Marcus Ginyard and Deon Thompson are not done yet.
I will give these two credit for this much. They gave it their all to keep the season going.
With UNC playing in Carmichael for the first time since 1986, the Heels very much lived up to the history of the building, especially in the first half when they staked a ten point lead. Unfortunately, like the Georgia Tech game last week, the Heels let off the gas and allowed the Tribe back into the contest giving up a deluge of three point shots, 43 in all of which W&M hit 16. Despite the Tribe rallying to take the lead, UNC found a way. Thompson stepped up his game to score 20 and pull down eight rebounds while Ginyard had 12 points, four assists and five steals.
The difference maker down the stretch was better perimeter defense, a couple of timely steals from Tyler Zeller and Dexter Strickland hitting four straight FTs to erase a three point deficit to give the Heels the lead for good. UNC closed on an 11-0 run and scored 80 points for the first time in 2010. Yes, you read that correctly.
By no means was it a perfect effort and there were still maddening moments. Doc and I actually watched the game together at an undisclosed secure location. There was still plenty to be frustrated with to the point we were both a little shocked when some things went well. There were also signs of life, especially from Dexter Strickland who I thought was more confident and aggressive than he has been in quite some time. Likewise, Larry Drew looked very much in control dropping six assists versus only two turnovers. For the most part the offense simply looked better though far from the level we all have become accustomed. The defense was not great and that was expected since (1) this version of the Heels has major defensive issues and (2) W&M is an extremely difficult team to prep for and defend given the funkiness of their offense. Given those factors, the defense was not all bad and they made steals when it counted.
The win ensures UNC cannot finish below .500 for the season. The Heels now travel to Mississippi St for a Saturday noon game where I am fearful Jarvis Varnado might eat John Henson.
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Agreed THF but nobody is going to eat John Henson, he just beat somebody in an eating contest. Saw it on one of their tweets w/photo just don’t know how to share the link.
Zeller’s steals reminded me of Hansbrough. Anytime that happens, it’s been a good night. I also thought Zeller showed courage going right to the basket after both of them. It was exactly that play where he got his wrist broken last season. But it didn’t faze him.
This was more like an old-time Carolina effort, and not just because of Carmichael, although that helped. They seemed to play better together and with more confidence and gusto than has been the norm this season. Strickland’s speed and audacity do make a difference.
I have been critical of Roy this year (and he’s earned it), but you have to take your hat off to him for keeping the team together, as it showed tonight, and keeping them believing in themselves.
^i think Z WAS thinking about the injury on the first breakaway. there was a Tribesman headed toward him, and he kinda threw the ball into the rim.
i was there, made some comments on last thread.
i would like to add, that i heard the radio guys at the end of coverage say that the entire team seemed to be loose and smiling.
Zeller was asked when the last time was that they had this much fun, and he said never.
others apparently agreed.
if youre having FUN in game one of the NIT, i dont think there’s any doubt what happened this year:
they had too much pressure on them. from themselves, most likely. despite being the year AFTER a title, the team was expected to reload and be a top ten team, so everyone said.
what else could it be? the pressure is now irrevocably OFF, and they have their most upbeat attitude of the season??
self-inflicted pressure. fear of failure.
This team has played with effort and intensity in four out of five last games, WF, Miami, GT, and tomight. The Duke game is still inexcusable of course. But it definitely ends the season on a positive note.
agreed rath on roy keeping the team together. although why is this the first time we’ve seen healthy doses of dexter and leslie late in the game for marcus and will? (i know zell is just getting worked in b/c of fitness/injury, to be expected). in fact, graves didn’t return after jacking up two terrible shots. the W&M team cut the lead on 3 plays. marcus losing his man, 3 ball; marcus going under screen, 3 ball; marcus not trailing hard enough on a weak curl and graves helped down, 3 ball to graves guy….marcus, get your F*****ing S*#@! together son! there is a reason we put strick on their top shooter. it led me to think about the entire season where graves jacked us out of games. the moment i thought we would lose was when they hit a big clutch 3 and will came down two plays in a row and forced a 3 and then that drive where he tried to draw contact, didn’t jump, and then threw the ball up…they got the rebound. however, we called timeout (or it was a tv timeout) and graves did not return.
that is when we stepped it up on D, zeller made a play, dexter made his ft’s and larry hit 2-2 on a 1 and 1 situation. deon did what we thought he’d do, be super quiet, soft on the boards, but have a significant offensive contribution overall.
