Via ACC Now:
“We don’t think he’ll play, but we don’t want to rule it out completely until we see how he does in the morning,” spokesman Steve Kirschner said in a message.
Lawson did the stationary bike and shot free throws. I cannot imagine his condition changing enough between now and tomorrow morning for him to play. By extension if he is not ready for Friday I cannot imagine he will be ready at any point this weekend. Wait and see I guess.
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I figured. Bobbykins must step up!
No surprise re Lawson. BIG surprise for Pitt down by 10 with 8 min. to play.
Oh Sugar Honey Iced Tea. Ty had 22 vs. VT last time. Who is going to score those points for us this time?
Also, watching WVU vs. Pitt just heard we have locked up a #1 seed. Can what they say be trusted?
Oklahoma is going to lose, too!
I like how other tourneys are playing out. It helps us quite a bit. Who knows, we could beat VT w/out Ty.
With Pitt having lost its first game in the Big East Tournament, to unranked West Virginia, and by 14 points; and with Oklahoma also having lost, I now agree with C.Michael that it is certain that we will get one of the four No. 1 seeds. Assuming we lose tomorrow, the absolute worst the seeding could plausibly be is:
1. UConn
2. Memphis
3. Louisville
4. UNC
This state of affairs is emphatically NOT an argument that Lawson should sit. He should play if physically able; otherwise not. I remain opposed to doing less than everything we can to win. There is on other way to play the game. And I worry about the message it would send to the team if their coach is seen as willing to accept an increased chance of losing for the sake of calculation about hoped-for, but hardly assured, future benefits in the NCAAT.
I’ll assume that UNC wins tomorrow. Lawson is very, very important to this team’s success, but for one game I think the other pieces can crank out a win.
VT will bring their best game. I just hope Bobby and LD2 can handle it. I have no worries about anyone else but those guys need to bring their A-Game.
uncgirl — I said before the Dook game that Bobby would make you proud, and he did. He will make you proud again tomorrow.
“And I worry about the message it would send to the team if their coach is seen as willing to accept an increased chance of losing for the sake of calculation about hoped-for, but hardly assured, future benefits in the NCAAT.”
It sure sounds like you propose that Lawson play even if he is still hurt. Lawson made his injury worse by taking the numbing shot and playing in the Duke game. It was a calculated risk, and that risk was rewarded. No such reward exists for tomorrow with so many possible #1 seeds losing. Unless Lawson’s toe feels better tomorrow, it would be a mistake to play him. As Roy often says, he isn’t the smartest guy, but he isn’t the dumbest either. He won’t make a mistake at such an important time of the year.
It’s 1:30 North Carolina time, but only 7:30 out here. So I was able to see one of the more amazing games this season, a six overtime affair between UConn and Syracuse. Syracuse missed winning the game in regulation when what would have been the winning shot was ruled to have left the shooter’s hand about one one-hundreth of a second after time expired. In the first five overtimes, Syracuse did not lead one single time. But in the sixth overtime, with Thabeet having fouled out, Syracuse hit some key shots and wound up winning the game by ten points.
The loss by UConn will hurt, though not necessarily end, their chances of getting a No. 1 seed. But for however that may be, it was an incredible game to watch, and encapsulated many of the reasons college basketball is so much more entertaining and engaging than the pro game. My hat’s off to both teams for true grit.
Plain and simple, Lawson shouldn’t play. I know some of you will get ticked off at me for suggesting this, but I would much rather have him sit out for a week or so to win the one that REALLY matters rather than the ACC Tournament.
With Pitt, UConn, and Oklahoma losing, we have a #1 seed. Not that being a #2 hurts by any stretch of the imagination, but play Drew and Frasor and try to ride it as long as you can.
wb3 — You quote me, correctly as far as it goes, as having said, “I worry about the message it would send to the team if their coach is seen as willing to accept an increased chance of losing for the sake of calculation about hoped-for, but hardly assured, future benefits in the NCAAT.” You do not show, or even assert, that that statement is incorrect.
Instead, you deflect the point by saying this: “It sure sounds like you propose that Lawson play even if he is still hurt.”
Actually, it doesn’t sound like that at all, as any reader would see if you had also quoted the sentence I wrote two sentences before the one you selected for criticism. The omitted sentence reads, “He should play if physically able; otherwise not.” In addition to that, I have made it clear about a half a dozen times in commenting on a number or recent posts that I do not think that Lawson should play if hurt, and that whether he plays or not depends on the seriousness of the injury and its prognosis on gameday. My sin appears to lie in making what heretofore would have been regarded as the obvious point that our team should play to win.
I could just as easily say that, “It sure sounds like you propose that we throw the game,” but I’m not going to, for several reasons: First because your position on things is yours to define by your words, not for me to re-define by mine. Second, because I doubt that’s what you really think. Third, because it’s incendiary, and would come closer than is appropriate on this forum to questioning your good faith and your motives, as opposed to analysing your arguments.
Let me respectfully request that you adopt a similar outlook.
Amen to that one Rathskellar!!! You said a mouth full there. I totally agree with you on that one. All this talk about losing the ACCT. without Lawson playing and only focusing on the NCAA Title is ridiculous and it does send the wrong message to the team. I don’t think Roy believes that at all. And another things is, who says we’re going to lose? Lawson, granted, he is a great player but he isn’t the whole, though he is a PG, but we have other players to step up and play just as well. I have faith in Frazor and Drew to fill in and lead this team to another ACCT. title. We need to stop all this talk about losing in this tourn. We’re going to win and win big!!! This is a big sacrifice losing Lawson for the ACCT. but that’s what makes our team stronger. GO HEELS!!!!!!
