I would like to start this post by saying reading Adam Lucas’ last article put things into perspective a little bit more. You never really know what someone is dealing with or going through behind the scenes. Life is bigger than basketball. With that being said, I salute Roy Williams for the way he handled the passing of his father-in-law. For the people calling for his retirement or questioning if he still has it… hush. He has coached the same way for a very long time and has been one of the most successful coaches in the sport. He has won 3 national titles and I strongly believe he will get another before he retires. He took Matt Doherty’s dismall team and won a title after only 2 years. Colby White and Cam Johnson weren’t really on people’s radars before they came to UNC and they ended up being lottery picks. The coach hasn’t changed, the players have changed, but that is a blog for another time.. His system works. The players just have to buy into it. Why haven’t they? Who knows. They talked about it in the post game press conference. It seems pretty simple… Buy in. That is a personal decision. Roy Williams also said his freshmen needed to play better in his press conference. You think he is babying those guys? Hell nah.
At first I didn't like us picking up this game. I was content with having a week off then playing Miami. The more i think about it the more I like this move by Roy. Baptism by fire. Figure it out or continue to lose ball games. At this point have some damn pride. This is embarrassing continuously making the same mistakes and guess what we keep losing. It isn’t rocket science, yet somehow we think doing the same thing will yield different results. I also commend Roy for picking up games in place of canceled or postponed games unlike other teams. Another thing… I am not a rainbow and butterflies type of person. I am of the opinion that if we play like shit (excuse the language) then we deserve to lose and we deserve to lose until we start playing Carolina basketball. Some people will appreciate this and some won’t. With that being said the do or die game that was going to be Miami is now against Notre Dame. We can’t afford to start 0-3 in the ACC.
Last time we played Notre Dame was last year’s season opener in Chapel Hill where Cole Anthony dropped 34 points. We won 76-65. I would like to say that I owe Cole Anthony an apology. I somewhat miss him in comparison to this year’s freshmen guards. Anthony had a high basketball IQ, there was no doubt about it. He tried to lead his teammates. The bottom line was they just weren’t very good and he ended up doing too much because he felt like he had to. If we had Anthony with this year’s team we may have actually been pretty scary. Oh well. Sorry Cole. Go do big things in Orlando and say hey to Mickey Mouse for me.
BY THE NUMBERS:
UNC: 5-4 overall, 0-2 in the ACC, coming off a loss to Georgia Tech
Notre Dame: 3-5 overall, 0-2 in the ACC. coming off a loss to UVA
4 of Notre Dame’s 5 losses have been against ranked teams (MSU, Ohio State, Duke, UVA), the other loss was to a 6-2 Purdue squad
UNC has 3 players in double figures:
Bacot averages 12.3 a game
Brooks averages 11.1 a game
Love averages 10.8 a game has a fifth of our team’s TOs
Other notable players:
Davis averages 9.6 a game
Sharpe averages 7.9 a game
Black averages 6.8 a game
Platek averages 6.4 a game
Walton averages 3.4 a game
Kessler averages 3.2 a game
Notre Dame also has 3 players in double figures:
Laszewski averages 16.3 points a game
Hubb averages 14.9 points a game
Goodwin averages 14.8 points a game
Other notable players:
Wertz averages 9.8 points a game
Ryan averages 9 points a game
Durham averages 7.9
Djogo averages 3.5
Notre Dame replaces Syracuse on the schedule as the Tar Heels will take on the Irish Saturday at 4pm in Chapel Hill on the ACC Network. Both teams are coming off losses and are seeking their first ACC win. Notre Dame started one forward and 4 guards last time out against UVA, but have started two forwards in some previous games. All their starters last game were juniors. They mainly play 7 players (Laszewski, Hubb, Goodwin, Wertz, Ryan, Durham, Djogo). All of these guys are upperclassmen. Laszewski and Durham are the only forwards that see playing time. Laszewski stands at 6’10” and Durham stands at 6’11”. 5 out of the 7 players who see the majority of the minutes are guards. Laszewski is dangerous from deep though. He shoots 57.1% from behind the arc. Goodwin shoots 42.9% and Wertz shoots 46.2% from 3 respectively. They shoot 39.3% from deep as a team and average 9.4 makes a game.
