If you had been, say, in a coma since October and just woke up this week, and you needed UNC’s 2009-10 basketball season summed up in a single game, this was it.
Despite falling behind early, Carolina manned up in the first half, dominated the boards, and got out to a 10-point lead. But as been the case more times than you can count this season, the Heels gave up a 15-4 run and the lead. Then for good measure, after keeping the game even for most of the second half, UNC went without a field goal for the last 5:13 of the game. The last four minutes were marred by missed opportunities, dreadful shooting, back-breaking turnovers, and bone-headed plays that have characterized this team since early January.
Derrick Favors showed why he is a man among the rest of the league’s freshman boys, putting up 17 points (on 7-8 shooting), 9 rebounds, and 5 blocks while scoring pretty much at will against UNC’s front line and swatting away sure layups. Paul Hewitt should be fired on the spot for not getting Favors more than 8 shots. Besides, it is a crime that a team as athletic as Georgia Tech, with Favors, Gani Lawal and Iman Shumpert is on the NCAA bubble.
Meanwhile, Carolina’s season-long shooting woes continue as the Heels shot only 33% for the game. Moreover, the guards and wings shot 6 for 35 – that’s 17%, if you’re scoring at home – and 1 for 15 from three (the other made three was made by a post player, T. Wear). The only bright spot was Tyler Zeller, who matched Favors with a double-double of 17 points and 10 rebounds.
The stat sheet did show a couple of other positives, such as a 40-34 rebounding advantage, only 10 turnovers (but how crucial these were in the 2nd half!) and a blistering 16 assists on 23 made baskets, which is pretty good offensive involvement.
UNC showed at least some heart and fight in this game against a Tech team that is, quite simply, stronger and better than the Heels, but could not pull it out and in doing so becomes the only lower seed not to win on Thursday. Carolina now awaits its fate as the NIT field is announced Sunday at 9:00.
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You should only get fired on the spot for not getting shots for your top five recruit, if you haven’t won a national title.
Otherwise, it is simply great coaching when your top five recruit sits on the bench all season….
Why isn’t it a crime for one of the top two programs in the country to be so incredibly unathletic?
Good riddance to this season. This was a team with no leaders, and the team who were nominally in leadership roles either had no talent or no intensity or both, and it showed.
Roy may need to recruit some more athletic guys. I know it is hard to keep them but basically, McCants was the only guy we have had during his tenure who had some real hops. Maybe Reyshawn Terry as well, but of course, Roy didn’t recruit either of those guys.
He hasn’t recruited any Vince Carters or Jerry Stackhouses or Michael Jordans. Aren’t there any of those guys around anymore?
Maybe Strickland was supposed to be in that mold, but, you have to be able to shoot, first of all. Carter, Stackhouse and Jordan were all great from outside. Strickland, has he even made a three all year?
Except for Paul Pierce, did Williams ever recruit any really athletic guys for Kansas? I am almost wondering whether he thinks he can win without those guys, the cold blooded athletic killers, as some call them….
Both Bullock and Barnes are plenty athletic, as was Lawson and Green. Even though people say otherwise I think Hansbrough was also a very athletic guy.
No, what Roy needs are players who play with passion and are willing to show leadership. Now some players who have both these qualities might be head-cases or be called so, but there is no reason to run away from them, as he has done recently. A good coach/teacher should be able to play with a guy like that in his team as long as that guy wants to win. We can do less with role players like Marcus and people with fragile confidences like Deon.
OK nobody knew MJ was going to grow in to the player he did. I mean seriously he was not the greatest player as a freshman we ever had. He was good enough to start but he was still very raw and had not stopped growing. So you can’t say oh Dean was brilliant to recruit Michael. He probably wouldn’t have even been listed as a 4star if they had had rankings back then.
And it’s a little nuts to say that Lawson, Green and Ellington weren’t athletic. That doesn’t even touch on Marvin Williams or Tyler Hansbrough. John Henson is athletic IMO he just needs to hit the weight room this summer.
It’s one thing to criticize legit concerns and mistakes Roy has made but let’s not go off the deep end with wild accusations about Roy not recruiting athletes.
ugatarheel –
One of the reasons I’m mildly — mildly — optimistic about next year is, of all things, Roy. For reasons I’ll get into shortly, he booted this year, but a coach does not compile the record he has unless he can figure out and overcome his errors. Based on Roy’s entire career, you have to look upon this year as an abberation.
