Five Great Halves in a Row

The Heels continued to prove they were back today against Georgia Tech, extending their winning streak to 31 straight at home, but more importantly playing their fourth and fifth straight great halves of basketball in routing the Yellow Jackets.

Lot's of other numbers to talk about: Carolina shot 54 for the game; made 8 three-point shots in the 1st half; the Tar Heels blocked 10 shots and had 8 steals versus only 10 turnovers for the game; ended a 4 game losing streak to Georgia Tech (the oddest number in this list).

Those numbers do tell the story.  Two numbers, two stories, two stats it particular should make every Tar Heels fan on the planet happy.

One, and the gaudiest one to look at, is the 10 threes for the game. Carolina started the season shooting 3s very well but had cooled of late.  This afternoon the Heels were getting and making open looks from beyond the arch. That, of course, opened thing up inside for another great game from Zeller, and effective and emphatic drives from Barnes.

If today's performance is proof that the Heels, in particular Bullock and Hairston, have regained their outside touch this team is practically unbeatable.  Who does the other team guard when all five Heels can shoot and score? 

Two, the defense was generally outstanding today, as evidenced by the 30 boards, and an 18 to 10 ratio of take aways - steals and blocks - to give aways - the dreaded turnover.  Boards, blocks and steals lead to fast breaks, and fast breaks lead to points.

In the second half Carolina's perimeter defense lagged at times, but the interior defense was outstanding, and I agree with Hubert Davis' kudos to Barnes for shutting down Glen Rice Jr. this afternoon.

As it is with Carolina's outside shooting, when the Heels defend and rebound like they did today, watch out world. 

The great news is the Heels have now done that for 5 halves in a row, and are starting to regain their swagger.

The iffy news is, can you really measure progress against a team that looked so overmatched like Georgia Tech looked today?  With Wake and Maryland up next, we may not find out that answer  for another week or so.  Either way, it's great to see Carolina looking like Carolina.

GO HEELS!

A few - ok, quite a few - more Heels notes:

• I loved Reggie Bullock's game today.  Not only did he bury some shots, 3 of 6 from three, I loved his activity on defense and without the ball.  His transition defense was key in the decisive first-half run that put this game away early.
• How crazy good is Kendall Marshall?  Ho hum, another 12-1 assist to turnover ratio game, with an excellent mix of long, spectacular, skip passes, mixed in with a three-pointer and a few nifty drives.  Running out of superlatives for his game.
• Fantastic to see John Michael McAdoo play with confidence today.  He had his best game in about a month.  Best of all?  He did not settle for that 10-foot fadeaway jumper he loves.  McAdoo was confident and aggressive today.
• Tyler Zeller continues to be 'the good Tyler Zeller' of last year's stretch run.  He was efficient and smooth on offense, great on the boards, and had another nice defensive game, too.  Front court mate John Henson had a nice if unspectacular game as well, 13 points, 6 boards, 4 blocks and a stop the presses 5 of 8 on free throws!
• Oh yeah, Harrison Barnes put together another dominant half of hoops.  In the first half he was not that aggressive but he made up for in the second stanza with a series of drives, pull ups, dunks, threes, and reverse lay ups.  And he played pretty good defense, too.
• Stillman White had a decent game, hitting one three, making one assist and one steal in 6 minutes of spelling Marshall at the point. Interesting to see Justin Watts play the point for about 2 minutes late in the game.  As a result, Marshall 'only' played 31 minutes tonight, which coincidentally is his season's average this year.

Ugly Ugly Ugly

Let's see - Carolina's last 3 games have been: ugly win (at Virginia); ugly win (at home vs. Virginia Tech);  the most horrendous of them all, tonight's ugly loss to a uninspiring Georgia Tech team in Atlanta.

A game so terrible as tonight's 20-point loss takes all - at least almost all - the shine off those two ugly wins.  The Heels never looked like the Heels tonight.  They were incredibly passive to start the game, for the second game in a row.  We did not feed the post; Henson and Zeller had 6 shots combined in the first half. Our perimeter defense was terrible, and we let a relatively short Tech team out muscle us down low.

Even our new savant, Kendell Marshall, had a bad game with 5 turnovers (a couple of really bad ones, too).

It was a total breakdown. Carolina shot 27 percent for the game, 20 percent for the second half.  Georgia Tech punched us in the face, and we had absolutely no response, from anyone.  No one had even a semi-decent game for the Heels. 

Is this a pattern?  Against the teams from the Old Dominion the come-from-behind victories looked good, and were symptoms of toughness and tenacity.  But when you follow those two performances with tonight's stinker, you start to worry about the 2010 Heels. 

The troubling thing is that in 3 ACC games the Heels have failed to play with much urgency or smarts, at least for 40 minutes.  Against Virginia we did for the first 5 minutes, and the last 6. Against Virginia Tech is was for the last 4 minutes of the first half, and the last 8 of the second. Tonight against the Yellow Jackets, in front of a 50/50 crowd by the way, we had one decent stretch when the subs came in after 3 minutes, for about 5 minutes.

So my very rough calculations have us playing 28 decent minutes, in 3 games, out of a possible 120.

Maybe I'm over reacting; it's only one game, ugly wins are still wins, and we're 2-1 in the conference with a road victory. And perhaps I should not devalue those two wins. Virginia won half a game AT Duke over the weekend so they aren't THAT bad.  And the Hokies are semi-legit, a top-50 team according to the RPI.

Perhaps best of all, Clemson comes to the Dean Dome on Tuesday, a team the Heels have never lost to in Chapel Hill.

