…he will be at the gym…getting ready for next season.
Hopefully, the rest of the returning players will be with him as well.
One player who won’t be in the gym for the foreseeable future is David Wear who had surgery on his hip and is expected to be sidelined three months.
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I really like this kid. We need to get him some biscuits & gravy at least 2 times a day for the next 7 months and see if he can put on about 20 lbs or more. I really believe he will be a BIG part of the program next year.
the best news we can hear about Wear will be if it comes out that it was arthroscopic hip surgery, and not something more invasive.
You know if we were not so hung up on this seniority crap, Zeller or Henson should have been the team captains. I have to say that Zeller in spite of being slow because of injuries gives it all whenever he is on the court. He blocks shots, defends, draws charges, grabs rebounds, gets on the floor after loose balls and can score as well. It’s a shame that he was not the team captain this year. But he should definitely be a captain next year.
Zeller played inspired basketball last night, and showed glimpse of what a force he can be on the offensive end. If Barnes, Bullock, and Marshall step up, we can be back to top 25 next year.
Cant hate on big Z’s performance last night.
^^i dont even know what that means. i havent got a clue who is the captain or captains THIS year. does it matter?
The captains/leaders of this team were Ginyard and Thompson, because they were the senior players. In general any team takes on the personality of its captain, and as witnessed this season the personality of this team was severely lacking.
One thing to think about, with regard to next year, is what facets of the game does UNC need to improve upon, and how realistic it is to expect noticeable improvement.
UNC suffered from a lot of deficiencies this year, but in my opinion, their biggest deficiency was an inability to hit open shots. The good news is, this is the easiest basketball skill to improve upon. Larry Drew shot 23% from 3 last year. This year, even with a bad finger the last 12 games, he shot 36%. Henson, Strickland, and McDonald all shot in the mid-20s this year. If one or two of them make can get into the 35-40% range, with the addition of Barnes and Bullock, that will make a huge difference. And it is really not that big of a stretch to think that that is possible.
Some will argue that effort was a bigger problem, and in some ways, that is correct, but anyone who has ever played the game knows that it is much easier to play hard on D when your shots are falling. UNC never lost a game when Ellington shot better than 50% and I would guess that if you went back and looked at those games, you would find that they were also among Wayne’s best games on the defensive end.
then the word Senior, or possibly Junior is more important. dook makes a big deal about Captains. i dont think we ever have.
the way Roy talks about how Marcus has overcome more than any other player he’s ever had (i dont know if thats true or a case of Roy-exaggeration), then we should get Zeller getting minutes, right? 2 years, 2 injuries. Roy should love him.
Lets not fall into the trap that Roy fell into thinking that if a guy doesn’t already have shooting ability, no big deal – he can be taught that. Thats the kind of thinking that got us into this mess. Roy needs to recruit guys who can already shoot. That should be the number one lesson that is taken away from this season.
^^ another stat showing how big of a baller Wayne was, and Roy thought he was coming back.
Please recruit shooters, I dont know if I can make it through another year of BIG TEN basketball, 30 pts a half…. YUK!
^^^It’s also the kind of thinking that won him two titles. Neither Lawson nor Felton were considered anything close to good shooters coming out of HS. It’s a simple fact that for most elite HS basketball players, shooting is going to be their weakest area. Guys like McCants, Ellington and Reddick are rare; of last year’s RSCI Top 50, only Henry is really having a good season shooting the ball. The fact that UNC has bagged guys like Bullock and Hairston for the next two classes is a huge coup.
“another stat showing how big of a baller Wayne was, and Roy thought he was coming back.”
To be fair, most people (those who run mock drafts) thought that there was a good chance that he would come back through the first 50-60% of last season. Wayne’s run through the end of the season was quite similar to May’s was in 2005, both in terms of leading the UNC to a title and raising his stock to a point where he would have been foolish to come back.
^^ Felton was not a good outside shooter but Lawson could always score from beyond the perimeter. The first two years he was asked not to try and score by himself but rather be a pass first PG. It was on his last year that he developed all the facets of his game.
^Lawson was definitely better than Felton, but if you look at his recruiting profile, his weakness were: 3-pt shooting, mid-range game, and shooting off the dribble.
What he did last year (shooting 47% from 3) is still hard to comprehend.
But C.Michael’s overall point was that Lawson, when he showed up, was not considered a good shooter and became one. Lawson’s Scout.com profile indicated that he needed to develop a three point shot, mid range jumper and shooting off the dribble. All of those things were improved upon over time. The point is, just because players show up needing to improve certain skills does not mean they won’t under Roy Williams since history has proven otherwise.
“Roy needs to recruit guys who can already shoot.”
Even when you find HS players who can shoot, a funny thing happens when they get to college. They start getting guarded by much better players, so it takes time to make the transition.
-Danny Green went from .296 to .373 to .418 3 pt. shooting between his soph. and senior years.
-Wayne Ellington went from .371 to .400 to .414 3 pt. shooting between his freshman and junior years.
-Reyshawn Terry went from .200 his freshman year to .437 his senior year.
