Apparently all it took was a bit of concentration and, suddenly, a North Carolina team that looked disorganized and unfocused against UNLV was playing exemplary defense against Wisconsin. Kendall Marshall, who struggled on that end against the Running Rebels, did well in his stints guarding perhaps the most offensively potent point guard in the country in Jordan Taylor. John Henson and Tyler Zeller, for the most part, kept good track of their rotations, provided near-perfect help defense and stayed focused for the whole shot clock. Dexter Strickland’s campaign of perimeter harassment against Taylor was some of the best on-ball defense I’ve seen by any North Carolina player in the past decade. Aside from a few critical missed rotations (notably one that lead to an open three for Taylor in the final minute), the defense simply looked exemplary.
The Heels Were Lucky to Escape Wisconsin With a Win (AP)
As for the offense, I’m less sure. While the Tar Heels shot 42.2% against the second-best defense in the country, turnovers plagued the team. North Carolina had fourteen turnovers in a slow game, a difference that kept Wisconsin in the game down to the very last minute. Think turnovers don’t matter that much? North Carolina had 45 field goal attempts while Wisconsin had 64 shots from the field. Wisconsin had nearly 50% more chances to get a bucket than North Carolina. Only great defense by UNC and 19 points from the free throw line kept the team from giving up to the Badgers. Marshall alone managed to tie Wisconsin’s entire team with four turnovers apiece. It’s honestly near-miraculous that North Carolina won given the discrepancy in number of field goal attempts.
North Carolina‘s loss Saturday exposed several flaws in the team and in people’s perception of the team. When Ken Pomeroy ranked the Tar Heels fourth in the country, many national analysts scoffed. But don’t forget: the Tar Heels were not dominant last year. They got beat handily by a Duke team (without Kyrie Irving) in the ACC Tournament Finals after squeaking by Miami by two points and Clemson in overtime. Yes, they added PJ Hairston and James Michael McAdoo. But the unsinkable aura many gave this team coming into the season was a little overboard.
It is also important to look at the game and the details surrounding it to understand the loss. First and foremost, UNLV was a little underrated even though the Rebels were getting votes in the AP and Coaches’ polls before knocking off North Carolina. Second, the game was at a “neutral” site: yes, it wasn’t at the Thomas & Mack Center, but most of the crowd wore scarlet (I’d estimate the crowd was around 65-70% for UNLV). Third, the game comes right before North Carolina’s two toughest non-conference games of the season against Wisconsin and at Kentucky. That’s not to say Roy Williams or his team consciously overlooked UNLV, but the game happened in a “tournament” (less than 24 hours after their game with South Carolina) and right before they face two very good opponents.
Where Was Tyler Zeller Against UNLV?
Before looking at what went wrong in the game, it is important to look at what North Carolina did well. Most notably, PJ Hairston played incredibly. In only 13 minutes Hairston scored a team-high (tied with Harrison Barnes) 15 points on six shots. He has had a very productive season so far and has really excelled in his role off the bench. People asked going into this season who the knockdown shooter would be for North Carolina, and Hairston has answered the call although I think he is a year away from being a true go-to guy like Wayne Ellington. In a similar vein Reggie Bullock was terrific, going 4-5 from the field despite a couple of turnovers. He also played great defense for stretches. If Williams can get this much productivity out of these two, he will have to think about starting one of them over Dexter Strickland at some point. It should also be mentioned that the Tar Heels went on a run in the first half with Kendall Marshall on the bench. Marshall played well on the offensive end, especially in the first half when he knocked down a big three to put North Carolina up five.
Kellen Carpenter is an ACC microsite staffer and an RTC columnist.
Question: Is This Roy Williams’ Best North Carolina Team Yet?
North Carolina enters the season as the near-unanimous choice for the best team in the country. They are the clear Vegas favorite to win the national championship. This team has the potential to be very, very good, and the raw talent assembled in Chapel Hill is impressive. Let’s take a quick inventory: The team is led by Harrison Barnes, a first team All-America caliber player, and perhaps the most skilled Tar Heel of the Roy Williams era. He’s surrounded by three other All-America (though probably not first team) level players in steady seven-footer Tyler Zeller, pass-first floor general Kendall Marshall, and the lanky defensive terror that is John Henson. The fifth starter is the speedy and defensive minded Dexter Strickland, who some claim is one of the top one hundred players in America. Coming off the bench are three five-star recruits: Reggie Bullock, a big guard with a sweet-shooting stroke who missed most of last year with an injury, and two freshmen. James McAdoo is more Ed Davis than Marvin Williams, but regardless, he seems locked into the role of the big NBA prospect coming off the bench. P.J. Hairston is, like Bullock, a big guard with a penchant for draining threes.
