Character Win Over The U

An important, gut-check, character-building, fill-in-any-other-cliche-here win for the Heels last night in Coral Gables.   Carolina endured a sub-par offensive night - and a great shooting display by Jack McClinton - to net an impressive 69-65 post-Duke road win over Miami.

Carolina won despite not reacting very well to Miami's zone.  Instead of being patient and feeding the post the Heels shot way too many jumpers.  The good news of course is that Carolina's starting back court had a great shooting game, with Ty Lawson once again leading the way.

As he did in Cameron, Lawson was dominant in the second half, especially down the stretch in hitting 3 big three-pointers. Wayne Ellington also had an excellent night with his first career double-double.   His 15 points/10 rebounds was paired with 5 assists and only one turnover.   

On a night when little went right offensively, and the Heels were held to a season-low 69 points, the Carolina made enough plays and Lawson made enough shots to win a tough road game.

That's the good news for the Tar Heel back court.  The bad news is they failed to get Hansbrough enough touches.  Some of that was mitigated by effective rebounding, led by Ed Davis' eleven off the bench.  For the five minutes before halftime Davis helped carry the Heels, and after half time Deon Thompson had a nice run as the Heels built up a 14-point lead.

Even after Miami made their late run to cut the lead to one you just had a feeling Carolina was going to win this game; they had simply been too tough and resilient to lose.  Specifically, those traits were on display on four key plays:

• Danny Green's huge block on McClinton on what would have been a lay-up to give Miami the lead; Green had what could be generously called a so-so game, but on that play he showed why some people say "Danny Green is God!"
• Bobby Frasor's late game defense on McClinton; with about a minute left Frasor forced McClinton to take a desperation three that barely drew iron. Frasor also had a nice drive for a basket late.   Frasor's had back to back good games, and along with Davis and Larry Drew give Carolina a very reliable 8-player rotation.
• Hansbrough drawing a charge with 44 seconds left.  As he did against Duke Hansbrough influenced a game with his defense and quick feet.

But the night belonged to Lawson, who made the fourth and biggest play of the night against he Hurricanes.  His three with 11 seconds left sealed the win.  He was remarkably open down the stretch, which I guess reflects the concern and attention Miami had to pay to Hansbrough.

It also means the Heels will be tough to beat the rest of the season.  The need to clog the lane against Carolina is going to mean lots of open looks for Green, Ellington, and Lawson.  Green and Lawson are shooting better than 45 percent from behind the three-point line, and Ellington has shot just as well in his last 8 games (27 for 59).  And in their last two games in particular, the Heels have shown the ability to play lock-down defense, at least at key times of the game.

Winning tough games means a lot, especially when you win them with the kind of big plays the Heels made last night.

Few Random Notes:

• How good is Jack McClinton?  He made a number of tough shots on his way to 35 points last night. Remarkably, McClinton has scored more than 30 points against Carolina, Duke and Wake; a pretty good resume. His effectiveness makes you really appreciate the couple of times Carolina was able to stop him.
  
• After the Duke game, Caulton Tudor at the N&O wrote that Lawson is the odds on favorite to win Player of the Year honors in the ACC; hard to argue against that after his play AT Duke and AT Miami.
• The annual Duke swoon seems to be on.  BC is a good team and was at home, but Duke controlled that game for 36 minutes. Once again their back court combo of Paulus and Smith looked terrible, and Scheyer left Tyrese Rice of all people wide open late. You don't go far in the tournament without good guard play, and Duke is simply not getting that this season.
• Clemson has Wake Forest disease, losing two in a row after dismantling Duke at Littlejohn; first to Florida State at home and then inexplicably at Virginia yesterday. 

Clemson's two-game swoon makes Carolina's win at Miami look even better.  As is often the case in college basketball, teams of 19-year-olds suffer emotional let downs after big wins (see BC losing at home to Harvard after beating previously undefeated Carolina; Wake losing at Georgia Tech after taking down number one Duke; etc.).  Carolina could have been ripe for the picking after mauling Duke at Cameron.  Instead, they endured and tenaciously made big plays on defense and offense to win a road game.   

GO HEELS!