i acknowledge hindsight is 20/20 but what if we just rolled with dex and mcdonald/henson the entire year at the 2/3 positions instead of marcus and will.
i watched a few scrimmages in carmichael, one being midnight madness with doherty during ray/rashad/may’s freshman year when we were “back”. the place is electric. i’d be interested to hear from someone senior to myself who has witnessed live games in both carmichael and the dean dome, to hear their opinion on the two venues. i grew up in indianapolis and watched many HS championships and college games in Hinkle Fieldhouse (the commentator even made a reference to Hinkle, it’s where butler plays their home games). that place had an amazing atmosphere. i never feel it at the dean dome, it feels like an nba game and the crowd on tv always looks weak, versus carmichael when fans are surrounding the court/bench. the game tonight sounded louder on tv than the dean dome, but i also know that the dean dome in person is pretty loud.
anyone care to ellaborate? should we play more games at carmichael?
^i was there before during and after the switch to the Dean Dome, jordan.
there’s no comparison. at all.
Carmichael is off the chart loud. its Cameron with more style. its deafening and its crazy fun.
but it doesnt seat 21,000, so it isnt going to be a venue for the men. aint gonna happen any more than Roy sitting Marcus or Deon or Will was going to happen. sorry on both those.
^^ I wouldn’t exactly call Deon’s 8 RB’s soft on the boards. If it is, I’ll take it.
My fantasy is for us to beat Miss. State, have NC State win their game, and meet back at Carmichael. How cool would that be?
^20 and 8 is what THIS tar heel observer was expecting to see from Deon 75% of the time, coming into this year.
instead, this was game 5 of that stat line, out of 33 games, zero in ACC play. none. nada.
^Well all that is history, and bringing it up over and over ain’t going to change anything.
I just want him to get credit for some good offense and boardwork tonight.
Funny, ihad a very different impression of the game. I saw Graves become gun shy on open shots, then force it late. There is a flip side to his passion, and I think he was panicking a bit. Deon I thought looked good: calm, assertive and showed up at acritical time. He did *not* expect this to be his last game. Finally, I saw Marcus covering a lot for poor weak-side D from Graves and Henson. I mean, yeah, he was the last guy near the shooter but he was often coming clear across the key to try and get in guys’ faces.
Strickland has ice water in his veins. He will emerge and hopefully provide good balance ( along with Zeller) to Henson’s and Graves’ extroverted passion in the locker room.
I hate to say this because it always comes back to bite me in the next game, but you can tell these guys are practicing on their weaknesses.
great input HTTE, i knew from scrimmages i attended at carmichael that it was just off the hook. it felt like a big time game filled with 90% peers/students and 10% parents and adult fans. the only game i truly recall as memorable at the dean dome was a game in 2000 when we beat maryland who was tops in the ACC that year. there was a huge snow storm, the season ticket holders didn’t show, and they announced 10 minutes into the game that students were free to move into whatever seats they could find. that game felt like a real game; intense, looking players in the eye, yelling at the top of your lungs, and cutting the intensity with a knife. the other games feel sanitary, like sit in your seat, it’s way up on the second level, and you cheer when you’re supposed to, and someone might yell at you if you stand up.
what a shame, carmichael = college basketball…dean dome = great for alumni, but not sure what it does for the students @unc.
deon had 8 boards, and i’m happy he performed up to expectations, and honestly my comment wasn’t meant to knock him at all…the fact is he is soft, he had several occasions where he hands were on the ball and he got it taken from him. that’s a deon play, not a super star unc starter play. that’s all. he did tonight what we expected of him all year.
yes, if we’re here, everyone thinks we suck and will lose then there is only one thing to do. win the whole damn thing*
*taken from Major League, the movie*
^^^oh, he did. i acknowledged him back yonder >>>>>>>>>
on the previous thread. he got a late rebound and putback that was needed. and hit the deck that one time.
and maybe he taught Z that over the top steal maneuver.
yeah, all in all great effort from these guys this year. done beating a dead horse but man this type of effort would have us into the weekend of the upcoming ncaa tourney and…oh well.
i’m a big marcus ginyard proponent but tonight his defense showed, esp when he helped off of guys when (even in the post game chat w/ espn) roy said we switched to no help. and to boot he went under screens on a shooter. that’s not good. it’s not terrible, but not game winning D. Strick played game winning D, and that’s why we put him on their best shooter. he blocked the guy’s shot in the first half and elevated to challenge the shot and fought through screens and looked like he was as hungry as ever. I loved it. henson and graves got grossly out of position at times, so i can live with helping prevent a layup and giving up a 3 pt attempt, but not the others.