It's All Smiles at Carolina This Season
That’s a pretty good team, and we aren’t even counting two skilled, big freshmen forwards in Desmond Hubert and Jackson Simmons, the senior Swiss Army knife that is Justin Watts, freshman back-up point guard Stilman White, the injured Leslie McDonald, who was last year’s best three-point shooter, and the relentless majesty of Blue Steel, the motley crew of walk-ons. While these players are pretty good, for now let’s just focus on the top eight guys in the rotation since more than likely they will be playing most of the minutes. Let’s take a step back and look at these eight players.
This 2011-12 squad likely has more All-Americans and NBA draft picks than either of the 2005 or 2009 championship UNC teams. This was the main evidence that Gary Parrish used to suggest that this team will be Williams’ best North Carolina team. It’s an interesting point, mainly because it speaks to the pure potential of this group. There are a lot of guys on this team who have the potential to be truly great. I use the word “potential” here deliberately, though. Outside of Tyler Zeller, the only time this team has really proven its mettle was for the last half of last season. Extrapolating the team’s performance based on its relatively small sample size is risky, and perhaps overly optimistic. Still, for the sake of argument, let’s go with it.
Now that our individual team previews are done, it’s time to look at individual players. With only five all-ACC selections from last season returning there are plenty of open spots to fill, so here are our Preseason all-ACC Teams for the 2011-12 season.
2011-12 Preseason All-ACC Teams
Looking at our projections, North Carolina, Miami and Duke lead the way with eight, six and five selections, respectively. No surprise with Harrison Barnes checking in as the consensus ACC Player of the Year, or Austin Rivers as the ACC Rookie of the Year (though Kellen wants to keep an eye on Maryland’s Nick Faust for the ROY award).
My personal honorable mentions are Virginia Tech’s Erick Green, Maryland’s Sean Mosley and NC State’s Richard Howell. I’m especially surprised Mosley didn’t show up on any of the teams, but his middling campaign last season probably did him in. Green appears to be in the right place to take over for departing Hokies Malcolm Delaney and Jeff Allen, but he’s got a ways to go based on the Virginia Tech games I went to last season. Finally, Howell had a sneaky good season last year for the Wolfpack and could be a great frontcourt presence alongside CJ Leslie.
My biggest reach was putting Terrell Stoglin on the first team. He was a decent player last year (who averaged over 20 points per game pro-rated at 40 minutes), but he’ll really need to make some waves if he wants to crack the first team this season. Malcolm Grant and Kendall Marshall are the safer choices for that final guard spot. My reasoning is that Marshall will be hidden statistically behind Zeller and Barnes. In general, Roy Williams point guards are under-appreciated because they don’t put up sick numbers, but with Marshall the case is a little different. He’s a very polished player, but I see him as the perfect complimentary player. North Carolina wouldn’t be nearly as good as a team without him, but by himself he’s not spectacular. Thus, I voted him onto the second team in favor of Maryland’s ascendent sophomore.
On the second team Kellen and I differed on power forwards: he chose Mason Plumlee; I chose Travis McKie. Again for me the key was relative importance. Mason Plumlee may be more talented than McKie, but I’ll be shocked if he’s as important for Duke as McKie is for Wake Forest (and really I’m not sold that McKie isn’t more talented). Duke’s bigs are certainly going to be critical this year, but I think the mere fact that there are three of them (Mason, Miles and Ryan Kelly) will dilute each one’s share of the limelight. I did include Miles on my third team because reports from Durham laud him as Duke’s backbone.
However, both of our teams (mine especially) did a lot of projecting for this season. The only locks feel like Harrison Barnes, Tyler Zeller and Mike Scott (and it’s conceivable Zeller falls to the second team depending on his role). Player and coach turnover left the ACC relatively unknown this season, but Friday players start earning their spots.
North Carolina fans are developing a severe case of whiplash. In 2009, the Tyler Hansbrough and Ty Lawson squad led the team to a dominant and resounding NCAA championship. The next year, Roy Williams had arguably his worst year ever as a coach as the Tar Heels missed the NCAA Tournament entirely. Last year, a late-surging UNC team came within spitting distance of the Final Four, losing to the ever-young and ever-loaded Kentucky Wildcats in the Elite Eight.
This year? North Carolina is again the overwhelming favorite to win it all. Let me put that on a timeline. A year ago, a despondent UNC fan base was praying for a great start to the new season to wipe away the memories of a catastrophically disappointing season. This year, Chapel Hill is bubbling over with excitement. People are throwing all kinds of superlatives around when they talk about this team. We can talk about whether those superlatives are earned or not some other time, but let’s make one thing abundantly clear: UNC is a championship caliber team.