The list goes on.
Its true that Felton became a much better shooter then he was when first showed up in Chapel Hill, however, Marcus Ginyard has forced me reconsider how much confidence I have in Roy’s ability to teach a guy who can’t shoot to shoot.
Waynes EGO was not going to let him come back for his senior season. Not a shot @ wayne, just how these kids think, Yes Tyler stayed all for 4 years, but he is an exception. 5 stars guys tend not to stay for 4 years.
Most of our big time players either leave after the freshmen year or the junior year.
Junior year is the money making year for players in college bball. Case in pt, Kenyon Martin was the last college senior drafted number 1 overall.
^^^I don’t want to wait for Dexter Strickland, or Leslie McDonald or whoever to become a junior or senior before UNC starts shooting the way it needs to shoot in order to compete.
i think i have this right…
in our ACC games:
the normal starting 3 guard types, Ginyard, Graves, and Drew:
games that NONE of the 3 shot 40%….7 times.
games that ONE of the 3 shot 40%…..5 times.
so 12 of the 17 games, ONE of the 3 guards shot 40%, at most.
of the five guard types, Ginyard, Graves, Drew, Strick, MCD:
games that NONE of the 5 shot 40%….5 times.
games that ONE of the 5 shot 40%…..4 times.
i only counted games with at least 3 FGA.
3 of the 5 shot 40% or more in a game only 3 times.
Virginia Tech I
Clemson(a game where 4 guys did, everyone but Will. unfortunately, not a single other player came to play)
BC( a game we absolutely shouldve won)
if you can’t get 3 of 5 guys to shoot >40% but 3 out of 17 games…even a 2 for 3 was all i needed to see…then thats some bad bad shooting.
GT3…18% for the 5
Dook2…19%
GT2…24%
Dook1…34%
Wake1…22%
Dook1 the only one of those games we remotely had a chance to win.
^^Well, you may have to.
Not necessarily to compete (UNC should be much more competitive next year), but to get back to Final Four aspirations. That’s the way a 3yr.- championship team assembly usually works.
Incredibly enough, there is a NIT bracketology website, http://www.nitology.com. Don’t really know what that says about the folks who write this site–or about those of us who read it–but the view there is that last night’s loss took us out of the tournament.
incredibly, the game yesterday, the 5 guards totaled 6 made FGs.
5 of the 6 makes were layups. they missed 8 other layups.
so those 5 guys were 1 of 21 on jumpers. ONE of TWENTY-ONE.
wow. and the game was winnable!
***
McD didnt play vs dook on saturday.
the last 2 games combined, the 5 guards are 2 0f 31 on jumpshots. i couldnt make only 2 of 31 jumpers out in my driveway if i tried.
Leadership! This is looking better for next year. Henson could be a key player if he leads by example and improves!
“Kenyon Martin was the last high school senior drafted number 1 overall.”
Unhhh, are you saying that Bob Huggins and Cincinnati were a high school program?
I think that you meant the last american college senior to be selected #1.
^^^^When I say “compete” I’m not talking about being a legit Final 4 contender – I know we are at least 2 seasons away from that – and thats the best case scenarior, assuming a whole lot of recruits turn out to be as good as advertised and then stay longer then one year. I don’t want to wait until Strickland or McDonald’s or whoever’s junior or senior before we, as a team, can regularly shoot as well, or better then our opponents in conference games.
^I do understand and don’t want to wait too long myself.
Since Dexter and Leslie will be juniors year after next, then that narrows your “waiting window” to next year. We can throw up our hands and say it’s not going to happen, or we can throw up the ball and say let’s see what happens.
Recruiting is set for next year, barring the unforseen beyond Ed’s expected departure, and, unless Roy decides to gamble on over-committment for 2012.
*fixed
THF I get your point, players have improved their 3-point shooting over the years, but that has to do as much with the players’ talent and willingness to commit himself as well as coaching.
The problem with this year is that we needed perimeter shooters from the get go. We did not have a single reliable perimeter shooter like Danny or Wayne, instead we had streaky shooters coming off the bench like Leslie and Dex, and among our starters Will Graves was our best shooter, which says volumes about this team’s abilities from the perimeter. Marcus played as a shooting guard who cannot shoot the 3 and frankly did not develop as an overall player in the last 5 years. Larry too is a streaky shooter at best. I guess we needed someone this year, and we will need someone next year as well, who has a reliable perimeter shot. Bullock is the only guy I know who has that. So Dex and Leslie both have to make huge strides in developing their 3-point shot.
I’m not sure how badly Larry hurt his finger (maybe with all the other junk going on, bringing up another injury would have seemed like excuses…….I mean he was still able to play) , or how much the injury and the taped fingers have affected his shooting stroke, but since then he has shot 23.5% 3 Pt. and 42.5% FT. Before it was 44.4% 3Pt. and 73% FT.
I’m not making excuses for him, but this seems to me more than just a coincidence.
I saw Paul Pierce sprain his thumb against the Lakers recently and he could barely hit the rim on FT’s. (Was out for 3 games)