Statsheet recap

Things look better when you win the game.

For example. Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so: Those ugly little turnover problems reared their ugly little head again, with Carolina’s improvement in this area being, sadly, somewhat of a myth. For such a low-possession game, 15 turnovers is a big amount, and the 23.9% turnover percentage was above the team’s already-way-too-high season average. The mere four turnovers in the second half are, as THF points out, encouraging, but they don’t absolve the 11 from the first half.

Shooting. Yeesh. An eFG% of 44.3 isn’t pretty, especially when it includes a bunch of wide-open bricks.

ESPN coverage. Don’t even get me started.

But you know what? The team did what it had to do. As bad as UNC shot, UAB shot worse — a defensive feat aided by the Blazers’ offensive ineptitude, to be sure, but from my couch, at least, the guys looked like they were really getting after it. As pitiful as UNC’s own offense looked, the team ran a couple of successful reverse-the-ball sets late in the game — one for John Henson‘s dunk, one for Deon Thompson‘s bailout, end-of-shot-clock, Hansbrough “skyhook” that got him to the line for two points. Larry Drew II continues to make baffling decisions, but let’s not forget how many of those a freshman Raymond Felton made. For now, it at least looks like he’s realized that you can shoot if you get near the basket with the ball, and I will consider that a small victory.

Also, just for fun, check out Statsheet’s plus-minus figures for this game. Some ugly figures for Leslie McDonald and Travis Wear in limited action. I love those guys, but just imagine if Roy had followed the “play the freshmen more!” advice being given in some less discerning quarters before the start of this tournament.

And now we’re having fun. Bring on the Whinin’ Greenbergs.

All you need to know: We used a lot of capital letters in our end-of-game tweets.

Game ball to Larry Drew II and his brass onions. Really, the game ball goes to the entire Carolina offense, which had its first good performance against a good defense since the first Virginia Tech game more than two long months ago. Early numbers courtesy of SC ACC Hoops show that the Heels put up 1.12 points per possession. Never saw that coming, but maybe this team is trying to win our hearts after all, and maybe we’ll get to settle into Carmichael one more time.

Now, if y’all don’t mind, we’re going to enjoy this gorgeous, Carolina-blue sky.

The first thing you need to know about the new Carmichael is that it looks damn weird without the bleachers.

The second thing you need to know about the new Carmichael is that it nonetheless looks incredible without the bleachers.

The third thing you need to know about the new Carmichael is that watching the men play in there is as different as all the post-game coverage implies. The Smith Center is, as the common metaphor goes, a sea of blue — vast, Carolina-hued seats that stretch toward the heavens and would, were it not for the roof, eventually join with them. I love the Dome, and I love that it allows so many people to attend basketball games, but it also feels half-participatory, kind of like milling on the street while watching a parade.

Carmichael is, obviously, more intimate. It feels passionate, intense, even violent. People like to call places like Carmichael, or the Palestra, a cathedral, but that strikes me as entirely the wrong word — too reverent, too passive, and with a completely inappropriate etymology to boot. “Cathedral” comes from the Latin for “seat.” Nobody was in their seat for very long last night.

Despite complaints about the name change, I think that “arena” might be the best word for a place like Carmichael. Not in the Time Warner Cable Arena sense, but in the Roman sense of the word: a tightly packed destination where spectators cheer war-tinged sport — gladiator fights, say, or basketball games. Metaphorical, or, in Travis Wear‘s case, real blood is shed. I (thankfully) didn’t get to hear Jimmy Dykes compare the thing, over and over, to Hoosiers, but that feels a little off. Hoosiers is fun. Last night was fun, I guess, but it was more exhilarating. It was tiring both mentally and physically. In a good way. Kinda like … well, kinda like sex.

They should play more games there.

As for the game itself: Game ball goes to Deon Thompson, for obvious reasons. Nods in the direction, also, of Dexter Strickland, who worked his ass off all night to get through screen after screen; Tyler Zeller, who appears to have gotten his scoring touch back; and Marcus Ginyard. Boos to Will Graves, who played the worst game I’ve seen him play in a long time and got stuck in Roy’s doghouse as a result.

Next up: a block party in Starkville, a town immortalized in pop culture by one Mr. Johnny Cash.

How do you outrebound a team by 24, hold them to an effective field goal rating of 40.9%, shoot 23 free throws to their 12 — and still almost lose?