Harrison Barnes Leads A Loaded North Carolina Team
The only losses from last year’s Elite Eight crew are graduate school transfer Justin Knox, who served as a solid if not spectacular backup for the starting frontcourt. The loss of Leslie McDonald to an ACL tear during the summer, however, is slightly more troubling. Though still a backup, McDonald made the second most threes on the team and was the Heels’ most reliable threat from behind the arc. If he comes back at all this season, which seems unlikely considering the severity of the injury, it would apparently be near the start of the ACC Tournament. So for the regular season, I think it’s safe to say that McDonald won’t be playing. Larry Drew, II, of course, left the team mid-season after he lost the starting point guard job. It’s hard to call this a loss, however, since Drew’s departure seemed to catalyze a middling North Carolina team and transform it into the tough and capable offensive team that played deep into March. It’s a textbook case of addition by subtraction.
We all know that lists of top players tend to be very silly. For a sport as big and expansive as college basketball, these lists can quickly become incredibly silly. Strange inclusions and weird snubs are almost inevitable. That said, the latest CBS Sports list of The Top 100 Players in College Basketball is just ridiculous. Still, lists are fun so let’s talk about this one and all the reasons that it’s just goofy.
All Systems Silly (CBSSports.com)
Of the top 100 players in college basketball, twelve are from the Atlantic Coast Conference. Of the twelve best players in the ACC, half of them come from North Carolina, a quarter of them come from Duke, and one player each comes from N.C. State, Miami and Virginia. Here is the list of rankings, players, and schools. Below that, we’ll have ourselves a talk.
Until the season kicks off, we’re going to be taking weekly trips to the ACC and NCAA Vaults to look at classic ACC games of yore.
Rashad McCants' college career is sometimes overshadowed by his failed stint in the NBA.
In honor of the upcoming Carrier Classic between Michigan State and North Carolina, here’s a look back at the 2005 Final Four game between the Spartans and Tar Heels. Watching the game was also a great reminder of just how good Roy Williams‘ 2004-05 squad was (especially with regards to depth). The 2005 national championship team probably had a talent advantage over the current team at every position:
Point Guard: Raymond Felton over Kendall Marshall
Shooting Guard: Rashad McCants over Dexter Strickland and Reggie Bullock
Forward: Jackie Manuel, David Noel, Jawad Williams and Marvin Williams over Harrison Barnes, John Henson and James McAdoo (this is the most up-in-the-air position, but I’d give the 2005 team a slight advantage for going four players deep)
Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist for Rush the Court.
The most anticipated season in North Carolina basketball history is approaching.
More than those Frank McGuire-coached teams in the 1950s. More than any of the best from the storied Dean Smith era, including the unforgettable Jordan/Perkins/Worthy triumvirate. Even more than when Roy Williams couldn’t resist the call of his alma mater or when Tyler Hansbrough returned for another go-round with Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington.
When two lottery picks join forces with two other first-round picks, a foundation of complementary pieces and a typically loaded recruiting class, unadulterated glee in Chapel Hill seems rather appropriate.
Navigating an unimpressive ACC this season, a far cry from its heyday as the premiere basketball league in America, renders the trek significantly less treacherous. Although he couldn’t have foreseen Harrison Barnes remaining in college more than one season, Williams knew 2011-12 would be special and challenged his team adequately in the non-conference.
John Henson’s game has grown dramatically the last two seasons
Team Outlook: Last November, it was arch-rival Duke topping the preseason rankings with Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith as seniors. One year later, the Tar Heels take their turn. Carolina’s journey from NIT to Elite Eight was aided markedly by the freshman duo of Barnes/Kendall Marshall plus the development and maturation of John Henson and Tyler Zeller. Carolina returns their entire starting lineup of Marshall, Strickland, Barnes, Zeller and Henson, adds two potential impact rookies in James McAdoo and P.J. Hairston and features enviable depth off the bench. The lesson here: rebuilding projects at renowned power programs don’t last very long. A third national title for Williams next April doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
Non-Conference Schedule Rank: 8. Only five non-conference contests away from Chapel Hill, but three of the five will pose sizable challenges for the Tar Heels. The season-opening bash on an aircraft carrier in San Diego pits Carolina against a Michigan State team that, contrary to last season, we may be seriously underestimating. Tom Izzo will rely heavily on the versatile Draymond Green, rising star Keith Appling and Valparaiso transfer Brandon Wood. A Las Vegas tournament is also on the docket with a likely win vs. South Carolina preceding a possible final against UNLV in a true road game. The Rebels are pegged by most as the second-best team in the Mountain West under new coach Dave Rice behind their guard duo of Oscar Bellfield and Anthony Marshall. UNC draws rebuilding Texas and Jordan Taylor’s Wisconsin Badgers to the Dean Dome. We’d be surprised if Carolina stumbled once at home this season. Of course, the December 3 showdown with Kentucky in Lexington is the highlight of Carolina’s schedule and could be the most anticipated non-conference game in recent memory.