His mistakes were manifold: He mistook height for strength, so we frequently got muscled on the boards. I guess he thought Drew could run the team, but he can’t, not the way a good team needs to be run. His substitutions were less experimental than chaotic; he needed to settle on eight players by the New Year but he didn’t. For no visible reason based on past performance, he thought Deon would develop. He waited until the season was already a disaster before he found the right place for his best recruit. He had to know he would need scoring but had no plan for producing it. Last year’s defensive lapses at the perimeter returned unabated this year. When he saw he was in trouble, there was no Plan B and no innovation.
That’s the bad part, and there’s plenty of it. The good part is that he could not have the record he does if this year actually reflected his ability. I have said that others here have been whistling past the graveyard for their what-me-worry attitude, and I don’t want to be adopting that same attitude. But, just as the incompetence of this season was not a mirage, the excellence of prior ones (plural) wasn’t either.
The man may not have the incredible competitive spirit of his mentor, but I cannot imagine that most of his waking hours will not be consumed by a determination to discern and correct what went awry. If the past is prologue, he’ll figure it out.
“OK nobody knew MJ was going to grow in to the player he did. I mean seriously he was not the greatest player as a freshman we ever had.”
Michael started from day one and was an instant star. He did not have a great outside shot as a freshman but he was an absolute freak from the beginning. He is without a doubt one of the best freshman to ever play in the ACC. And he is the greatest to ever play at Carolina. Ford, Worthy, and Jordan. But the greatest of these was Jordan.
“Roy may need to recruit some more athletic guys. I know it is hard to keep them but basically, McCants was the only guy we have had during his tenure who had some real hops. Maybe Reyshawn Terry as well, but of course, Roy didn’t recruit either of those guys.”
Measured vertical leap:
Ellington: 38″
Lawson: 36.5″
Wright: 35.5″
JR Smith: 35.5″
Williams: 35.0″
McCants: 34.5″
Hansbrough: 34.0″
Green: 33.0″
The idea that Roy doesn’t recruit athletes is either unthinking or unresearched. Anyone with a vertical over 35″ inches is a great jumper; the guys with 40+” are rarities, and often lack the basketball skills to accompany their jumping ability. In the last 5 years, there have only been 8 players (5.3%) who were drafted in the 1st Round of the NBA with verticals over 40″, and the highest was Jordan Farmar (42″).
^CM–you gotta like this….I am rofl–emotional and memory disorder studies indeed–spot-friggin-on about our fan base this year…
http://www.wralsportsfan.com/acc_tournament/story/7215241/
Drew’s turnovers and bad shooting – I noticed his fingers were taped together on his right hand – is he left handed? I can’t remember what happened to his hand, but if he had a broken finger that would explain the turnovers and lack of shooting. Seems like another guard had fingers taped together, too. Was Ol’ Roy playing them because he had no other option?
Anyhow, when you take the Heels off of the radio in dadgum Roy frickin’ Williams HOF coach’s home town, Asheville, you get the Lost Season. The Heels have no one to blame but themselves.
I could barely hear a little of the game through the static. How could there be any air left in the arena!? Jones Angel and Woody Durham are doing non-stop promos and ads during the broadcast! There isn’t enough cubic feet of air to say all those promos. It’s getting silly.
Anyhow, if Ed David had been in the game, UNC would have beaten GA Tech. I’m optimistic about next year with Zeller’s improvement (if he can stay healthy) and Davis.
When you don’t have a single guard who could win a starting job on any other ACC team, this is the season you get. As I posted in the game thread last night, Roy won two National Championships with teams that were loaded with three point shooters – 4 guys who could shoot threes in 2005, 3 guys who could shoot threes last year. But he followed that up by recruiting 5 guys who have no shooting ability at all. I don’t why(?). Recruiting wise, he had a proven blueprint for success and he didn’t use it. I don’t know what sort of experiment he was trying to do this year, but it failed.
I think the reason Henson sat on the bench for much of the game was two reasons:
1. Foul trouble
2. Roy did not want him to have a break out game to shield him from
possible NBA talk. He knows we need him next year!
I really wish the carolina fans would stop whinning and take a good look at the carolina team Ole Roy had in his starting line-up. Four out of the five starters we finish the season with, would not be recruited by the other teams in the ACC, much less become one of their starters.
