Four Factors

Last night was a perfect example of how seven minutes of bad play, can completely overwhelm 33 of good, and on the offensive end, it was really only the last two minutes that were bad.  For the first 38 minutes of the game, UNC did almost everything they needed to on offense to win (the following stats include only the first 38 minutes).  UNC shot (overall) well (eFG%: 50.0), rebounded well (OR%: 40.5, DR%: 71.1), and most importantly, took care of the ball (TO%: 10.1) and did work at the line (73.0%, including 13-15 in the first half).  The last two minutes, were the complete opposite, as the Heels did not have a field goal attempt, did not grab a rebound, turned the ball over on 50% of their possessions, and were just 2-4 from the line.  If any one of those things was different, UNC wins the game (literally, as little as 1 defensive and UNC wins).

Defensively, it is easy to sit back and say that UNC allowed Duke to make too many threes, because, in absolute truths, they did; but for most of the game, UNC actually did a really good job of contesting shots.  From the 15-minute mark in the first half, to the 2-minute mark in the second, Duke was held to just 29.6 from three (8-27), which is terrific.  However, during the other 7 minutes of the game, UNC let Duke hit 6 of their 9 attempts (3-5 to start the game, 3-4 to end it), and herein really lies the difficulty in playing a team the shoots a lot of threes: it requires a team to aggressively challenge shots for the entire game, not just 80-85% of it.  While three-point defense will likely be the most talked about aspect of this game, the bigger concern in my opinion is the rate at which UNC is fouling.  Last night, UNC gave up 26 FTAs to a Blue Devil team that took 58.0% of its shots from behind the arc (FTR: 41.9).  Now, while it is clear that the officials were calling the game much tighter in the second-half, probably in response to the “talking” we saw towards the end of the first, this is still becoming somewhat of a worrisome trend for the Heels.  Over the first 21 games, UNC had given up a FTR over 30.0 only twice (@UNCA, @FSU), but in each of the last three games, UNC has allowed its opponents to get to the line at a rate of more than 40.0%.  Given UNC’s new lack of depth, this is something that is not sustainable.

Statistical Highlights

• From a defensive standpoint, this game was almost identical to the first Duke-UNC clash of the 2008 season, in which Duke went 13-29 from 3 and had 27 FTAs.  In the rematch in Durham, UNC still gave up 10-29 threes, but was able to get the win by limiting Duke to just 31.9% from inside the arc and giving up only 9 FTAs.  It will be interesting to see if history repeats itself again in March.

• On top of the threes, this was also the first game all season in which the Heels had both a steal% and block% under 5.0.

• This was the first time since the Kentucky game last December (52 games) that UNC made less than 2 of its three-point attempts.  On three separate occasions, UNC missed a second-half 3 while holding a 10-point lead.  Those are the shots that you need to make (at least one of them) if you are going to knock an opponent out.

Beyond the Box: Player Impact Ratings

Player	ORtg	AST%	STL%	BLK%	OR%	DR%	TO%	MIN%	P.I.R.
Zeller	115.3	0.0	0.0	9.3	12.7	21.7	11.1	82.5	50.1
Henson	128.9	9.0	0.0	4.3	18.0	32.3	9.0	87.5	49.7
Barnes	121.7	5.2	3.2	0.0	6.0	2.9	11.1	87.5	37.2
Marshall	119.3	32.7	0.0	0.0	0.0	2.6	23.0	95.0	29.1
McAdoo	127.4	0.0	0.0	0.0	8.7	17.0	0.0	30.0	11.4
Bullock	115.0	4.1	1.6	0.0	0.0	12.0	33.3	85.0	10.8
Hairston	52.5	12.9	0.0	0.0	10.5	10.2	0.0	25.0	5.6
Watts	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	5.0	0.0
White	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	2.5	0.0

In looking at the P.I.R., the thing that absolutely jumps out at me is the fact that UNC got very little from Reggie Bullock, and almost nothing from P.J. Hairston.  Yes, Zeller, Barnes, and Marshall all had critical gaffes at the end of the game, but that should not overshadow the fact that they were also the ones (along with Henson) who allowed UNC to control the game through the first 90% of the second-half.  For the most part, they delivered the type of performance this team needs to win at a high level.

