Let’s take a trip back to 1999.
Ed Cota, looking like Kendall Marshall with the drive and dish to a wide open Ademola Okulaja for the game winning three.
Comments if you have ‘em.
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UNC-Virginia Game Thread241 comments to UNC-Virginia Game Thread |
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There is ugly, and there is a Virginia game, which makes ugly feel much better about itself.
And I could count on one finger the number of times I’ve seriously questioned Roy’s end-of-game strategy. Now it’s two fingers. Talk about some serious bullet dodging. Oh well, maybe someone can come back later on an explain why the stall was a good idea. I’m open to suggestions.
Wow! They did win though, and after I’ve caught my breath I’ll come back and talk about Zeller (ACCPOY)….. and some other good aspects of the game if I can remember them.
Survival. Barnes needs to stay to learn a handle and get some quick feet. His stride is so wide on first step he can’t recover to blow by. Looks slow. That step is only good for one dribble pull up or step back J. This team needs a killer instinct player in the last minutes not just last shot
If we didn’t know before, Zeller should get the last shot. It’s not like Hansbrough’s having the last shot — his hands were so strong, you couldn’t bat the ball away — but you go with your best, guttiest player, and that is Academic All America Tyler Zeller.
There is just no substitute for game awareness and clutch play. None. If Zeller doesn’t show those today, we lose.
We’d be just a passably good team right now without Z
Yeah – when Bullock lost Zeglinski on the perimeter… looked way to much like when Bullock lost Rivers and Z was stuck guarding him. Don’t understand how he lost his man at such a key time again. Thank goodness Zeglinski missed.
Roy: “we screwed up and let Zeglinski get an open shot, and lucky he missed it”
we know.
ESPN didn’t bring their A game today either… first we miss the first few minutes of our game because of a Nationwide Series race (come on,,, even NASCAR fans don’t care about that…) and now no bonus coverage of Kansas vs. Missouri in overtime?
OK, I’m thinking of some positive things now.
How about Henson going 7 out of 8 from the line. Who knows, that may have been the difference.
Kansas/Mizzou is on CBS.
the Henson dunk might be #1 on espn’s Top 10.
^^Thanks!
Ugh. Missouri had no plan on that last possession.
there’s the Frank Haith we remember. didnt even get off a shot!
^Must have thought he was playing dook again…
they just replayed the radio call of the Henson jam.
pretty sure Jones and Eric both crapped their pants.
that was some dunk.
lucky to win today when everyone except zeller pretty much sucked. they missed several WIDE OPEN shots.
Really, the epitome of the craptitude that is Elmore/Patrick came on the Henson dunk.
(Paraphrase): Mike Scott needs to attack the rim – Henson with the dunk – but without him in the game, Virginia really have no post presence.
How much gushing would have happened had it been either a)Virginia or b)Duke?
“There is just no substitute for game awareness and clutch play. None. If Zeller doesn’t show those today, we lose.”
bingo rath! ACC POY
^^If it had been a Plumlee… or whoever that Maryland dude was that Patrick fell in love with… then, well, lets just say that if it lasts longer then 4 hours Mike Patrick needs to go see a doctor.
The UVA crowd went nuts when Scott was called for pushing off. On replay it looked like he elbowed Henson in the throat. Otherwise the refs let guys bang as evidenced by Zeller’s bloody nose. UVA’s style is rough and physical and they play “keep away” on offense. UVA lost the game because UNC tightened the screws on defense the last 10 minutes and UVA went 0-11 from behind the arc.
PJ hit a shot and the Heels won. Both are positives.
Good win, despite the effort of Len Elmore to diss the Tar Heels.
What was wrong with Barnes today? If he has even a reasonable day, we win by 10+.
Larry got it right again – this game was won on the foul line and Henson went for 87.5%!!!!!!!
Zeller came up huge. Clutch ugly win. Weird offensive and defensive lapses.
Bullock is a freshman. He tries really hard, but to make the same end of game mistake twice is painful. This time it worked out OK.
Zeller is ACC POY.
UVA has only given up more than 61 points twice this year. We put 70 on them in the Dome, and Seattle put up 77. Dook scored 61 against them at Cameron. They make all the games ugly. Bullock made a mistake at the end, but I thought overall the intensity stayed higher in this one from start-to-finish than it did against State. Everything looks better when the shots go in. I was more impressed by this win than the one at State. Great play by Z at the end.
I agree with Larry about stalling with just under 4 minutes to go. We steadily built a small lead by playing more up tempo. UVA was going to get at least four possessions regardless of our pace. I’m not really sure of the strategy there.
Henson made several bad decisions that really hurt our chances to take the fun out of this one in the end. I didn’t think he played well against State either. His stats look okay until you start to take the game on a possession-by-possession basis.
I just watched the game again (why in the world would you do that, you say?) – except for the last 3 1/2 minutes – just to see if some of them played as badly as I thought. Well, yes and no.