Roy should let Drew go. He sucks so bad!!! All in all the season sucked!!! I don’t want them to go to the NIT. Let’s just end this season now…
TheUNCFan,
Drew has had his fingers taped since the UVa game, and you are correct, there is a stark difference in his shooting percentage before and after, for example, he shot 74% from the before and 38% after.
52,
Nice find! The ability for humans to more clearly remember past positive events (and conversely, dampen the unpleasant memories) is, in general, a good thing for day-to-day life as it allows us to move on far more rapidly then we would think possible at the time. However, the caveat is that when it becomes necessary to be analytical, one must take care to ensure that they are basing their theories on facts, not memories. This is why the best scientific research is presented as a combination of observation and data.
The good news is that 10 years from now, we should all remember last year much better than we do this year.
I figured the scientist in you would appreciate that
btw–any data on the “unathleticism” of Leslie McDonald, or can we safely assume this is another one of Roy’s boners?
I think Drew is getting a bit of a raw deal. C. Michael’s pre- and post-UVA stats say a lot to me, for one. Also, I think Drew, aside from trouble shooting, played very well until crunchtime. THF’s more recent post pints out his lack of urgency. This is only my hunch, but he seems like he’s overcompensating in his attempts not to panic. His glaring turnover near the end if the game was a symptom of the sauntering up the court with seconds left. I think he’s trying to keep a cool head and instead just slowing down. I am not as down on Drew as others, so I hope he and the coach work on how to handle this pressure, to play quickly but not rushed over the offseason. I think once his hand is healed and if he learns this, y’all might be surprised.
^^Yeah, I have to admit a fascination with the brain; I think if I were to do it all again, I might go into neuroscience, although there is a part of me that is glad that I can just keep it as a curiousity/hobby.
Not sure about McDonald. I get the numbers from the NBA pre-draft camp, so this year’s crop of Heels will have to wait. For those interested, here are the best numbers (> 42″) over the last 20 years:
Kenny Gregory: 45.5″
Nate Robinson: 43.5″
Matt Santagelo: 43.0″
Vince Carter: 43.0″
Gregory played at Kansas under Roy Williams.
Maybe when a team loses a couple of games it’s not supposed to lose, the players start feeling like they are supposed to lose and don’t deserve to win.
I have never seen a team that misses so many lay-ups.
You know Ed Davis is glad this season is over so he doesn’t have to sit on the bench and watch this disaster anymore.
Has there ever been such a fall off from one season to the next for a team that won the national championship the year before?
I don’t know what to do with my Carolina basketball poster now for this season. On one hand, I want to burn it because of how terrible this season was. On the other, it has photos of Carolina basketball legends for the 100 year celebration. I’m pretty sure I would go to hell for burning anything that has a photo of Dean, MJ and Hansbrough on it.
I hope they don’t get an invite to the NIT. I just want this season to end and forget about it. I want it to be like that season of Dallas when Bobby Ewing was killed – it was all a dream and it never really happened.
^^ LD cost them a win last night, bonehead pass to graves led to layup, cross court lazy pass led to lay up, walk to ball up the court with under a minute to go, lost the game.
You can play good for 35 minutes and still play a poor game. Larry, like I said earlier if you do decide to leave, you wont be missed.
The bad news is that the Heels probably played to their full potential against G. Tech. The good news is that G. Tech obliged us well by putting this team and this season out of it’s misery. Some things are just best left unsaid, unremembered and sent to the trash folders of our minds. This is such a season and this is that team. Remember the 100 years and remember the 2,000th victory and little else.
Go Heels!!
Does anyone else think LDII tries hard to look good while he’s playing? He tries to shoot like Jordan and dribble some streetball legend. Just play freaking PG at your skill level! There are plenty of other things to vent on, but I’m sure it’s all been said. I have no doubts these kids are talented and they are all used to winning, I just worry about the “woes me, I don’t know what to do, we suck” mentality carrying over to next year. I hope it doesn’t linger and Roy can get these kids back on track.
This might be crazy to say, but I hope Roy lightens up. I will freely admit, I can’t understand how stressful it is to be the had coach at Carolina. But, and I might catch hell for this, in the end it’s freakin’ basketball. It’s a game. I just don’t want stuff like this to burn him out prematurely. He’s a great coach and I think this year was just a perfect storm. If he got fired, sure he’d have to leave his dream job, but he’s still set for life financially and could get another coaching job instantly. Heck, if he couldn’t coach another day in his life, he’s still incredibly blessed. As important as it might be, coaching is not life or death. I hope when the season is done, Roy can site back and really evaluate his view on things in light of this season.