When Dexter Strickland went down, a common line of thinking was that Reggie Bullock would be able to step into his starting position and UNC, at least in terms of the starting rotation, would not miss a beat.  And too some extent, this has been true.  The problem is, in order for this to be completely true, it is absolutely essential that P.J. Hairston steps up his game to replace the considerable spark Bullock provided off of the bench.  If he does not, then the loss of Strickland goes from being “losing two players” (starting shooting guard and back-up PG), to really the loss of three (starting shooting guard, back-up PG, top-6th man/scorer), and that might be too much to over come.

Season P.I.R.

The cumulative impact ratings for each player can be found below.  A player’s average P.I.R., both for the season and the last five games only considers games in which the player officially logged at least 1 minute of game time.  The C.V. is a measure of variation; the smaller the percentage, the more consistent the player’s performance has been.  While it is not technically correct to use in this instance, because P.I.R. is an interval scale (it can go into the negative), it still has some value for the top-tier players, who will likely have a positive P.I.R. in every game.

SI.com’s Andy Staples catches up with Larry Fedora as he settles into the job of rebuilding UNC football.

When Fedora got the job, he quickly went to work defending against negative recruiting spawned by the scandal. While Cunningham had explained to Fedora what should happen in the case, coaches from other schools filled the heads of North Carolina recruits with all manner of gloom and doom. Fedora drained dozens of his precious sugar-free Red Bulls as he worked the phones attempting to calm prospects’ fears. “The unknown enabled them to say whatever they wanted to say,” Fedora said. “So we had to put out a lot of fires with the kids. Not only that, you’re doing that at the same time you’re trying to build a relationship with a kid. So a kid doesn’t know whether to trust you or not because your relationship is so new.”

Assistant head coach Vic Koenning boarded a plane bound for Tobacco Road after he helped Illinois win the Emerald Bowl. When Koenning hit the ground in North Carolina, he also turned into a recruiting firefighter. What made Koenning maddest? He said many of the blazes were started by members of the staff that got North Carolina into this mess in the first place. “You’d like to be able to control the situation by not being in that situation,” Koenning said. “But there was nothing we can do about it, so we’ve got to just take it. What’s disappointing is that the guys who were a part of that were some of the worst offenders.”

Fedora believes he got the message across to most recruits, but he is sure he lost some. “It’s unfortunate for them,” Fedora said. “They wound up a school that was their second choice because of something that was fabricated.”

Fedora hopes his spread offense and the 4-2-5 defense run by Koenning and Dan Disch will allow the Tar Heels to win enough games to make all their recruiting targets forget the scandal. Because Fedora had such a late start, he has spent most of his time recruiting. Monday was the first day the staff had any significant time to break down North Carolina’s current roster. Fedora inherited a solid quarterback in Bryn Renner and a potential star in tailback Giovanni Bernard, but he knows his roster has holes. “It is what it is,” Fedora said. “You’ve got five receivers to work with this spring, and you’re trying to run a spread offense. You can sit there and cry about it, or you can say, ‘OK, how do we make this work?’”

This summer, Fedora will once again re-read the dogeared copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War that he bought in 1991. He’ll try again to convert the ancient Chinese military leader’s concepts to the football field. The most important: Attack undefended locations — a strategy Fedora considers the guiding principle for the spread offense.

Fedora was on hand for the UNC-Duke game on Wednesday night having brought about twenty in-state 2013 prospects to campus for “Junior Day.” There were immediate dividends for Fedora with two Durham Hillside players giving the UNC head coach verbal commitments. Not that a verbal commitment 51 weeks before signing day is worth very much but it does get the recruiting season off on the right foot. Overall, Fedora has been impressive early on. He has generated positive PR for the program by appearing on ESPNU during its national signing day coverage. Articles like this one by Staples sheds the kind of light on the program missing through the almost two years of scandal.

Ultimately that is what you would expect and why cutting the Butch Davis era loose was necessary even if handled haphazardly. Fedora is a young coach with a passionate and outgoing approach. He surrounded himself with a quality staff none of who were tied to the recent unpleasantness. That means any questions Fedora or his staff deal with concerning the NCAA scandal are rare and concerned with impact not what happened. While the NCAA has yet to issue the final report it is clear Fedora and UNC football are already moving beyond the investigation with an optimistic look towards the future. Barring a bowl ban or debilitating scholarship reductions the momentum Fedora has built thus far can continue unabated.

UPDATE: Here is video of Larry Fedora reacting to the verbal commitments from Khris Francis and Korrin Wiggins last night.

On one level I don’t know how much he ought to be doing this. It looks like he is scaring both of these guys a little bit. Here is hoping they don’t switch commits six months from now.