anyways, hey guys, i said what i have to say and for all the negatives, tonight the effort was there and we pulled it out, mistakes and all. this is why i’m glad we went to the NIT, so we can have a game, hopefully 2 or more, where we show up and give a damn and play hard. if that happens, then i’m a happy fan win or lose b/c these kids represent a program that should never be faulted for effort. good for them for not letting the critics get to them and coming out w/ a fire and making the most of every opportunity.
the espn recap says that Carmichael’s renovation reduced the number of seats to 6800 from 10,000.
uh, does that seem right? 3000+ fewer fans were there tonight? that doesnt seem right, somehow. i know there were more actual chairs, not benches…but 3k?
anyone?
***
yeah, nevermind. espn is WRONG. again.
capacity of just over 8000.
“that is when we stepped it up on D, zeller made a play, dexter made his ft’s and larry hit 2-2 on a 1 and 1 situation. deon did what we thought he’d do, be super quiet, soft on the boards, but have a significant offensive contribution overall”
I thought from this, Jordan, you meant Deon was soft tonight, and I didn’t really think he was. Sorry if I misinterpreted.
Tonight he played like he would like to visit the great state of Mississippi for some more basketball.
Of course Carmichael is electric. It is very similar to “Indoor Stadium” in Durham. When things are going in either venue, it is very hard to hear even with a headset broadcasting games. Trust me. I did it as a student for radio. In Durham, the broadcasters are up near the roof. It is hot and silly loud.
The problem with playing games in Carmichael is that there would have to be a system where half of the season ticket holders could attend each of two games. Tickets to these would have to be decided by a lottery. But two games a year there would be very cool.
Just look at Duke’s record playing at their place.
HTTE you took the words right out of my mouth. Looks a lot like Deon in November when he was going against average bigs and won the softie battles.
The only thing I like about Dexter’s plays are the results. Didn’t seem any different than the fact he didn’t get ripped and he made the right handed layups on the left side of the hoop.
I’m not trying to be a buzzkill but I can’t get that excited slipping past William & Mary. I wrote on the pre game post that we were going to get smoked from the perimeter because we haven’t stopped it this whole year (not even really the last couple of years if we’re going to be honest, it’s just that people couldn’t stop anything of ours) and it wasn’t going to change tonight. We needed to be friggin’ Carolina and pound the ball inside and make more FTs than they took (18 to 4) and out rebound them which we did…barely.
Not many turnovers but William & Mary doesn’t really grit their teeth and guard people. I think they’re bottom half in the country in most defensive markers.
WIth that said, it sure as hell felt great to win what felt like a somewhat meaningful game.
I don’t suppose anybody wants to hear about Woollen Gym? Not that I go back that far……..well, not that I’d ADMIT going back that far, anyway.
Sounds like it was a gutsy performance, even if it wasn’t elegant.
At least I can watch Saturday at noon. I thought about it, and the situation Tues night was that I could either watch the Heels, who don’t pay me nothin’, or do my job the next day, where I get paid – sorry, LD2, eating food on a regular basis has got me spoiled! Some day, LD2 is going to have to work for a living, and he’ll understand…
Good game by the team last night They played with effort and Intensity most of the game.. First half palyed well..Got little nervous beginning of second half… oh here we go again.. They seem to get a little lazy when second halves begin.. Made thier free throws when thay needed to.. Have to say and give credit.. Larry Drew played a good game, 6 assists 2 turnovers .. Larry has the pieces and talent but at times cannot put it together consistently and makes one wonder..Looking foward to Saturday’s game..
Wouldn’t it be funny UNC / UCONN Nit final!!
last night tells us all ,that they can score 80 points and play well..Need to want it…play hard every possession and results/wins will happen
I remember both Wollen and Carmichael. The noise level was deafening because students surrounded courtside. The Dean Dome is a great venue and a fine tribute to Dean Smith, but it was paid for by the high rollers and therefore what has been aptly described as “the wine and cheese crowd” received the best seating for all games. A sad reality but a fact of life. The Smith Center will never create the atmosphere or noise level of our past venues. Sometimes great success has unintended consequences and this may be one.
Go Heels! Beat Mississippi State!!
The Smith Center will never create the atmosphere or noise level of our past venues.