“Larry, like I said earlier if you do decide to leave, you wont be missed.”
Yeah, because playing a season with only one PG has proven to be SO effective this year…
I’m not down on Larry Drew either. In fact, of all the guys on the team, he is the one I have most wanted to improve and succeed. Why? First, because you need solid play at the PG position to perform best in Roy’s preferred style of play, heck, pretty much any style of play for that matter, and, second, because as Buon Rotto said, I think he has gotten a raw deal from time to time. He was never considered one of the elite PG’s to begin with, and he has precious little help right now.
And there’s no doubt he’s been under a tremendous amout of pressure this year, both externally and self-created. But I am trying to be realistic, and, at some point, he is going to have to start performing much better.
I want to be as balanced as I can about this, so let me first say what I like about Larry. I believe he’s a good athlete – quick, long, and with a physical structure to get stronger each year. He’s capable of making very sweet passes, occasionally even of the wow variety. And I think, when his fingers are not taped, and contrary to popular opinion, he’s the best outside shooter on this team (dubious distinction) because he can get his shot better than Will.
Now to the frustrating part. LD has suited up and played in 50 games now, and leads the team this year with 28.3 MPG. He had 13 games, this year, with 4 or more TO’s, and has shown a tendency to go blank when it comes time to play smart and make a basketball play.
Now I’m not comparing him to Bobby Frasor (and I’m certainly not going to compare him to Ty Lawson) but by contrast, Frasor only had 9 games with 4 or more TO’s as a FRESHMAN, while averaging 27.5 MPG. And he only had 6 total TO’s in the 4 games we played in ACCT and NCAAT, while averaging 26.5 MPG. So basically what I’m saying is, you don’t have to be an elite PG to be a heady ball player.
I really hope Larry improves this summer, and I want him here if he wants to be here. But what I really hope is for Kendall Marshall to come in and snag his starting job. If Kendall is what I hope he is, I believe his (I have used this term too much lately, so after this time I’m going to find a new one.) “basketball savvy” and more natural passing abilities will be a cut above Larry.
Who knows how Kendall will do with leadership, decision-making, or play under pressure, but the improved quality of his play at the PG position is going to be vital to help take some of the pressure off of LD2, and get the Heels back to their winning ways.
If Drew has had his fingers taped for almost 6 weeks, that tells me he’s been playing with a broken finger. If that’s the case, I admire his toughness and can see why he’s been having trouble shooting, passing, and dribbling the ball. Does anyone know for sure what his injury is?
Did anyone see Lawson dunking on that Lakers center? I would say he has serious hops!!!!!
Michael Jordan not a four star?!!!! He was the MVP of the McDonald’s All-American game? He set a scoring record that held for some time!!!!
^^^All ever heard was that he jammed/sprained it prior to the UVa game, but I haven’t been able to find anything else.
Even if he had nothing at all wrong with his fingers, which apparently he does, having your fingers taped together is less than ideal for outside shooting. You need to spread all your fingers to have the best rotation and accuracy.
Just noticed that Justin Watts has protected his tweets. Wander if there is something going on there?
Henson’s Tweet:
Takin it down..headed to the hill tommrow morning….. Next season starts later that evening when I go to the gym… about 9 hours ago
Your hopes are my hopes LarryS, agreed.
Did anyone see JR Smith’s alley oop dunk against the TimberWolves the other night? I wish that I were that unathletic. Perhaps I need more sofa-time.
^ The one that got away, 05 team would of been crazy with Marvin and JR,
Can’t vouch for the reliablity of this site, but from NIT-ology this morning…
“movement this update…
up to ncaa: georgia tech, rhode island, akron (mac), ark pine bluff (swac)
down to nit: arizona st., memphis, kent st. (mac), jackson st. (swac)
up to nit: none
out of nit: charlotte, north carolina”
http://www.nitology.com/
I wish that LD2′s problems were just his shooting. It’s the freaking basketball smarts that aren’t there. How can any of you watch him this year and at “crunch time” and think he has a future here other than if there’s no one else to run the point. A previous poster said that he played well until “crunch time”. Just what we need in a PG.
^ We can only hope. LET THIS SEASON DIE.
Larry is not the answer, you can sugar coat it all you want, but he is not an UNC caliber PG.