I really don’t know what to say. For 38 minutes the game unfolded about like you would expect. Duke was hot early but UNC pushed back, took control of the game at the end of the first half and played really well throughout the second half with the only problem being the inability to push the lead out beyond the 8-13 point range. Tyler Zeller was stating a case for ACC player of the year in the first half with 19 points and 8 rebounds while Harrison Barnes struggled a bit on both ends. In the second half Kendall Marshall and Harrison Barnes took turns taking it to Duke and the Heels extended out to double digits where it would stay most of the second half. At one point we got the Harrison Barnes vs Austin Rivers back-and-forth you wanted to see. UNC was ahead but every time the Heels tried to push it past that point where maybe Duke could not effectively rallied, they couldn’t.

Unfortunately that didn’t happen. With two minutes to go and a ten point lead UNC decided to relive the 2007 NCAA regional final versus Georgetown. The sequence went something like this:

Thornton hits a three.

Marshall turns the ball over leading to a Seth Curry three(nevermind he took four steps before the shot and it wasn’t called)

With the lead down to four, UNC calls timeout, gets Zeller in the game but Barnes goes isolation drives the lane and gets called for a charge despite having Zeller on the left block wide open.

Ryan Kelly then misses a three but follows up and grabs the offensive rebound then hits the jumper to make it a two point game.

Zeller is fouled and makes one of two leading to the most bizarre play I have ever seen.  Kelly shoots a three that comes up short and Zeller, who looked like he was being pushed in the back by Mason Plumlee actually tips the ball into the basket making it a one point game.

Zeller is fouled on the inbounds and makes one, misses the second setting up the final play.

Rivers comes down gets a screen which Zeller switches on but instead of stepping out when the clock wound down he gave Rivers enough space to hoist a three and win the game.

That is just a bizarre sequence. That is the anti-2005 finish and what makes this rivalry great. It hurts like heck right now and with FSU having lost at Boston College, UNC was in a position to assume control of the ACC and its own destiny going forward. All of that disappeared in two minutes of game time when UNC was simply unable to change the outcome of just one play to preserve the win.

This team is an enigma. There is a lot to love about them and the really annoying part is we saw those positives on display for most of this game. At the same time there are things like perimeter defense and a seeming inability to get over the hump at critical moments.  Last season this group pulled out their share of tough games. During this season the opposite seems to be true. The Kentucky and Duke games have seen this team simply not be able to make the right play at the right time to secure the win. I am not sure we necessarily cast blame on anyone for that, sometimes the plays get made and sometimes they don’t. In both of those losses it was the opposing team making the right play at the right time.

How does this bode for the “dream and goals,” as Roy likes to call them, this team has? There are questions but everyone has questions, yes even Kentucky. Winning the NCAA tournament is still about the bracket and matchups a team faces.  As  I said above, there is a lot to love about this team but just enough off to have games like this happen. The full and complete effort has been elusive for this team but that doesn’t mean it won’t show up in March.

As for how Dexter Strickland would have impacted this game, the guarding of Rivers is obvious. However I would argue that is a small part of it. For weeks I listened to UNC fans talking about how much  Bullock’s offense would help UNC. Now, I would hope, we all understand why Roy used Strickland and Bullock the way he did. In this game Bullock, hailed as the great offensive booster, was nonexistent on that end of the floor. Why? Because not having Strickland put the full burden of being the team’s perimeter defensive stopper on Bullock which ultimately hurt his offense. When Strickland was a starter he brought great perimeter defense and more offense than people give him credit for. Bullock was then able to come off the bench and focus primarily on his offense even though his defense was also very good. The luxury UNC enjoyed in having both was P.J. Hairston was not being asked to play big minutes on defense like he did versus Duke leading to multiple made threes.

It will be interesting to see where UNC goes from here. Not holding serve at home versus Duke puts the Heels facing a tough stretch of games where they cannot afford to lose again.

Since Dexter Strickland cannot play, let’s take a look back at the unholy things he while dunking on Miles Plumlee last March. I say “things” because he absolutely wears Seth Curry out, blows by him then deals with Plumlee. It is also a reminder at how much Strickland would probably have thrived in this game. I don’t think there is anyone in Duke’s backcourt who could guard his quickness which means he may have done some serious work on both ends had he played. Since he isn’t the task falls to young Mr. Bullock. Time for Reggie to shoot like Wayne Ellington right?

Comments if you have ‘em.

Now it gets real.