Unfortunately this game has the makings of another game where we may struggle to guard the 3. I would really like to see us play some zone since we obviously struggle to keep our man in front of us and we are at a disadvantage when one of our bigs has to guard a smaller guard. Our bigs also aren’t great at guarding other bigs who can shoot the 3, so Laszewski could be problematic. Notre Dame gets heavily outscored in the second half (280-318) and is getting beat on the offensive glass (58-75). We have shown we are a second half team most of the time. Last game we weren’t. And as usual the glass is a place where we will have a major advantage.
As stated up top Notre Dame has suffered the majority of their losses at the hands of ranked opponents which makes me wonder how good or bad they actually are. They have played a good schedule and just haven’t beaten those teams. Our only common opponent is Kentucky who they beat by one. Mike Brey’s teams are usually well coached and they turn the ball over less than we do and shoot it well from the free throw line. We both have negative turnover margins though.
This preview may seem short, but it’s the same story game after game. If we don’t limit TOs and play better defensive we will lose. We showed we could shoot the ball some last game, ended up in a 3 point shootout in the second half and lost. We have to defend. Notre Dame shoots 44.9% from the field. Georgia Tech shot over 50% in our last game. If you let guys shoot that high of a percentage you are going to lose. I think our line up change worked against Georgia tech. I really think it did. We didn’t start as slow, but we didn’t go back to it and the original starters ended up playing together most of the time. That just isn’t the line up. Realistically it should be. Those should be the 5 best guys we can put on the floor, but it doesn’t work. Davis and Love don’t play well together. Davis runs the offense better, but he doesn’t know how to score while running the offense. I would like to see another line up change. I would like to see Davis moved to the 2 spot, let Black run point since he isn’t a huge offensive threat anyway, have platek (or walton) as the 3, Bacot as the 4 and Sharpe as the 5. We have really missed Anthony Harris, but he is back participating in full court drills, and hopefully we can get him back soon. Harris will be our starting point guard before the season is over with. He has way more heart than Love and Davis and his basketball IQ is higher.
The 3 keys to the game are this:
Limit turnovers
Play better team defense (keep your man in front & guard the 3)
Shot selection (drive the ball and feed the post & don’t stop)
As a heads up there is a 99.9% chance I will not be able to write a recap for this game. There are two places I want to be most: on a beach or on a mountain. Tomorrow I will be on a mountain enjoying some powder. I traded in basketball and other team sports for motocross and snowboarding. It is too cold up north to throw a leg over a bike, so I am going to strap them into a snowboard instead. My counterpart (my sister) in this blog adventure doesn’t have access to the ACC network. I have had my boyfriend find free streams online for the ACC network games, but tomorrow is about having fun on a snowboard. Besides, life is bigger than basketball. Go Heels! I hope ya’ll cheer them to their first ACC win.
Okay one last thing I promise. I want to leave ya’ll with two quotes from a rivals.com article written by Andrew Jones. It’s a great article by the way. Definitely give it a read. I will put the link at the bottom of this post. Thanks to whoever put it in one of the fan groups. One of the quotes is from Black and the other is from Brooks.
“I just mean, obviously we know our big guys are pretty good,” Black said. “They shoot a high percentage, so why take quick outside jumpers when we need to get them the ball when they’re the ones putting the ball in the basket most of the time? I feel like they need to touch the ball at least one time down the court, not anything other than that I feel like, to me, is going to be selfish. It’s going to be a bad shot; it’s not going to be a good shot.”
“It’s just a matter of want-to and focus,” Brooks said. “Gotta lock in more, gotta know what’s going on at all times, gotta know who you’re guarding. Can’t fall asleep on defense. Just gotta be more prepared. It’s a matter of us being better, the players.”
It's do or die time. We are past the lead way portion of the season. This is going to be game 10. “They are young” is no longer a valid excuse. Figure it out or maybe try listening to your hall of fame coach. You chose to come play at Carolina. It seems that they want the prestige that comes with playing at Carolina but don’t want to play “Carolina Basketball”.
It is not about talent. It is about heart.
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