Maybe not on a consistent basis, but there are times that place can get rocking and it is very intimidating. I remember twice during my time at UNC that the atmosphere was unbelievable: in 1989 there was a game with Iowa over winter break where a bunch of tickets were released to the general public and it was so loud players couldn’t hear the whistles; then in 1991, Carolina had a huge comeback against Kentucky and won the game in the last minute and I thought the roof was going to come off the place. I’m sure there is anecdotal evidence of other times it was that way for individual games.
^the Dome CAN get loud, but its a rarity. it takes a snowstorm that changes the crowd makeup, or a big comeback.
your typical crowd watching the average game isnt all that loud.
169-20 at Carmichael. 20!
W&M was a really good team. I was impressed by them. Miss St. is going to be a big challenge. Great from the perimeter with strong interior play. Just glad we can’t finish under .500
I noticed that Larry Drew did not have his fingers taped last night. Made for a big difference in his passing and shooting. Also, the turning point in the game was when their big guy fouled out. He was setting a lot of screens out top, many illegal, that freed up the 3 pt. shooters. Once he left at the 5 min. mark, their shooters weren’t getting those looks anymore.
It appears that William & Mary was playing without their top 3 point shooter.
Great win by the Heels last night. It did look like they were having fun. I was worried they were going to let the win slip away. But there is just something wrong about a team taking over 40 threes in a game. That’s just not basketball to me. And it is funny that it takes UNC vs. William & Mary in the NIT for an ACC team to actually score 80 points in a game. I think the combined score for this game was more than any game in the ACC tourney. I don’t expect a win Saturday, but at least the Heels will finish at .500 for the season.
Carmichael in it’s heyday was so loud because 2,000 students sat behind the bench and that’s the view one saw on TV. The same old crowd sat on their hands in Carmichael, you just couldn’t see them on TV.
But I do have one criticism. WHY, WHY, WHY would Carolina still leave their man on defense to help out on a team that does nothing but shoot threes??? Why would they not just play straight up man to man, never leaving the man you are guarding? I really think Roy is too stubborn on this. Times have changed. Too many teams have players that can hit the wide open three easier than a contested five footer. And it really didn’t make sense to help out on defense against this team. It’s past time this defensive philosophy changes at Carolina. If you are guarding someone that can hit threes, then you NEVER leave them on defense to help out. The other team’s whole plan is to make you leave them so they are wide open for a three. And last night, everyone on W&M could hit threes, so no one should have helped out on defense at all. In today’s game, it is better to take a chance with the player hitting a contested five footer or lay up over a defender than it is to leave a shooter wide open for three. Three is more than two. It’s time to change this at Carolina.
I thought the W&M fans were rowdier for most of the game than the Carolina fans. And the only time the Dean Dome gets loud is against Duke.
“It appears that William & Mary was playing without their top 3 point shooter.”
Quinn McDowell (6′-6″ Soph.- 14 Pts.- 4 RB -33 MPG) shoots 42.6% from 3 and had 28 pts. against Maryland, and 7 games with 20 or more this year. It’s hard to know if he would have made a difference since they didn’t seem to have too much trouble with outside shots, except for the last 5 min., but I’m sure they missed him.
LarryS
Did you notice the FG% and 3FG% of the Tribes’ leading scorer? Schneider shot 34% from the field this season.
BTW, congrats to Deon Thompson for tying Christian Laettner for most games played by an ACC player. Barring the unforeseen (though I guess this season it wouldn’t be that unforeseen) he will break the record on Saturday. It’s been a tough year for UNC, but anytime you can knock a Dookie out of the record books, it is a good thing! Congrats to Deon, and the program, for that matter, as this record was enabled by the incredible run the previous three years. Hopefully Roy can make it 3 years in a row the a Tar Heel has passed a Blue Devil by getting his third ring next year…
^^Certain players really elevate their games against UNC. Schneider was 3/20 from 3-Pt range in his last 2 games.
Also, Schneider’s 3 pt. FGA basically represents his overall FGA since 68% of his shots this year were taken from beyond the arc. Last night 83% of his shots were from 3 pt range.
While congratulations are in order for making it to the second round of the NIT, one is always given the sober reminder that the Tar Heels did so barely. They were playing a team that lived beyond the arc, had no true ball-handlers that can beat a defender off the dribble and no true big man who can score in the paint. Yet W&M was able to shoot a large percent of uncontested threes, beat the Heels at pick-n-roll and kept it close. A few more lapses and things would have been different. The sad fact is this team either does not know how to defend, or are not taught how to defend the perimeter, high ball screens and pick-n-roll plays. They survived, but if they keep playing this one dimensional low IQ defense I see a lot of grief when playing against a more balanced attack.