I mean it was ugly, and Virginia did a good job of helping on D, challenging shots, and really making us work for it, but in a game like this where every possession really means something there were some good plays made (along with mistakes, sure) by most everyone to at least help keep us in the game .
I thought Hairston did pretty well, and McAdoo had some tough rebounds and played good D on several possessions. I particularly like a tipped-rebound pass by him, under our basket, back to Hairston for a layup, for example. That was a nice play. And I think, overall, most of the guys had a bigger positive than negative in the game.
I just really didn’t like the way the game was finished off, but I blame the players less for that than the coaches. Anyway, all’s well that ends well, and I don’t take too much out of a game like this in predicting how they’ll do next time.
My biggest issue was the offensive efficiency today. Part of it is missing open shots, it is also having to take harder shots. If you are shooting 3 for 10, maybe you should work for an easier shot instead of hoisting shots one on four. If four guys are collapsed on you, there is a good chance at least two of your teammates are open. Barnes still has an issue recognizing that. It worked in high school because the talent level was lesser. Defenders also realize that once Barnes starts driving into the lane, he isn’t giving the ball up. Virginia figured that out, and teams in the tourney will realize that coming into their match up with Carolina.
^^^Henson’s final 10 min is why UNC won
scl11,
It was interesting seeing Henson play like Anthony Davis. He essentially defended the lane at the end instead of defending a player.
^agree
” Defenders also realize that once Barnes starts driving into the lane, he isn’t giving the ball up.”
this! shocker, ain’t it?
…Is Strick healthy yet? …LMac?
I know Roy don’t do zone D, but if Kendall can’t defend a quick, penetrating PG (for foul-avoidance reasons or just lack of quickness), it’s gonna be a shorter season than we thought.
first i heard Patrick and Elmore.
Patrick takes a second to call the Henson dunk, then goes
right back to his train of thought. if this was Murton, he’d be
picking out drapes with the guy. and Elmore didnt say a syllable.
at least he had something to say on Z’s.
oh and look at LMac on the sideline. i’m thinking the knee is ok now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7LyXWkA8sg
This year’s squad lacks verve.
Can’t believe the only minutes of the game I missed were the two best dunks.
I think the real issue we had this game was an inability to pass out of the double team with speed. We can do it fine on transition, where you see two passes leading to an open look from three, but when it’s getting the ball back out to the perimeter during the half court plays we can’t seem to do it quickly enough to get quality shots.
Survive and advance.
Barnes played bad. KM had his worst game of the season, perhaps. Roy tried to give it away. Yet they won on the road against a top-25 team. I’ll take it.
Final thought: UVa basketball is just ugly.
Odd as it sounds to say it, I think our big talent star, Barnes, needs to let the game come to him. A lot of his bad shots were when he was forcing things.
I’ve just been watching Syracuse, and I hope someone knocks them off before we have to play them. It seems like they have ten run/jump athletes, and three of them are eight feet tall.
“A lot of his bad shots were when he was forcing things.”
That’s pretty much what happens to any player as far as forced shots usually being bad ones, but against the D that Va. plays even an offensive talent like Barnes has a harder time getting away with it. Hopefully he and the team will learn some things from these two games because we could easily see them again in the ACCT.
With the result of the Zeller v. Mike Scott matchup today, and with Stogin’s being on a nowhere team, I think Z took a big step forward toward being ACC POY. And here’s betting Rivers finishes second — the most dangerous player on the co-No.1 team in the conference. I hope I’m wrong about that second part, but you know how the press fawns over everything Dook.
rathskellar68-
Z is ACC POY; hopefully the media voting will see this as well.
It is consistency that these guys lack. It is very hard to repeat.
Marshall couldn’t do it today. But he seemed genuinely pleased with the accomplishment of beating UVa today at their place.
This UNC team has shown flashes of brilliance from everyone, and clearly they want to win as a team. The question is can they become consistent.
Still a great win, but ugly.
“The question is can they become consistent.”
No doubt the kind of consistency referred to here is in their playing from game to game, and it is so tempting to imagine future failure based on more erratic performances than we’d like to see at this point in the season.
But the fact is they’ve been pretty consistent in winning by being 2 games ahead in their losses, compared to this time last year, and at the same position in conference wins and losses. They’ve grinded out two ugly wins against a much-improved Va. team, done the same against State, are on a 5-game win streak since their last loss (same as last year), and have the chance to finish atop the conference – all after losing one of their best players.
I have to say, style points aside, I’m pretty happy with that type of consistency.
LarryS-
Their consistent contribution as a team in this game was, as you point out, the win.
Team consistency though requires a high level from everyone on the team. That did not happen in this game, which UVa made difficult.
Marshall said post game that UVa is under rated and that to beat them is a big accomplishment in his view.
I believe that if you simply compare the Chapel Hill UVa game to this one that it is easy to see that this game was not played by the team at the level which they need going forward.
Lots of teams are building momentum now. UNC needs that as well. In ways other than the win/loss perspective.