Having just seen WarGames last week on AMC, it provided me with an ollustration of how the UNC basketball season unfolds for Tar Heel fans.

DEFCON 5: Non-conference schedule

DEFCON 1: NCAA Tournament

Let it be noted ladies and gentlemen we are now at DefCon 3.

UNC meets Duke tonight for the first meeting of the season and a sign that the basketball season has entered that crucial stage of the regular season. For this season in particular, it makes the beginning of a stretch of eight games during which UNC will play Duke and Virginia twice, Miami and NC State on the road with home games vs Clemson and Maryland sprinkled in. What lies ahead are games that will require the composure and toughness from the 2nd half of the Maryland game to be evident with an eye towards playing at the level the Heels on display versus NC State two weeks ago.

There are plenty of subplots for this one underneath the perpetual one of being the “best, most intense, better than anything Louisville and Kentucky have ever done” rivalry in college basketball. First of all is there is a new villain in Durham and his name is Austin Rivers. The freshman is really good and has shown some serious chops on the offensive end. Rivers is also cocky as heck and carries himself in a way that draws plenty of fire.  The fact Dexter Strickland is injured robs us of what would have been an epic matchup between the two guards. Instead UNC will use Harrison Barnes or Reggie Bullock to check Rivers. Bullock may be the better choice given the condition of Barnes’ ankle but I expect both of them to see time guarding Rivers.

The other interesting aspects to watch are how much UNC can dominate the interior and whether Duke can hit three point shots. Despite how well Mason Plumlee has played this season he, his brother Miles and Ryan Kelly will find life very difficult against John Henson and Tyler Zeller who between them collect over 20 rebounds per game. This is also a big game for Zeller if he has any designs on being the ACC Player of the Year, a movement that is starting to gain some steam. Zeller has been amazingly consistent and should be highly motivated to do to Duke what fellow Indiana native Sean May did to them in 2005. Kelly is the versatile type that moves all over the court which will pull Henson away from the basket. On the perimeter Duke is a three point shooting team and Seth Curry was 11-21 from three last year versus UNC. The best way to disrupt Duke shooters is close out on the catch instead of the shot which FSU did with alarming efficiency. If UNC can do the same or at least force bad shots, Henson and Zeller can cleanup the rebounds.

The big picture subplot to this game lies in the ACC standings. A loss for Duke will not eliminate the Devils from ACC first place contention but the fat lady will be humming rather loudly. At three losses, Duke would need to win out to have even a shot at first place. Possible but not a great position to be in facing NC State, Florida St(on the road) and UNC again. UNC on the other hands needs to hold home court because of the four road games they face in the final six games of the season. The conventional thinking is FSU is due to stumble in at least one game, if not two at some point which would open the door for UNC providing the Heels can make it to March losing only one more game. The road is tough enough for UNC so losing at home is not an option.

UNC has played extremely well at home this season and I expect nothing less in this outing.

UNC 90 Duke 79

A little over seven hours to go. Who’s ready?

The N&O’s Andrew Carter delves into one of the more amazing aspects of Kendall Marshall’s game, his court vision with a surprising nugget. Marshall actually has poor vision.

People who watch Kendall Marshall play basketball talk a lot about his vision, and how good it is, but in reality it has become worse over the years. Marshall, the sophomore point guard at North Carolina, scratched his left eye when he was a baby, scratched it so badly it bled.

He suffered from light sensitivity throughout childhood, when he often would bury his chin into his chest to avoid the sunlight during rides in a car. His sensitivity to light has improved. His vision has not. He plays with one contact lens – in his left eye, and probably should be playing with one in the other, too.

“I went to the doctor to get new glasses, and he told me my right eye’s gotten worse,” Marshall said recently. “So I probably need to be getting contacts in that eye, too. But I’m trying to wait until after the season because I don’t want to mess with it midseason.”

Given how well Marshall sees the court, it is shocking to learn he is out there playing with one contact lens in his left eye and probably needs one for his right. Even with that going on he still sees well enough to make passes 95% of other players would not make. Then again that is not just about vision it is also about seeing a defender turn his head at the right moment or knowing you can pass the basketball 60 feet, buzz a defender’s right ear and hit Tyler Zeller in the middle of the lane. So many of the “wow” passes Marshall are a combination of savvy and willingness to take a higher risk. The pitfall is Marshall does turn the ball over but his assist totals are so high is compensates to a certain degree. The next step for Marshall is to cut down on the former while maintaining the latter which is probably not as easy as it sounds.