It is what it is at this point. No need to harp on the issues we have seen all season. The only important thing now is that they win and if they do that, I am not going to complain too much. The worst thing I think any of us can do is bog ourselves down in all the things they are still doing wrong. Be happy they won and hope the offseason brings improvement.
Thank you, THF.
“Some day, LD2 is going to have to work for a living, and he’ll understand…”
Do you really think that you are at your job more than these guys are at the gym? More than Ty? More than PsychoT?
These guys work hard and train hard. And they do not stop at 5 and go home to sit on the couch. They are up in the morning for workouts, then classes, then practice, and then back to the gym sometimes at night for shooting practice. LDII is already working for a living ……. but he is not getting paid.
@THF, the more I see them playing the same defense over and over, the more I am convinced that this is a coaching problem. It’s easy to say that players should switch on screens or play zone, but both those defenses are hard and need practice and effective coaching. I don’t think this team practices those defenses in keeping with Roy’s philosophy. I don’t foresee any changes in the near future or even next season until the coach realizes that teams that beat us did so by three basic plays, dribble in and kick-out, high ball screens and pick-n-rolls.
A win is a win and I will take it. Now at least they can’t have a losing record this year. Deon can knock that Ahole Laettner out of the record book in another category on Saturday. And the team looked much looser and more comfortable together last night.
Yes Drew finally has the tape off of his fingers so hopefully his shooting will improve. He already looks more comfortable taking shots then he did. Zeller is really starting to play to potential. Henson’s progress continues. He looked much better at the FT line last night. And somebody not named Will Graves actually hit a three ball last night. All in all I would call it a satisfactory night.
^Small sample, but Drew was 2-4 from 3 and 3-4 from the line last night. Those percentages will work.
“I wouldn’t exactly call Deon’s 8 RB’s soft on the boards.”
Kudos to Deon for getting 0.27 rebounds per minute, but it should also be noted that half of those rebounds came in the final 4 minutes after W&M’s starting big man fouled out. So Carolina’s 3 year starting 6’9” power forward finally got 8 rebounds against an undersized CAA opponent. Does this mean it is November or time for a parade?
“WHY, WHY, WHY would Carolina still leave their man on defense to help out on a team that does nothing but shoot threes???”
I think Roy’s comments to Dykes after the game revealed a key problem for this team that has been discussed multiple times on this blog. This team does not have good basketball instincts or IQ. Roy’s coaching style is to coach a system and then make minor tweaks to that system from game to game (depending on opponent) or even on the fly during the game. Last night Roy said they tried to play “no help” defense, but the players had a hard time adjusting since they have played help defense all year, so basically Roy tried to make a defensive adjustment that his team did not have the aptitude to execute. Think of the tweaks Roy made during the last couple years that won critical games, from switching screens at Duke to the double team strategy on Griffin in the Elite 8 last year. Evidently this team is not equipped with same level of basketball instincts or IQ that allows them to adapt to strategy changes like most of Roy’s teams in the past, and I think that has been one of the major problems all season and a big adjustment to Roy’s coaching style that Roy has done a poor job of adapting to.
The senior class took 24 of the team’s 57 shots last night (42% by 2 players). Although they shot >50%, is this really the best option or strategy for this team considering many have stated on this blog that these two seniors were only role players and our expectations of 25-30 pts, 10-12 boards, plus a couple assists and steals from this senior class was unrealistic? When did Thompson and Ginyard evolve into Hansbrough and Ellington? I didn’t realize the NIT was a senior goodbye tour that will be used as a showcase for a roster spot in a professional league overseas.
Hopefully, the work in the offseason and the influx of three new guys who might have better basketball instincts will help in this regard. Plus, there were instances were UNC players just do not pay attention on defense and allow opposing players to get open. That is a focus issue and the same one we have discussed all season.
Roy probably could have done a better job of adjusting his system but that is not an easy task on the fly with limited practice time once the game schedule starts.
^THF, I think it was a perfect storm of Roy slow to change in addition to the worse basketball IQ he has ever had in a single team.
Also, anyone who continues to make statements that Ginyard is or was some type of grand perimeter defender needs to have their eyes checked. The hype has never met the actual performance or results.