“I have made it clear about a half a dozen times in commenting on a number or recent posts that I do not think that Lawson should play if hurt, and that whether he plays or not depends on the seriousness of the injury and its prognosis on gameday.”
Rat – We both know that Lawson was injured Tues. and Wed. and that the injury was serious enough that he could not practice. We also know that the toe injury was made worse by playing in the Duke game. This is basically the information Roy has to make a decision from.
So, based on that, what would you do? If I were the coach, Lawson would not play this weekend because the injury has been shown to be made worse by playing, and we want to maximize the chance it will heal fully by the NCAA. We will know in a few hours if Roy agrees with that analysis.
tarheel4lifer — Just so. It’s time to quit handwringing about Lawson’s status. If he can’t play because of it, those are the breaks; if he and the medical staff determine that he can play in spite of it, as he did against Duke, so much the better.
I’m not as optimistic as some about Drew, but Frasor proved four years ago as a freshman that he could run the team. His court-savvy, judgment and experience, which have only improved since then, will serve him well today.
VTech is no walk-over. They just walloped what was thought, in the preseason anyway, to be a pretty good team. And they gave us plenty to handle in Blacksburg. But we’re better, even without Lawson, and it is, as you say, time to think victory rather than defeat.
I don’t by any means expect this, but we do have a pretty good guard sitting on the bench that could be called on to give us some depth into the tourney. Does anyone think consideration may be given to call on Marcus if Ty doesn’t improve before the NCAA’s?
Don’t yell at me guys… it’s just a thought.
Wilf – If Marcus was going to make a surprise return, I think that would have happened a couple of weeks ago. At this point, a Marcus return would be beyond strange.
Marcus’s injury is still not game-ready and his full recovery is still expected to be several months away. I can’t imagine Roy changing his mind about this one. I say we’ll play the hand we’ve got and hope for the best. If Bobby can be steady and Drew can relax a little we can get serviceable play at the point. The offense will have to resort to a more motion-based scheme and the pace will have to slow a little. Drew’s biggest problem is trying to do too much with the ball. He’s going to have to play within himself and the rest of the team will have to compensate for Lawson’s absence. It will be tough but the other guys are going to have to play well, defend hard and make shots. We’ll see.
wb3 — What would I do? I would play to win within the confines of the medical staff’s assessment of the injury. Without being on the scene, I can’t be more specific than that.
As a general matter — and I emphasize that this is GENERAL — I do not believe in sacrificing the present for the future, because the future cannot be known and life just isn’t that predictable. This is especially true in matters of health, even writ much larger than what we are dealing with here. It happens all the time that people get well when they’re thought to be on the way to the next world, and that people croak when they seemed perfectly healthy the day before.
We can make educated guesses about what is going to happen with seeding and so forth, and to be honest I have made my share. But it’s a dicier proposition to make guesses about the prognosis of a toe. That I leave to the doctors.
Wilf — Why would anyone yell at you for thinking outside the box about how to help our team win?
I would be real surprised if Ginyard were pressed into service, however. He’s barely played at all this year, and PG is not his natural position.
“And I worry about the message it would send to the team if their coach is seen as willing to accept an increased chance of losing for the sake of calculation about hoped-for, but hardly assured, future benefits in the NCAAT.”
Rath, I don’t mean to beat this to death but I was having interpretive problems also figuring exactly what this means in relation to our team. Could you explain the team scenario, you know, who does what, that would make this statment applicable. Thanks.
Heheh, thanks rath. I was thinking that he would be out of position at PG, but overall I see us being short handed in the small forward and guard positions… someone mentioned Will Graves earlier, he would have been help in situation like this.
LarryS — The best I can do is this. Roy has taught them from Day One that you put everything on the line to win. You don’t hold back because in two days we have a tough game against Team X. Indeed he has dressed down players, even including Hansbrough, when he thought they failed to do everything a full effort requires of them.
The principal theory behind the Lawson-sits outcome appears to rest less on a precise medical assessment of his injury than on the calculation that the shrewd thing to do, even if physically Lawson could play, would be to rest him so that we’re in better shape in our quest for The Big Prize. This theory is not without its appeal. But it is a hard one to sit side-by-side with the put-everything-on-the-line-and-the-future-will-take-care-of-itself theory that the players have heard from Roy, and succeeded with, all year.
OK, I guess I get it. What this means to me is that it has absolutely nothing to do with what might actually happen with our team. It exists solely in the minds of the theorists. If Ty can play, within the medical progress they’ve established, he’ll play. If he can’t he won’t. That’s all there is to it.
I am not sure it is that simple. Take my finger for example. I was told a week ago to take the splint off and only wear it at night. Have I done that? No, I kept it on because I wanted to be sure it was healed. Same deal here. Lawson might be 90% but I still say he should sit because playing on the toe obviously makes it worse right now as it did in the Duke game.
That’s true THF. But I’m not sure they even know what 70, 80, or 90% really is. Minimal pain? Reduced swelling? He’s not going to know how it reacts to the stresses of playing until he plays or practices hard again. And, with this type of injury, it may not get well before we cut down the nets. So he’ll probably have some reaction for the duration. What we’re guessing about is what level of improvement they’re looking for balanced with potential negative reactions from coming back prematurely. There’s not a player on that team that would want Ty’s future NCAAT performances jeopardized by playing before he’s ready, unless we are in a NCAAT game and it becomes do or die. That’s all I’m saying. And since I’ve already said way too much.