Marshall says he plays the game by feel.  Against Maryland on Saturday, Marshall came down with the ball on the break facing two Terrapin players and not once did he look to his left, right or behind. He drove right into them forcing them to play the ball then at the last second turned and flipped the ball to John Henson for a dunk. I have no idea how he knew Henson was there. Maybe Henson said something. Maybe he did a quick look as the break started. Or maybe he’s a Jedi Knight which means I fully expect him to slay the dark lords of the Sith tonight in Chapel Hill.

Not that anyone will really notice considering we only changed one word.

The site move went well, so well I only consumed one can of Diet Mt. Dew as opposed to downtimes at the office where I put down two 20 oz bottles of the nectar from heaven. Anyway, I am sure you are brimming with questions so I’ll answer a few.

What changed besides the name?

The underlying web host the site runs on has changed. As most of you are aware the site could be slow when traffic was higher. For the past almost four years the blog had been running on a shared web host. It is now on a virtual private server which means we have dedicated access to a portion of the memory, disk space and CPU.

So will that solve the site slowness?

We will find out tonight. On the new host I will have more control over server settings and the ability to monitor how just our traffic effects the server.

Why did you change the name?

It made sense at this point to drop the “Fan” from the name to make the blog looks less like a fan site. It has always been our goal to run this site as a source of news and analysis in a professional manner.

If the name of the site has changed what do we call you?

Since the site is no longer Tar Heel Fan and we have multiple authors anyway, I will be changing my byline from Tar Heel Fan to my real name. C.Michael and Doc will keep their names as is.

Any chance we can get our avatars back?

Well, I probably owe you that much but instead of allowing custom ones here let me point you to Gravatar. All you need to do is register there with the same email address you use on the blog then upload an avatar there and it will appear on the blog.

Anything else?

The new URL is www.tarheelblog.com. If you access this site via an RSS feed you will need to update your feed reader accordingly.

As will all transitions of this nature there may be minor blips. Please let me know via the contact form. Feedback from you, the reader, is extremely important in maintaining a stable web site. Don’t assume I know something is broken, please let me know so I can look into it.

Now that we have that out of the way it is time to get ready for UNC-Duke tonight and to do check out this video of former UNC players and coaches in this “I Am A Tar Heel” video.

CBS Sports looks into the question for both UNC and Duke. As expected, current and former players alike attributed their decision to UNC’s rich history, the past players like Michael Jordan and gut feeling. For Jerry Stackhouse it came down to Duke signing Joey Beard?

Unlike Marshall, former Tar Heel Jerry Stackhouse did go through with his official visit to Duke. In his case, it took only one conversation with Krzyzewski to realize it wasn’t the place for him.

“Carolina and Duke were both my list and I was real close with Grant Hill, so I spent a lot of time up at Duke just hanging out,” Stackhouse said. “But while I was there for an unofficial visit, Coach K pulled me into the office and told me I needed to make a decision right then or he was going to sign Joey Beard. I was ornery enough at that time to say, ‘Well, just recruit Joey Beard.’ ”

He did.

Beard ended up playing just 16 games for the Blue Devils before transferring to Boston University. Stackhouse led the Tar Heels to the Final Four in 1996 before becoming a first-round NBA Draft choice. He is currently Marvin Williams’ teammate with the Hawks.

Of course, Stackhouse might still have chosen UNC over Duke even without Coach K’s unsuccessful ultimatum. There were, after all, higher powers at work. As a native of rural Kinston, N.C., Stackhouse grew up in a family of devoted Tar Heel fans.

That point was driven home on a day when Steve Fisher of Michigan and UNC’s Dean Smith were scheduled to make recruiting visits within hours of one another.

“Steve Fisher came to the house in the morning and Coach Smith came in later that afternoon,” Stackhouse recalled. “When Coach Fisher came in, my mom put out doughnuts and coffee for him. Coach Smith was coming in at two.

“At about 12:30, I started smelling pork chops, fried chicken, cabbage and all this going on in the kitchen. So she made the decision for me. She was a big Dean Smith fan.”

And then this happened:

The only shame of that dunk is Joey Beard wasn’t under the basket when it happened.

I am moving to a new web host in hopes that will alleviate some of the site slowness, especially on game days. As a result I will need to bring the site down and lock the database so I can move it. This is expected to take a few hours to complete during which time the blog will unavailable.

Thank you for your patience and your readership.