Wayne Ellington during the 2nd half of the 2008/09 season was an example of a great perimeter defender not Marcus Ginyard. I still get annoyed that many people forget what a great all around player Ellington was and how much he improved his defensive game by his junior year, but still shell out unsubstantiated hype about Marcus Ginyard’s defensive prowess, while in the same breath make excuses for Ginyard being only a limited role player that no one should have ever expected to develop into a better all around player by his 5th year.
^THF, I think it was a perfect storm of Roy slow to change in addition to the worse basketball IQ he has ever had in a single team.”
^And that is just life sometimes. I run into issues like that in my job working with computers. You spend hours trying to work through this one issue only to reach a point where you realize the best thing to do is simply wipe the operating system and reload it. The same was true here. Roy has undoubtedly tried to troubleshoot the issues using various ideas and nothing has worked or worked well. By the time he realized what he really had, it was too late to make wholesale changes. Sort of like had he done A before B and C happened he might have avoided D. I also wonder had they gotten extra practice before the games started if maybe he could have made some extra adjustments. Probably not but a young team with a weaker schedule and more prep time would have been a benefit.
“Kudos to Deon for getting 0.27 rebounds per minute, but it should also be noted that half of those rebounds came in the final 4 minutes after W&M’s starting big man fouled out. So Carolina’s 3 year starting 6’9” power forward finally got 8 rebounds against an undersized CAA opponent. Does this mean it is November or time for a parade?”
This a fair perspective, and a reminder that even though we may be pleased with improvements by a certain player, or the team as a whole, we still have to remember the particulars of how they were achieved, and against whom.
Even with all the talk in the last couple of days about W&M being good, and their beating Md. and Wake, and how efficiently they run their offense, we still needed to understand their limitations. They were not a multi-dimensional team, they finished third in a weak league, lost to some poor teams, and never beat the only team in their league who made the NCAAT, and at an 11 seed….they weren’t that good.
But hey, we’re not that good either. That’s why we’re also playing in the NIT.
So to be able to enjoy and be happy with what we’re doing now a little more, I think we just have to accept anything we can get and not worry so much about qualifying it in terms of dubious accomplishments or what shoulda/coulda been.
Now beating Miss. St……………that would be a much better accomplishment. They should have beaten Ky., and should be getting ready for the NCAAT. They’re going to have a real chip on their shoulders and have homecourt. The Heels have got their work cut out for them.
I see far protests to Ginyard’s defensive abilities than any giving praise. Ginyard’s main problem last night was not being aggressive enough on screens and trying to cover the whole court. Teammates who also played D well help with the latter, but I think the earlier pint about him ducking behind screens is quite valid. I don’t think I’ve seen many posts at all this year, save maybe in the preseason, that claim him to be a defensive wizard.
I Agree in regards to Ginyards defense abilities…Prior to his injury that kept him out last year he was one of the better defensive players on the team.but post injury never really have seen him get back to that defensive player he was… Ellington was a great all around player offense and definitely last year he improved his defensive abilities.. I think Leslie Mc Donald has potential to be similar..obviously not a Wayne Ellington but he could be that wing player always moving around and he has shown some defensive skills..He has a decnt jump shot just has not fallen…
“Prior to his injury that kept him out last year he was one of the better defensive players on the team”
Couldn’t agree more, he shut me down.
Signed,
Brandon Rush (25pts, 7rbs in 2008 FF)
I am not saying you are wrong or right but you are going to have to bring more to the table than one performance in a game that saw every Tar Heel save maybe Danny Green play like it was their first college game.
The confusion on Ginyard comes from him being reputed as some kind of defensive stopper in the one-on-one sense. I am not sure that has ever been the case. The statement above was “one of the better defensive players on the team.” I have no issue with that statement though I think Ginyard’s value on defense like Frasor’s is being a part of a team defensive scheme where his instincts for helping off the ball, defensive rebounding and steals allowed him to contribute. He did those kinds of things really well prior to his injury.
The other problem is you have no idea who is guarding which player at any given point so tossing out some opponent’s stats as proof one player sucks at defense is a tad disingenuous which makes the whole idea of calling a player a defensive wizard difficult to prove anyway apart from steals and blocks.
“Couldn’t agree more, he shut me down.
Signed,
Brandon Rush (25pts, 7rbs in 2008 FF)”
scl, I remember one of your more mild sarcastic comments to Doc one day, and actually the one that kind of got me ticked off a little with your style (which I’ve since come to understand if not always enjoy), regarding some stats he had given, which was:
“Wow! Nice sample”
Maybe you should heed your own advice.
