Here is what Ty Lawson said postgame last night:
“We played against Charleston. I want to play against Wake to get the bad taste out of our mouth — beat a good team. I still feel like BC is in the back of our heads so we need to get a good win.”
I like this attitude, mainly because Lawson is not dismissing the motivation garnered by beating Boston College just because they rolled a SoCon school by almost 40. This conveys to me that Lawson and hopefully others are carrying a focus mentality to Winston-Salem.
And let me go on record now and state that I think UNC is going to be impressive Sunday night. I am not basing it on anything concrete, just a gut feeling I have. If the rest of the team approaches the game like this the Heels should show up.
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I noticed that I had last year’s Clemson game from Littlejohn still on my Tivo and thought that I would just make some observations:
Still undefeated in the nation at that point were: UNC, Kansas, Memphis, Washington State, Vanderbilt and Mississipi. Clemson had lost once, to Mississippi. All but Mississippi made it to the NCAA tourney and Ole Miss made it to the fourth round of the NIT.
So, we can see that being undefeated during the pre-conference season is obviously correlated with being a pretty good team. On the other hand, WSU, Vanderbilt and Ole Miss would go on to lose 29 games between them the rest of the way, with Vanderbilt’s eight losses being the least among these three. So don’t assume that Wake and Clemson won’t each end up losing close to ten each before this is over.
Second, we are hearing that this game at Wake is some kind of must win for UNC. Well, maybe psychologically, it is, but it certainly is not in terms of winning the ACC title. Last year, Duke started off 22-1 with the only loss coming by one point in overtime to Pittsburgh. They won their first ten in the ACC and had a 2-game lead on UNC and pundits said UNC had little chance to catch them and we all know how that one turned out.
Duke lost five of its last 11 games and four of its last eight against ACC competition. Duke barely edged Jean Paul Belmondo University and the first round of the NCAA and then got thrashed by WVU in DC.
Back to the Clemson game, Hansbrough missed several key free throws, going only 6-10 from the FT line, although the team made an excellent 24-30. UNC had 19 turnovers to Clemson’s only having 13 and outshot UNC from the floor. It was Clemson’s 14-27 from the free throw line that really turned the game to UNC.
Lawson played decent, but was not really an advantage versus Stitt and Rivers. What really saved UNC and was missing from the BC game, was the way Wayne Ellington stepped up with a career best performance of 36 points, with 5-8 from the three point line, including the game winner and 9-9 from the free throw line.
A lot of us thought that was going to be the breakout game for Ellington where he turned from merely excellent to stellar, but it didn’t really happen.
Wayne’s stat lines are remarkably unchanged from last year to this year, except for one crucial thing. His three point shooting percentage is way down, much more down than the 1% national decline due to the slight increase in distance.
Ellington is shooting about the same number on a per game basis, but through January 7th, Wayne is only shooting .348 from three point range which is fairly pedestrian, compared to his .400 from last year, which was pretty good.
For comparison, shooting slightly fewer per game, McCants shot .423 from three point range in 2005 and Felton shot a stellar .440. Both Melvin Scott and Jawad shot better than Wayne on about half as many attempts, going .357 for Melvin and .381 for Jawad.
This is obviously concerning, because Wayne is purportedly our best shooter and go to guy in such situations. Currently, Lawson is shooting a fantastic .462 from three, but these seem to be generally from really open looks where he doesn’t have to create his own shot.
During crunch time, during the BC and Kansas games, only Danny Green, at .467, has had any success at making them and even he only hit a third of his attempts against Kansas and BC.
I don’t think UNC needs Ellington to improve this year in order to win the national title. He is probably just short of being an all time great UNC player, being in the Hubert Davis, Mike O’koren, Shammond Williams category and there is nothing wrong with that. But Carolina desperately needs him to make at least .400 of his three pointers, consistently, in order to keep defenses honest and carry the team through tough games. If he can’t do that, winning it all will be very, very difficult.
I am worried about Ginyard. If his foot still hasn’t healed, it makes you wonder if he can help the team this year.
I’m actually more confident about the Wake game now, then I would have been had UNC skated by and beat BC.
Also, UNC hasn’t lost a true road game in almost 2 years…
william – Good analysis on Wayne. I feel like he struggled early, and now it’s mental. He’s getting good looks and they look good coming out of his hand, they’re just not going down. I also think his struggles are playing on his decision-making in terms of when to shoot and when to drive.
Against the good teams, we need at least one, if not two, of the triumvirate of Deon-Wayne-Danny to step up. Good teams will be able to limit the effectiveness of Tyler and Ty.
Good pre-conference off/def efficiency analysis over at SI.com by Luke Winn (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/luke_winn/01/07/midseason/index.html?eref=T1). UNC needs to worry about defense and Dook offense. For all this talk about Dook improving so much this year, I just don’t see it. They’re still a very solid club, but lacking offensively if you can neutralize Henderson. That’s why we need a healthy, 100% Ginyard. I wouldn’t mind seeing us go ’small’ against Dook at times with Lawson-Ellington-Ginyard-Green-Tyler.
Thanks for the link, Minny.
I hate to say it but the article seems to support the notion that the 2007 team may have in fact been better than either last year’s or this year’s Heels. That team had Reyshawn Terry, who I think was a pretty good defender and also Brendan Wright, who could change the way that opponents had to shoot inside with his height and reach.
