Drew II, again!
Wow, where has this been the last few games? You know what, though? I’m not going to complain that we finally turn it up a few notches during ACC play. Nossir.
“It’s bloody freezing.”
It was -1 this morning up here in NY…
“hopefully i continue to eat my earlier words….”
But I bet they taste damn good, don’t they, keith???
I concede. It’s bloody freezing up in NY. But when you’re used to it being in the 50′s this time of year, 20 something for 2-3 days is pratically Antartic!
Dook lost, State lost, Wake lost. We win. Big Four = Not so big.
TexasFan, I relocated to Mississippi in early 09 (just a day after our title game, woohoo), and yes, my blood has already thinned being down here. These 20 degree days need to go!
way to go Heels. very nice.
here’s to turning corners on both cold spells!
Well done Heels. Getting it done in the 2nd half with defense and finding three point range at just the right moment.
how about them HEELS
The second half was excellent.
Question: have they changed the seating arrangement at the Dean Dome? The crowd looks… old. When I was a student there, they gave us half of the lower level and a couple sections in the upper level. Do the students only get one section behind the backboard now?
Second half may have been their best half of the season.
Things I saw in the seond half that I liked……
1) Much better on the defensive boards
2) 3-pt shooting
3) UNC went on the late game run, sans last minute.
4) Roy called 2 late game time-outs to set up the defense.
you would date both of the Wears at the same time?
the crowd IS old, Raj. pretty sure half of them read the Helms Foundation championship selection in the 1924 Daily Tar Heel.
great D on Delaney in 2nd. 6 points, and 2 of those were a basket we tipped in.
amazing what can happen when you stop the one serious threat.
i think the way LD2 came out in the 2nd was KEY. i think he was fed up with the last few games. he was aggressive, but played under control.
and 3s.
5 of em is more than we had the last 2 games combined.
the hands issue remains tho. and Deon with 3 boards isnt going to cut it.
but, they DID finish, and held home court.
I don’t know where all the 3 point shooting in the 2nd half came from, but I hope it sticks around. It was also good to see them aggressively go after rebounds in the 2nd half (It would be nice to see us do that in both halves in our next game). We still turned the ball over too much though.
Well… no William, not at the same time, but both of them seperately, yes.
Would you alternate possessions, UNCGirl?
william, you dirty old man.
Dating them on alternating weekends is dirty? My goodness?
No, first I would date Travis (the less cute one) then give him to my best friend and date David. I would eventually marry David and my best friend would marry Travis.
I thought they were identical twins….
Raj, the students only got a section behind a goal, and a lot of upper level seats, when I was there (graduated in 08). I think there was a small riser section, but it was hard to get those tickets (always seemed to go to freshmen who didn’t even know UNC was a good basketball school – drove me nuts).
They are, but David is cuter. Weird, I know, but he really is.
I have twins so I think it would be cool if they married twins….
I have friends who are twins as well. If things don’t work out, they called them.
Well, UNC actually looked halfway decent tonight, in spite of the Wear walking call in the last minute….
Wednesday night….@ Clemson.
nice little competition developing at the point–Strick breathing down Larry’s neck seems to be having a positive effect.
Strickland looked good. I am not cool enough to call him “strick”.
heh-anybody who can pick out the best line in ID is pretty damn cool with me
For the first time ever, I can utter this sentence: Will Graves was instrumental to a Carolina victory.
The single most important lesson of this game is easy to see — bottle whatever Roy said to them at halftime and keep drinking it. The whole thing boiled down to a difference in seriousness between the first half and the second.
Drew just annoys the heck out of me. After the first half, I was ready to see him move to the deep bench. But then he looks really good in the second half. What excuse is there for his not playing that way all the time?
Davis is not everything people want him to be, but he is easily our most productive and consistent player. His blocks and rebounding were critical to tonight’s result, and something to behold.
I would love to love Zeller, but I can’t anymore. He’s not playing smart, he doesn’t have his footwork down on either offense or defense, he continues to get pushed around, and his anticipation is no better than it was at the start of the season.
Ginyard seems to be an admirabe man, but his on-the-floor contribution is next to zero, and he turns it over. His minutes should get cut. Sorry.
Strickland is inconsistent, but what I’m seeing with my eyes tells me he’s the one to lead us to the future.
All in all, this game was both a warning and a beckoning. The first half was a warning that when we lack seriousness, we can lose at home to a middle-of-the-pack team. In translation, that means we have the potential to be the league doormat. As in D-O-O-R-M-A-T. That’s an unpleasant thing to say, and might sound implausible since we wound up winning by a comfortable margin, but it’s true. The team we saw in the first half will not be competitive in the ACC.
The second half was a beckoning — not to being great, since that is beyond us this year, but to being really good. It really does make a difference if you have a perimeter offense. And our depth — the strength we knew we had from the start of the year — finally came through for us. One thing that happened to Tech was that we just wore them down. If we’re going to win a lot this year, that’s how it’s going to have to happen.
Fair game, it was really odd with the refs and I’m still at a loss as to what they were thinking with the inside play and the tick tack outside fouls. Still the game was flowing at times and we did our best when we ran the ball down their throats. We looked the worst when hit a three then jog back to get burned by an easy three from the baseline as we weren’t ready. Still the effort was good in the second half and we fought to keep it close in the first. We were in the most trouble when Davis cramped up and Zeller stayed in for extra minutes even as he is unable to see, feel or maintain a pass on offense in the paint or keep the ball on a rebound. I thought McDonald did really well and is making some serious progress as is Stickland. I think Henson is starting to make it happen and I’m at a loss as to why he doesn’t see more minutes. I was hoping that Roy would load him up and pull Zeller for a few minutes, not like he didn’t spend his life before UNC under the basket. I think we might see more than we should and better to leave him in his assignment or just keep him there and force him to learn the new role. I favor the latter but think the former might be for real as well. At this point I’m just a Henson homer but he made good plays, did some work on offense and was tremendous on D. Look forward to seeing GT. The crowd was decent tonight and yes, you may have noticed the crowd is older in the lower bowl, that’s what happens when you raise XBILLION dollars for the school and the sports program funnels money like there’s no tomorrow. You get the oldsters, those folks with all the cash. They did have about 5 sections in the lower bowl with kids tonight and a larger number up top as well. Look for the yellow windbreakers, they manage the kids.
Interesting contrast of opinions on Henson, Ed, and Drew. I think that is a result of expectations vs reality. Although he probably does not have the speed or quickness, I would like to see Henson guard an outside shooter as he heats up. I’ve never seen anyone block so many outside shots so cleanly.
I was at the game tonight in the lower section. I’m writing this on my iPhone so this may read a little weird. The defense in the first half looked decent but the problems often from turning the ball over left them in poor position. The most striking things were their defensive ability and their poor hands offensively. They are really bad at catching and securing the ball. The shakiness was startling in person. Zeller looked rushed and not too savvy. The defensive ability is strong if not the execution. When Henson was on the court with Ed and Marcus no shot looked safe. A large number of VT’s good shots came off of offensive boards. For those that say Ginyard’s defense is overrated, it looked very impressive in person. He’s very pesky and makes it tough for guys to get where they want. Maybe it was a fluke tonight but he was strong defensively. The second half they played a lot better when the crowd got behind them and overwhelmed VT as the game went on.