You turn the ball over on 24.3% of your possessions and force a turnover on just 11.4% of your opponents’ possessions.

Don’t blame Larry Drew II, though, who had 7 assists to 2 turnovers and who, overall, had a good game despite missing some open looks. Blame Tyler Zeller, who’s making me think he shouldn’t have come back, who’s generally playing miserably, who’s regularly getting screened out of plays by dudes six inches shorter than him, and who had a turnover percentage of 44.4%. (Turnover percentage is, roughly, the ratio of a players’ turnovers to the total number of possessions used.) John Henson, who’ll deservedly get ink for his fantastic blocks, also merits blame for his 50% turnover percentage. Dexter Strickland and Travis Wear both posted zero assists and two turnovers. It wasn’t pretty out there.

The young’uns, though, were bailed out by the old guard. Will Graves was Will Graves; his improvement this year has been marked, and if he’s often too quick to look for his own shot, at least there’s someone on the team actually looking for the ball. Deon Thompson pumped in some nice offense. Marcus Ginyard was a revelation, getting high on the boards (posting a solid defensive rebounding percentage of 24%), slashing to the basket without looking weak and tentative (6-8 FT), and generally — we said this on Twitter — looking like he may finally have his sea legs again. (You’ll recall that this happened with Bobby Frasor last year, and Frasor was able to deliver huge performances rebounding, of all things, in the NCAAs.)

Quick hits:

1. Roy should probably avoid a Dexter-Leslie backcourt. Unless they’re LeBron James and Bruce Bowen on defense, you probably oughtn’t play two guys who shoot 25% from three together. Weird substitutions in general in the second half didn’t work as well as Roy probably hoped.
2. Durand Scott was not listed in my game preview as one of Miami’s dangerous scoring options. That’s because, before today, he had an offensive rating under 100 and was shooting 25% from three all season. Today he goes 11-5, 3-5 from three. Go figure.

All in all, it was an ugly game against a bad, poorly coached opponent (really, Frank Haith? Your best play down 4 is a high ball screen and a 27-footer?)

A win’s a win, though. Especially when it’s Win 2000, when it qualifies you for the NIT when that was very iffy a week ago, when it pushed Roy to 22-0 on, in the lol-worthy words of Marcus, Supersenior Night.

Fun times.

The key to beating Wake Forest is easy to discern, whether you’re figuring it out from the stats or figuring it out by watching more than 10 minutes of Deacon basketball:

UNC needs to do a good job of denying the post, limiting Smith’s penetration (and being willing to double down on him and give Wake some looks; despite what happened against FSU, the stats bear this out) and forcing Wake to take jump shots. I’ve seen nothing that suggests that the Heels can do that, but check out how many threes Wake shot in this game, or this game, or this game, and ask yourself, what would I do if I were drawing up this defensive gameplan?

That’s what we said this morning before today’s game.

Meanwhile, from Lucas, here’s the defensive strategy Roy Williams installed in the last couple of days:

Roy Williams described the strategy simply: “Build a wall.” That’s the approach the coaching staff installed over the last two days of practice. It’s a significant departure from the usual Tar Heel pressure, but it worked against the Deacons.

The strategy started with Drew, who applied less pressure on the ball than he ordinarily would. Instead, he sagged back, often inside the three-point line, limiting Smith’s ability to blow by him with one quick dribble.

While Drew was eyeing Smith, the remaining four Tar Heel defenders were constructing that wall around the paint, keeping a wary eye on the Wake point guard while clogging any openings into the lane.

Here’s the funny thing: Carolina did, indeed, frustrate Wake in the lanes, prompting a bad three-point shooting team to shoot 25 threes. But Wake made 9 of them. That’s a 36% rate — not great, but hardly miserable, and not what Carolina would have hoped for going into the game. You can win a game going 9-for-25 from three.

Except UNC made Wake shoot a lot of mid-range jump shots instead of layups. And those shots didn’t fall. Wake was 26.5% on two-pointers. That’s … bad.

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This was kind of a bizarre game; the moribund UNC offense actually did OK for itself against a super-elite defense, while the not-heretofore-awful UNC defense played one of its worst games of the season against a really-not-that-good FSU offense. When you let a bad offensive team score 1.13 points per possession, everything else is secondary — the turnovers (especially because FSU turned it over, too), the lousy defensive rebounding, and all that.

On the other hand, Carolina recently managed to be 16 points better than Virginia Tech at Boston College. So there’s that.