All I am saying is from what one sees on the court……Marcus is not the same player post his foot injury.It is what it is.. nothing he or one can do, other then play the best he can… I am a die hard UNC fan… I like Marcus Just an opinion..
THF & LarryS, Fair enough, then instead of stats how about constant rhetoric from his head coach the past 3 years that cast Ginyard in a light of not only being a great defensive player, but also an essential part to a championship team:
1) Ginyard started ahead of Green in 2007/08 and according to the head coach this was due to Ginyard being the team’s best perimeter defender
2) Roy William’s contemplated that he did not know if the team would be able to win a national championship after losing its best defender for the season in 2008/09.
3) Roy Williams called Ginyard one of the best defenders he ever coached prior to this season
My point was that Wayne Ellington was a better perimeter defender in his junior year than Marcus Ginyard was at any point in his 5 year Tar Heel career. But while Ellington’s development and improvement in all facets of his game gets glanced over and becomes a footnote to the 2008/09 champion season, we’re suppose to overlook Ginyard’s lack of develop where his game has not improved offensively or defensively since his freshman year because evidently he was just a defensive role player, and we should all give him a pass because normal development expectations similar to those thrust upon Wayne Ellington do not apply to defensive specialists and role players like Marcus Ginyard.
Some continue to use phrases like “prior to his injury” or “not the Old Marcus”, but I contend that the “Old Marcus” never was as good of a defender as even Wayne Ellington was last season. I think a senior night in 2006 at Cameron Indoor and constant hype from his head coach have some holding on to the belief that Ginyard was or is a much better defender than he actually has shown in reality. Otherwise, why would we still be witnessing Ginyard get shook out of his jock and his assignment score career highs time and time again this season, including last night against a CAA opponent. Oh I forgot, Ginyard is just helping cover for his teammate’s lapses on defense that is the only reason we keep seeing his man score more than Tiger Woods in a Las Vegas Night Club.
The problem with that is Roy bases those statements on defensive charting which no one else has access to but the coaching staff. Now in the past I wondered if there was something amiss with said defensive charting since UNC’s defense seemed lacking at times.
Secondly, a lot of fairly smart analysts have said the same thing about Ginyard. I am not talking about Dick Vitale. I am pretty sure I have heard it from Jay Bilas as well and his analysis is usually pretty good. The point is at some point he showed himself to be a good defender. Heck I was watching the UNC-Lville game from 2008 and Ginyard did a lot of good things in that game from a rebounding and defensive standpoint. Besides that, UNC went 36-3 with Ginyard starting at the SF slot so for a coach to say he is unsure if he can win the title without a starter from a 36-3 season is not necessarily an outlandish statement thought the presence of Green should have given him a little assurance that he could.
As for Ellington, I would have to ask what are you basing that evaluation on or can you cite specific examples. I am not saying you are wrong or right but I have always found this kind of debate very difficult to have because defense is not something easily quantified, especially among fans who see the games once. I tend to agree Ellington was overlooked for a lot of things. He was basically regarded as not as good as Gerald Henderson even though the stats said otherwise. Ellington was 6-4 and have good length and was quicker than Ginyard so it stands to reason he might be a better defender but perhaps not the kind of player who does the little things well which Roy uses to weight his defensive evaluations.
As a sidebar that is sort of relevant but how would you evaluate Ty Lawson as a defender his junior year? He had eight steals in the title game and was known to do some good things on defense but was lit up more than once by opposing PGs such as Teague, Vasquez and Rice.
My bottom line is I think Ginyard’s reputation is probably undeserved, especially being touted as a one-on-one stopper but at the same time I don’t think he is as bad as you make him out to be. As with many things the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
In reference to Ellington’s defense, go back and watch the following:
1) VPI game @ Blacksburg
2) The final 4 games of the NCAAT against Gonzaga, Oklahoma, Villanova, and MSU
Injury or not, I just don’t understand how someone who was anointed with the reputation of being such a great defender as Ginyard has become so awful defending the perimeter in his 5th year.
I just get the since the rhetoric with Marcus now is:
1) We should never have expected him to improve his offensive game since he was a defensive specialist
and
2) Its too bad Marcus got injured otherwise he would have shut down every opponent’s top offensive player
As for the sidebar, Lawson was an above average defender during the regular season of his junior year with small glimpses of greatness (e.g. Miami game in Chapel Hill), but during his 5 games in the NCAAT he turned it on and became a very good defender. Lawson had a lack of focus sometimes on the defensive end throughout his career, which usually separates average defenders who have the skill set but don’t always put them to use from the truly great defensive players.
who are these “people” you seem to be getting so worked up about? like Buon above, I haven’t seen this glowing narrative you speak of.