That game will be huge, however.  A good night of shooting, rebounding and running, a playing smart will go a long way to cure all the ills from tonight's loss.  This team needs to get it's confidence back, and hopefully that will happen against the Tigers.

That WILL happen if Carolina acts like Carolina. We need to feed the post, for two reasons. One, that's Carolina basketball, go low first, then pass it out if nothing's there.  And two, for the 2010 Heels that's where are scorers are.  

This team has talent, especially in Henson, Zeller, and Barnes. Those guys, especially Henson and Z, need lots of touches. Tonight that didn't happen, and there were similar stretches against the Cavaliers and Hokies.  Fix that and everything will get better, and we won't have nights where the Heels shoot 27 percent.

Of course, that issue begs THE BIG QUESTION: Marshall or Drew II?  I would keep doing what Roy has been doing, at least for one more game. It will be hard to keep starting Drew, however, if he continues to fail to get the Heels into their offense, and fails to feed Z, Henson, and others.  He's been in Chapel Hill for 2 and a half seasons.  He should be better, and that needs to happen soon.

Big Games Loom As ACC Season Goes to the Wire

There are quite a few huge games left in the last 4 weeks of the ACC regular season.  This looked like a down year for the ACC.  Despite possessing the best RPI in the country, and dominating the ACC-Big 10 challenge for the seventh year in a row, for weeks it looked like the ACC would be a four and at best a five bid league in terms of the NCAA tournament.

But three games last week changed that.  Duke's two loses to Wake and Miami have placed those teams firmly on the bubble.  And Virginia Tech's impressive bounce back win - on the road - over Maryland coupled with their very favorable schedule places the Hokies back in contention.  

All of a sudden, one can envision a scenario where the ACC gets seven teams into the field of 65.

Here is my team-by-team breakdown - in no particular order - of the remainder of the ACC regular season (courtesy of my visit to the eye doctor on Friday; I was there for two hours and between tests was able to forecast the remainder of the season):

FSU: despite a nice win over Clemson last week I think the Noles will finish by going 1-3 and 5-11 overall; they only have one more winnable game on the schedule, at home vs. BC, with a huge game vs. Miami in Tallahassee to the last regular season game for FSU; that game will mean more to UM so I have the Canes winning that tilt.

BC: only one winnable game left on their schedule, against Georgia Tech at home; after a nice start to the ACC season I think they'll finish at 5-11.

Maryland: the Terps have the most challenging remaining schedule of any ACC team; you can see them losing their last four games - 3 roads games vs. Wake, Virginia, and Miami, and a home game vs. Clemson;  I think they'll beat Clemson and limp to an 8-8 finish in the conference; the selection committee heavily weighs how a team played in their last 10 games, so they may be in trouble at 8-8; that loss to the Hokies was huge; will their win against Carolina get them in, or will early season losses at home to American and Ohio relegate the Terps to the NIT? with 8 regular season wins it will probably take a win in the ACC tournament to get Maryland into the NCAA.

Miami - I blogged about this last week, but Miami controls their own destiny; win against Duke was huge; they have 3 more winnable games left against Maryland, BC, and Virginia, a winnable road game against FSU, and a big big game at Clemson; simply winning at home gets the Canes to 8-8, and taking the Noles in the finale gets them to 9 wins and into the NCAA tournament; it also means NC-native Frank Haith is the ACC coach of the year. 

Georgia Tech - should win their last 3 homes games and finish 7-9.

Virginia Tech - Seth Greenberg would be coach of the year if not for Haith, assuming of course that VPI wins their last 3 home games against Georgia Tech, Boston College and Wake; their one road game is winnable too, against Clemson; they should finish 3-1 and with 9 wins in the conference; 9 isn't always the magic number, but it should get them in.

Virginia - I thought they'd go 11-5 this year, but instead will likely finish at 5-11 after going 3-2 the rest of the way; I do have them upsetting Duke in Charlottesville, though.

NCSU - only one winnable game on their schedule against FSU in Raleigh; Pack will finish the season in last place as one of four 5-11 ACC squads while Herb Sendek returns to the NCAA tournament as coach of Arizona State.

Wake Forest - another great story a la Miami and the Hokies; Gaudio could win coach of the year as sentimental choice and with 8 conference wins; the Deacons are great at home but bad on the road; if that pattern persists they will finish at 8-8 and on the same bubble as Maryland; will Duke win get them in? huge game looming @ Virginia Tech; like Maryland, they probably need a win in the ACC tournament to secure an invitation to the big dance.

Clemson - if they win their remaining two home games - against Miami and Virginia Tech - they get to 9 wins and in; road games versus Maryland and Georgia Tech are also winnable.

Duke - should finish with 12 wins even with an upset loss to Virginia; I have Carolina beating them for the third year in a row in Cameron to end the season.

Carolina - I see the Heels running the table behind Hansbrough and Q, with Lawson returning to burn the Devils in Durham.

So my final standings are:

UNC 14-2

Duke 12-4

Clemson 9-7

Va Tech 9-7

Miami 9-7

Maryland 8-8

Wake 8-8

Ga Tech 7-9

BC, FSU, 

NCSU, Virginia 5-11

Huge games left:

Maryland at Miami - TODAY

Miami at Clemson - Feb. 27

Wake at Georgia Tech - Mar 1

Clemson at Maryland - Mar 2

Wake at Virginia Tech - Mar 4

Miami at FSU - Mar 8

Carolina at Duke - Mar 8

Maryland at Virginia - Mar 9