Tar Heels Have Slept Enough

Saturday was a bad day for the Tar Heels.  Every defeat stings, but the way the loss to N.C. State unfolded was especially painful. This has to be the last “wake up” game of the season for UNC.  Teams with title aspirations – and surely the Heels would be in this group – don’t go down the stretch still looking for toughness, passion, intelligence and “want-to”.  Had Saturday’s game been against a better team, the margin of defeat would have been much, much larger.For the Pack, Saturday was a resounding vindication for all those who ran off former N.C. State head coach Herb Sendek.  In fact, the vindication probably came the minute new head coach Sidney Lowe walked out of the locker room wearing a sharp red sport coat.  It was hard not to be happy for Lowe.  The Pack played a smart, poised, passionate game.  Almost all of that is due to Lowe’s influence on State’s program.  Still, it was hard to shake the feeling that UNC actually needed the game much more than Lowe and the Pack.  Losing the game wasn’t going to do anything negative for State.  In truth, the Wolfpack would have been happy with a close loss.  But the Heels needed to win a game like that, a game they would have “stolen”.  It was stunning to see North Carolina controlled by an inferior team.  And, it bodes ill for Wednesday’s game at Cameron Indoor Stadium against Duke.  The reality is that a loss to Duke will make it very hard for UNC to do two things – win the ACC regular season and secure a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament.  That is why the N.C. State game was so important to Carolina.  Now the Tar Heels have to go to Cameron and win in a place they hardly ever win.

It’s worth mentioning that Lowe thoroughly outcoached Roy Williams.  And, in the process, Lowe gave every team a big-time blue print for beating UNC.  Indeed, better teams won’t have to shoot 76% from the field in a half to beat the Heels (as State did in the second half on 13 of 17 shooting).  The best move by Lowe was the execution of a soft man-to-man defense.  The soft man suckered the Heels in to taking multiple three-point shots or difficult mid-range shots.  And, because of the sagging, it allowed the Pack to control the glass since State’s defenders were never out of position.  One thing that Lowe counted on was that Roy Williams would not force his team to take a quick open look in a true half-court set (meaning, not coming off of the break or early secondary offense).  Lowe was right and as a result the Heels ended up taking a lot of time off the clock on each possession.  This, of course, is just what Lowe wanted.  Offensively, the Pack refused to take quick shots no matter how open they might have been.  This deliberate attack should have been a help to UNC’s full-court trap.  If you know the other team isn’t going to shoot quickly, then that allows you to be even MORE aggressive in trapping full-court.  Williams never wanted to do it every possession, or never figured it out.  Clearly, the Pack was having very little trouble against Carolina’s set defense.  One school of thought would have been to turn up the heat and see what happens.  Even if the Pack had scored quickly with open looks out of the press, at least the Heels would have gotten the ball back quicker.  The result would have been a more favorable tempo for UNC and this increased tempo would have produced a game with more possessions (something Williams craves).  The added bonus for the Heels would have been that State’s limited lineup would have tired much more.  It was shocking to see a less talented team turn the ball over 22 times (to UNC’s 12) and only make 13 FG’s in the second half and still trail for only a few minutes the entire game.  This is an indication that N.C. State’s scheme was better – far better – than Carolina’s.

So why, one might ask, didn’t Coach Williams shake things up and try to pull the Pack out of its rhythm.  This is the old Dean Smith hubris.  And just as he adopted most of Smith’s good traits, Williams also clings to this bad one.  It’s a stubbornness that both Smith and Williams have always had that screams “My way will work no matter what” even when, on a given day, it clearly isn’t working.  Saturday that hubris is what beat the Heels as much as anything State was able to do.  And now comes Duke.  Can Duke’s Josh McRoberts do what the Pack’s Ben McCauley did?  Can Duke point guard Greg Paulus do just enough, as State’s Engin Atsur did, to not lose the game?  Does Duke have alternate ball-handlers to help Paulus, just as State’s  Gavin Grant, Brandon Costner, and Courtney Fells helped Atsur?  Can Duke handle UNC on the glass, just as the Pack did?  The answer to all these questions is:  Of course.  Add to that the fact that Duke’s defense is fundamentally much better than State’s and you have a recipe for a UNC meltdown.  The only saving grace, potentially, for the Heels is that Duke absolutely is not going to play a soft man.  Coach K has no idea how to teach it, much less get his team to refine it in two practices.  The traditional Duke over-play should allow Carolina to make some plays on offense.  

On paper, UNC should win the game.  This is where the Tar Heels will define the rest of their season.  Win, and show the toughness it takes to be great, and the Heels may be able to challenge for a national title down the stretch.  Lose, and play as poorly as they did on Saturday, and Carolina probably won’t be able to seriously challenge in March.  With road games at Duke, Boston College, Georgia Tech and Maryland, the path isn’t going to get any easier (not mention State, Duke and Virgina Tech all coming to Chapel Hill).   For UNC, it’s time to start winning the hard games.  The win at Arizona was nice, but the Wildcats aren’t very good.  Winning at Clemson was good, but it appears this Tiger team may be closer to their past teams than was initially indicated by their record.  The losses to Gonzaga, Virginia Tech, and N.C.State were all games that good teams win.  North Carolina’s season starts on Wednesday.  Tar Heel fans are hoping their team wakes up in time to make the most of it.