I knew that was going to happen if I said anything that wasn’t 100% positive about the great MJ, but a lot of you need to reread that selective memory article because that’s what you are using. MJ was not heavily recruited throughout the country like say Harrison Barnes was. His own parents had concerns about him going to UNC because they weren’t sure he would get enough playing time to showcase his talents. It wasn’t until Dean sent him to a basketball camp up north to further develope his talents that anybody even knew about him.
Michael didn’t become a freak super star until his sophomore and really his junior year. Worthy was the freak superstar of the 1982 season. Michael only averaged 13 points a game his freshman year for God sake. Jordan himself described his game winning shot in the 82 title game as the turning point in his career. One article I read describe Jordan’s popularity as beginning with that winning title shot. Another article describes Michael as spending most of his freshman season in a supporting role. Yet another article described him as an exciting if not dominate player his freshman year. And ALL of these articles were written 20 years after the fact when everybody knew what he became. If I could dig up articles from the 82 season they wouldn’t even praise him as much as these articles have. Most of those articles would talk about Worthy and Perkins first and Michael as a supporting player.
Some of you act like Air Jordan was here from day one. That everyone knew he was going to be Air Jordan from the time he was 15 and playing for the JV team in high school. It didn’t happen that way folks. As a matter of fact Dean took a lot of crap after Michael left UNC as being the only man who was ever able to hold him under a 20ppg average.
The point here is it took some time for MJ to develop in to the greatest player of all time. It takes all players some time to develop to their full potential. Nobody including Roy or Dean knows exactly how much potential a player truly has when they start recruiting him or even if that player will actually reach their full potential. So let’s not act like Dean Smith was the most brilliant recruiter of all time because he was able to sign Michael Jordan and that Roy is the dumbest recruiter of all time because he recruited Larry Drew. Dean also recruited guys like Jeff Lebo and King Rice, and Roy also recruited guys like Ty Lawson and Tyler Hansbrough. You can’t cherry pick the talent recruited by these two coaches or any other coaches and come away with an accurate picture of their recruiting abilities. You have to look at the body of work as a whole before you can make such sweeping judgments.
Good post ugatarheel. I agree with your analysis. MJ made the shot that won us the championship in’82 but it was James Worthy and to a lesser degree, Sam Perkins, who got us to the point that Michael’s shot was the clincher. Michael is perhaps the greatest player who ever donned a Carolina uniform but his superstar status was achieved in the NBA and not in
Chapel Hill. Recruiting by any coach is an art and a talent but is also tempered with a fair amount of plain old luck, which can be either good or bad.
Jordan was recruited plenty heavily. Maryland wanted him and Roy Williams was incredibly impressed with Jordan the first time he saw him. Yes, the pecking order in 1982 was Worthy, Perkins, Jordan, but averaging 13 points a game as a freshman starter on a national title team, without the three pointer, was not exactly nothing. Yes, Jordan improved incredibly his second year and yes, he improved greatly in the pro’s. His stats in college were never close to David Thompson’s.
When talking about “athletic”, I am specifically talking about guys like Jordan, Stackhouse and Carter with respect to how they play and take over a game. Obviously guys like Lawson and Spud Webb are athletic, but they lack the height to do the same kinds of things on the court as a Carter or Stackhouse.
It is interesting that Ellington did in fact have a good vertical because he really didn’t play in the air as much as those guys. I have researched this a little and apparently it is difficult to compare guys with respect to jumping because some guys are better at the vertical, like David Thompson and Carter, I guess, and others are better at the horizontal, which would probably be more like Erving, Jordan and Stackhouse, perhaps.
Anyway, we don’t have anybody who seems particularly fast on our current squad. Nor do we seem to have anyone who plays in the air a lot like Jordan or David Thompson.
Strickland looks like a blur to me, but I don’t think he’s best able to use his speed on the ball. I’d say that our greatest assets in speed are Henson and Zeller. They both have the ability to beat their man down the court, provided Henson is at the 4 instead of the 3, unfortunately we don’t have guards that can get them the ball consistently in that situation.
If we had had one, one dependable outside shooter, with Zeller and Henson playing like they did last night, we could have won 20 games. Alas, we have zero….
I’ve been thinking pretty much the same thing for a while, William.
The difference one reliable shooter can make is enormous. The 1993 team only had Donald Williams, with Rodl and Reese shooting about the same percentage as Drew and Graves this year. Despite that, they still averaged more than 86 points a game, largely because their opponents couldn’t pack their defenses into the paint as tightly as they needed to to stop Montross and Lynch.