Cupcake City: Don’t think Williams skipped out on the buy games just because of their lofty status. Carolina faces off with UNC-Asheville, Mississippi Valley State and Tennessee State prior to their Las Vegas trip and are granted a long reprieve after the Wisconsin/Kentucky back-to-back with nine consecutive home games December 6 to January 10. Texas and two ACC duels with Boston College and Miami are mixed in with a number of cupcakes, including Nicholls State, Elon and Monmouth.
Toughest Early Season Test: Prepare yourself, North Carolina vs. Kentucky is going to receive an unprecedented amount of hype for a game in early December. That was made possible when Terrence Jones and Harrison Barnes simultaneously stunned the college basketball world and returned for their sophomore seasons. Other important cogs fell into place, and the recruiting-savvy coaching staffs securing loaded freshmen classes only exacerbated the potential. We just don’t envision a trap for either school that would deny fans a #1 vs. #2 showdown at Rupp Arena. As many as six first-round picks will lace up the sneakers in this one.
With the the NBA Draft concluded and the annual coaching and transfer carousels nearing their ends, RTC is rolling out a new series, RTC Summer Updates, to give you a crash course on each Division I conference during the summer months. The latest update comes courtesy of our ACC correspondent, Matt Patton.
Reader’s Take
Summer Storylines
New Faces: That’s right, the ACC will be totally different conference this season. Only five of the fifteen players selected as to the all-conference teams will be running the floor this season, namely four of North Carolina’s five starters (with Miami’s Malcolm Grant keeping the group from being only Tar Heels). Somewhat surprisingly, all of the ACC all-freshman squad will be back in action. Duke’s Kyrie Irving was a prominent frosh, but he didn’t play a single conference game before leaving school and UNC’s Harrison Barnes opted to return for his sophomore campaign. Keep an eye on Wake Forest’s Travis McKie and Maryland’s Terrell Stoglin especially. Both should be the stars on their respective teams.
However, the strength of the conference will rely heavily on the incoming players and coaches. Duke, North Carolina, Virginia Tech and Florida State all bring in consensus top 25 classes according to ESPN, Rivals and Scout. To make a long story short, the rich get richer. Duke’s Austin Rivers (ranked 1st by Rivals, 2nd by Scout and ESPNU) will be expected to contribute immediately, while North Carolina’s James McAdoo (8th by Rivals, 4th by Scout and 5th by ESPNU) and PJ Hairston (13th by Rivals, 20th by Scout and 12th by ESPNU) should be given ample time to find roles on an already stacked team.
Arguably more important, at least in the long term, are the new coaches: NC State welcomes Mark Gottfried, Miami welcomes JimLarranaga, Maryland welcomes Mark Turgeon, and Georgia Tech welcomes Brian Gregory to the conference. The only coach I think is a surefire “upgrade” is Larranaga, who comes with some disadvantages (namely, age). While Gottfried experienced some success at Alabama, the Crimson Tide isn’t known as a basketball powerhouse and he didn’t leave the school on great terms. I also don’t think it’s a great sign that Ryan Harrow left for the bluer pastures of Kentucky. Gregory, though, sticks out as the strangest hire of the four. He had a fairly nondescript tenure at Dayton with many Flyer fans happy to see him leave. I know a tight budget hamstrung by Paul Hewitt’s hefty buyout deal probably kept the Yellow Jackets from going after the sexiest candidates, but the choice still surprised me. Gregory’s biggest disadvantage is his ugly, grind-it-out style of play that will eventually make it difficult to attract top recruits and could possibly alienate the entire GT fanbase (see: Herb Sendek).