We simply don’t have anyone who plays as tall as Wright did on this year’s team or is the kind of shot-blocker that he was. And that goes without mentioning that he was just as efficient on offense as Hansbrough that year. It is a real shame B. Wright didn’t hang around a little longer. I hope Wright going early doesn’t turn into another Joe Forte kind of story.
I think that comment that Lawson made has shown me that he has taken what the NBA teams told him to heart. That is someone that has matured and knows that there are games you win because of pure talent and some you win because you are the best team on the floor. C of C the best talent won, at Wake the statement will be that the best team won.
AEM
I think the Thompson/Davis slot will be the key to the season barring any injuries. Personally I would probably start Davis at this point to see if the chemistry works better. Ginyard needs to heal. Danny/Wayne/Lawson will be a fairly consistent group and of course Tyler will consistently play hard. I worry more about defense than Wayne’s shooting percentage. We beat C of C big but they still scored 70 points against us. I suspect Duke would have held them to about 55.
The big problem with a loss to Wake is that we don’t get them again, unlike Dook where we avenged the loss. If we lose to Wake and thye end up being as good as advertised, and if we split with Dook, that means at least 3 losses in the ACC. Wake would own the tiebreaker and an immediate one game lead. So, Wake isn’t necessarily a must win, but if we lose then we are behind the eight ball for sure.
With Wayne, I think the three point shot is getting entirely mental. He’s getting good looks, his form looks great, and it will start falling. It seems like he’s started off red hot then cools down as the season wears on. Hopefully this is a reversal.
There are two things Ellington needs to worry about more than his outside shooting (because I think Green, Lawson, and sometimes Graves can pick that up); putting the ball on the floor and drive to the hoop to create opportunities, and playing taller on defense. Ellington is one of the best free throw shooters in the conference, and driving to the hoop more will generate more scoring opportunities for him.
In terms of defense, I would love for him to contest more shots. He seems to do a pretty good job of staying in between the ballhandler and the hoop, but it seems like he doesn’t contest a lot of shots. Maybe Roy likes not having his players in foul trouble, but those open perimeter shots after UNC gets screened get old when they’re uncontested.
Interesting note about Ellington I saw last night in a graphic. Ellington is shooting 52% on the road. The three point shooting is 32% in those games. However his general shooting is better on the road than it is at home where he is shooting 38%. What I don’t know is why it is different especially when you consider all of the tough teams were played away from the Dean Dome with the exception of the BC game.
Chris, I don’t think we can accurately compare how Duke would play Charleston to how we did. Duke’s “incredible team defense” allowed Davidson, down by around 20, then to eight. And Davidson is a team where you primarily have to only worry about ONE player; they practically have no inside game.
Based on a comparison of UNC’s and Duke’s Offensive/Defensive efficiencies, and assuming the same number of possesions, Duke would have beaten CofC 104-67.
@THF – Good call on Wayne. His best games are at MSU (although he went 1-5 from 3) and at UCSB. Actually, if you look at his game-by-game breakouts, I think he’s fine. When he’s struggled from 3, he’s been better from 2, with the BC game pretty much the only exception. Part of the issue, as Andy has seconded, is mental, both on his part and ours. It all looks good, it’s just not going down. I know he’ll put up his extra shots before/after practice like any good shooter does and he’ll come around.
As for his defense, his off-ball defense is much better than Danny, but laterally he’s not quick (this will really hurt him in the NBA, especially if he’s not a better shooter than he is now.)
@william – good point on not having a game-changer like B Wright in the middle. Just all the more reason the rest of our defense needs to be better. You don’t have to have a shot blocker to be a good defensive team, although it helps erase mistakes (which we make plenty of). I think we need to be better about picking our spots to gamble, and if one guy does, the other four need to be in good position to help.
Carolina should be able to beat Wake this weekend but I wouldn’t worry too much about tiebreakers. Carolina went to the Final Four in 1998 and 2000 after finishing outside of first place, as did Maryland in 2001. We also lost at Wake in 2005 and never got another shot at them that year and it didn’t seem to hurt us.
One other thing about Pomeroy and these efficiency numbers. His site does not have anything close to decent samples yet and neither do any of the other power sites. Unless you believe that West Virginia and Gonzaga actually are as good as UNC, I wouldn’t sweat it too much yet–for one thing, he doesn’t break out numbers from garbage time and UNC gets skewed by that more in the early season than anyone else….
I want Wake too! Get ready for the tye-dye crowd!
The thing about Carolina is they seem to get everyones best shot. With the way B.C. handled us I do not have a warm fuzzy about the Wake game. I’m a sky is falling type guy with the Heels. If were winning I believe we can beat anyone if we get our tails whooped by someone, a win against less than equal competition does not get me excited and back on the feeling good bandwagon. I have a feeling that we are in trouble this year. A team with a good to fair interior play can get us. We don’t have the size inside. Our shooting so far has been so-so. Our defense has been so-so. The B.C. game showed a lot of weaknesses. I hope we can turn it around, we have a lot of time left.
Someone bring me down off the ledge.
I want to get to a final four, but right now all we need to worry about is winning the regular season title in the ACC. If we lose to Wake, we are in a tough position to do that.
keith,
let’s see how our bigs do against wake’s numerous interior players. i also tend to think that especially at the college level, an advantage in guard play trumps an advantage inside. plus, you have a very good picture for an icon. no jumping off the ledge yet.