The easy take away from yesterday's win over Clem(p)son (as pronounced in the southcalina dialect) is the continuation of one of the most confounding and inexplicable streaks in sports. The Tigers continue to be 0-forever - 0-56 to be exact - in Chapel Hill.
The real takeaway, at least for me, in the 22-point win was the way Carolina had to play. Clemson was determined to keep Carolina from running, and usually only had 2 - sometimes 3 - players crashing the boards. Their emphasis was to stop the Carolina fast break and prevent the Heels from scoring easy baskets (similar to most NBA teams, by the way; that's one reason scoring has trended down over the last 15-20 years in the League).
A corollary to that strategy is to get back - and set - on defense, and force Carolina score in the half court.
It's not a bad strategy - few if any teams want to run with the Heels - one Carolina will almost certainly see in the NCAA tournament. That's why yesterday's win may be more significant then it otherwise appeared.
Carolina looked pretty good in the half court against a pretty good defensive team. Thanks to Kendall Marshall the Heels got good shots, and were generally pretty patient on offense.
The Tigers also augmented their 'forget rebounding let's get back on D' scheme by packing it in against Zeller and Henson. Zeller eventually got his points but may of those were on turnover-fueled fast breaks. Henson faired better, and got some good open looks in half court sets. Desmond Hubert even got into the act with 2 dunks.
But with Clemson getting back and packing it in, Harrison Barnes and Reggie Bullock had to respond, and did with great games from the perimeter. As is often the case, Barnes took over the game early in the second half on his way to 24 points, including 3 of 6 from behind the three-point line. And Bullock was right behind him, going 3 for 5 from behind the arch. Ol' Roy keeps saying the Heels are good shooters, and it was true yesterday as the Heels shot 43 percent on threes.
[As for P.J. Hairston, oy!]
Carolina's defense was generally good, too, at least it looked good. But frankly it's hard to judge against a team like Clemson, who took lots of early shots and did not work the ball around the perimeter that much. But the Heels did force shooters like Tanner Smith to put the ball on the floor, which was nice to see.
So in addition to extending the streak, great to see the Heels make some threes, play some D, but more importantly have to run their half court offense for most of the game, a game they won by 22 points.
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