North Carolina Navigates Investigation Waters: Finally, it may not be basketball-related, but it’s impossible to mention this offseason without discussing North Carolina’s impending date with the NCAA Committee of Infractions. The story has dominated ACC sports news. To briefly sum things up, the Tar Heels had an assistant coach, John Blake, on the payroll of an agent. If that wasn’t enough, the NCAA investigation unveiled thousands (I’m not kidding) of dollars in unpaid parking tickets and even several cases of academic fraud. The university has come out very firmly saying these infractions only involved the football team** but the scandal has gained national notoriety. (**Author’s note: the one connection with the basketball team is that Greg Little was one of UNC’s ineligible football players. Little was also a walk-on for the basketball team during the 2007-08 season, playing in ten games. North Carolina has said that his infractions occurred after his year with the basketball team, so no win vacations are in the basketball team’s future.)
Somehow, despite academic fraud, ineligible benefits and an agent runner on staff, the Tar Heels failed to get the NCAA’s most serious “lack of institutional control” violation for what appeared to be nothing less thana lack of institutional control. Again, this scandal is confined to football, but it’s one of the many recent scandals that have come to light in big time college athletics in the last couple of years (Connecticut, USC, Ohio State, Oregon, etc). These scandals could force the NCAA to augment its rules somewhat, and even though they may not directly relate to basketball, they may have a very real impact of college sports as we know it over the next few years.
Freshman phenom Austin Rivers is ready for Duke, but how quickly will 2011's top high school point guard perform on the big stage? (Orlando Sentinel)
North Carolina’s Leslie McDonaldtore his right ACL in a summer league game on Thursday night and there’s fear he might miss the entirety of the 2011-12 season. The rising junior was seventh in minutes for last season’s Tar Heels and fifth in scoring (7.0 PPG), but second in made threes (51) and three-point percentage (38.1%). Despite McDonald’s obvious increased confidence and improved play last year, minutes at the guard position would have been tough to come by in the upcoming, with Dexter Strickland, Reggie Bullock, and Kendall Marshall comprising a formidable corps and P.J. Hairston en route. It is, nevertheless, a significant hit to the Heels’ depth in terms of both outside shooting and experience, though we’re not sure how much it moves the needle back toward Kentucky in terms of the pre-season #1.
Anthony Hubbard spent four years in the hoosegow after a 2003 home robbery, then worked hard to get his life back on the right track by graduating from high school and then becoming a junior college basketball star in Maryland. With two seasons of eligibility left, he was slated to start at Iowa next year, but that’s not going to happen. Hubbard, a 6’5 guard, has decided he wants to try to find a school closer to his home in Virginia, so he’ll leave Iowa without having ever donned the Hawkeye uniform. Can’t blame either side, here. If Hubbard thinks this is the best thing for his life on and off the court, then he’s right to go before the relationship went any farther. Given the time, effort, and faith Fran McCaffrey and his staff put into bringing Hubbard to Iowa, though, you can’t blame Iowa AD Gary Barta for admitting his and his staff’s disappointment (as he does in the story) while still wishing Hubbard the best.
“Ladies and gentlemen, your Rutgers University Scarlet Knights!…aka Ned Stevens Gutter Cleaning!!” Please allow yourself time to check out how the (Newark) Star-Ledger’sBrendan Prunty (a favorite of ours, by the way) ties those two entities together, but suffice to say that some players on next season’s Rutgers squad are enjoying some very valuable time together playing in the Jersey Shore summer league. Hey, it might not be one of those team trips to Europe or China, but it’s still two extra months to work on team chemistry both as players and as gentlemen, and that never hurts.
People who like math major in mathematics. Students who play the cello can be cello majors. Should college athletes, then, be allowed to major in their sport if they want? Seems like that idea hasn’t ever really been taken seriously, but we hear someone make the case for it every so often; this time, Arizona State’s StatePress.com steps up and gives it a shot. In their proposed paradigm, obviously athletes would have to take basic requirements just like students with non-athletic majors, and the author notes how, even for those players who don’t end up playing professionally in their chosen sport, there may still be several career options for which such a major could prepare them. We add the following question: does the bachelor’s have to be the terminal degree? It would be pretty fantastic to be the first person with a “ChD” — a Doctorate of College Hoops.
The college basketball story of the summer may have (unfortunately, as it happens) arrived. On Sunday, 60-year old David Salinas was found dead in Houston, apparently of suicide. Salinas founded a summer basketball program for local kids when he wasn’t acting as an “investment adviser.” CBS’ Gary Parrish and Jeff Goodman have reported that the suicide appears to be a result of the feds’ investigation of Salinas’ allegedly fraudulent business practices. The college basketball angle is that many coaches — we’re talking some big names, as you’ll read in the linked article — entrusted quite a bit of their money to Salinas, and his summer program may have helped funnel some recruits to certain schools represented by those coaches. The link between the players and the money hasn’t been firmly established as of yet, but you know the NCAA is watching this very closely. So are we, and we’ll have more up here as events warrant.