THF said, “As a sidebar that is sort of relevant but how would you evaluate Ty Lawson as a defender his junior year? He had eight steals in the title game and was known to do some good things on defense but was lit up more than once by opposing PGs such as Teague, Vasquez and Rice.”
SCL11 said, “As for the sidebar, Lawson was an above average defender during the regular season of his junior year with small glimpses of greatness (e.g. Miami game in Chapel Hill), but during his 5 games in the NCAAT he turned it on and became a very good defender. Lawson had a lack of focus sometimes on the defensive end throughout his career, which usually separates average defenders who have the skill set but don’t always put them to use from the truly great defensive players.”
This is actually a subject of some interest to me, because during the 08-09 REGULAR season I complained long and loud that Ty Lawson was a liability on defense for us. You can call it lack of focus if you want but I think the problem with Ty’s defense was in his overall approach to the problem.
What I saw when Ty was not doing a good job on defense was a player who purposely laid back from his man in an attempt to goad him or a teammate into making a mistake passing or handling the ball so that Ty would have an opportunity to jump the passing lane for the quick steal and the easy layup. I believe he felt his natural quickness allowed him to compensate for any mistakes in such a strategy and that he would still be able to hold his man in check. Essentially IMO his EGO got in the way of his fundamentals on defense and caused him to be torched repeatedly by players that possessed plenty of skill of their own like Rice, and Teague. The analogy I would use is the corner back in football who goes for the spectacular but risky interception instead of the sure tackle or pass defensed.
At some point around the end of the season he really woke up and decided he had to play his man better and discovered in the process that he could still get the easy steal and the quick layup. When that happened he truly elevated his game to another level. During most of the regular season Ty was at best an average defender and in some cases he was actually not very good as a defender at all. During the NCAAs however he was a completely changed player on defense and it culminated in the record setting performance against M-State in the championship game.
As a sidebar to the sidebar, the entire team(with the exception of Tyler Hansbrough, and maybe Danny Green) played the regular season games last year like they were just marking time until they got to the tourney. They played well enough to win most of them but they didn’t seem all that impressive(with the exception of the Duke games) until the NCAA tourney. If you go back and read a lot of the commentary from last year’s pundits before the tourney a lot of them weren’t very high on Carolina’s performance and questioned whether they could beat Blake Griffin and OK or if they would be able to handle Nova. There were even people who though Gonzaga had the talent to pull an upset on them. I attribute this attitude to the ho-hum way they played their regular season games, and the ho-hum effort they turned last year at the ACC tourney. It was truly like someone turn a switch on once the NCAAs started. Those 5 games are what everybody remembers from last year, and those 5 games are unfortunately what this year’s team has been measured against and found to be severely deficient by comparison.
I just don’t know how, in the name of Dudley Bradley, an entirely accurate assessment can be made comparing the defensive careers of Wayne Ellington and Marcus Ginyard.
Not unless, of course, 1) one was really good at analyzing defensive play and 2) one had access to, and had watched all 100 of Marcus’s games and all 115 of Wayne’s games closely, maybe repeatedly. Anecdotal recollections are not the most credible resources.
I’ll give Wayne credit for stepping it up his final year, and playing especially well in the tournament, as did Ty. A lot of players and teams really step it up, defensively, in the NCAAT , and know that’s what it’s going to take to cut down the nets. The 2005 team did the same thing, and ended up #5 in D that year.
I truly regret Marcus’s digression this year, for whatever reasons, and his “defensive stopper” legend was more or less invented by someone, and indiscriminately repeated as time went on. The reality likely lies more towards him just being a very solid and dependable defender, when he was at his best. And when you really think of the state of defense in college basketball, that still sounds pretty good.
Anyone who has really paid attention to his career knows that he was a pretty darn good defensive player, game in and game out until this year, and doesn’t really deserve to be remembered in quite the way it has ended .
I do not think you can compare the two…(Ginyard /Ellington) Ginyard is a good college player but i think ellington especially last year had the complete package.Ellington always had the offensive skills Quick thought if the juniors stayed they could have possibly repeated!!!!..Bottom line getta play as a team..The known shooters getting themselves open..and of course the guard finding them..