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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > March > 27 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USTar Heels looking unstoppable, unbeatable
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Charlotte — This is getting out of hand. Just when everybody figured the only way to halt rampaging North Carolina was to slow the pace and clamp down on Tyler Hansbrough, the infernal Heels showed the basketball world they can win big at any speed, can win big even on a night when Psycho T began as if on lithium.
So now the watching world is wondering: Is there any way to beat these guys? Because if there is, nobody’s found it since before Valentine’s Day. And nobody’s come close in the Big Dance, through which the top-seeded Heels have whirled their way halfway to a national championship.
They beat Mount St. Mary’s in Round 1 by 39 points, and maybe you thought, “OK, that’s the play-in winner. Let’s see what they do against a spry team from a power conference.” Then they beat Arkansas by 31, and maybe you thought, “Well, Arkansas was the only team that lost twice to Georgia. Let’s see what they do against an opponent that’s famously hard to play.”
Here’s what the Heels did: They beat Washington State, a team that hadn’t been beaten by more that 10 points all season, by 21. They turned what seemed, at least on paper, an intriguing contrast in styles into just another Baby Blue blowout.
They won a night when the nation’s best player — Hansbrough, the indefatigable Psycho T — was their fifth-leading scorer in the first half. He missed his first four shots, missed his first two free throws and lost the ball three times in the first seven minutes. And still Carolina led by 14 at the half. (And still Hansbrough, who had two points in the first 20 minutes, finished with 18.)
What figured to be a waltz with barbed wire turned into something so breezy that coach Roy Williams could open his postgame briefing with a little joke. “I always thought the media had power, but I just found out that Tyler is one of our five guys selected for drug testing [standard NCAA tournament procedure], and they told him he had to talk to the media before he uses the bathroom. That’s power!”
Then this: “Other than that, we’re ecstatic.”
It might be time to stop looking for flaws in these Heels. Carolina’s 2005 NCAA championship team sometimes won in spite of itself: Rashad McCants would fly off on tangents, and the whole bunch sometimes neglected to play defense, even as late as in the Syracuse Regional final against plodding Wisconsin, which scored 82 points against the laissez-faire Heels.
This team is slightly less talented but far more focused. There have been defensive lapses — Boston College’s Tyrese Rice scored 46 points against the Heels, 34 in the first half — but none recently. They limited Washington State to 31.6 percent shooting, and nobody’s going to beat Carolina shooting 31.6 percent. It might be that nobody’s going to beat Carolina, period.
Asked if, in its cold-blooded way, beating Washington State by 21 was more impressive than trashing Arkansas, guard Ty Lawson said: “I think so. It was a tough-type game, a grind-it-out game.”
And now we know the Heels can bump and grind as well as rip and run. Said Williams: “We put on the board before the game that we had to be tough enough, patient enough and poised enough.”
His team went 3-for-3, and what happened here Thursday had to be chilling for the rest of the remaining NCAA field. If you can’t come close to Carolina on a night when Hansbrough does next to nothing for a whole half, when might you?
“I like to win games in the 80’s and 90’s and the 100’s,” Williams said. “But sometimes you’ve got to be tough enough to win them in the 60’s and 70’s.”
So now the prettiest team in the land has proved it can mud-wrestle as well. What’s next for these resourceful Heels? Running the Princeton offense better than Princeton? Pressing more ferociously than Tennessee? Getting more officiating breaks than UCLA?
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: Tech/ACC, UGA/SEC
Comments
By Lee Sunset
March 27, 2008 11:27 PM | Link to this
Right on Mark. Heels are peaking at the right time. I have no problem with them winning every game through the championship by double-digits. And the best part is no starter is a senior…
By John
March 28, 2008 12:05 AM | Link to this
UNC’s defensive efficiency rating was #6 in 2005. Rather than rehash the standard media garbage about that team, how about you actually research the quality of that team’s defense?
By John
March 28, 2008 12:06 AM | Link to this
UNC’s defensive efficiency rating was #6 in 2005. Rather than rehash the standard media garbage about that team, how about you actually research the quality of that team’s defense?
By John
March 28, 2008 12:06 AM | Link to this
UNC’s defensive efficiency rating was #6 in 2005. Rather than rehash the standard media garbage about that team, how about you actually research the quality of that team’s defense?
By Buggs Malloy
March 28, 2008 12:51 AM | Link to this
Williams is over-rated and acts like a phony.
By justmyopinion
March 28, 2008 1:12 AM | Link to this
Buggs Malloy, please explain how do you come to the conclusion that Williams is overrated.
Also, let’s not annoint this Tar Heel team just yet. They’ve never been past this round since ‘95.
By LuxLibertas
March 28, 2008 2:31 AM | Link to this
^ummm…no. ‘97, ‘98, 2000 and then of course the ‘05 title mentioned above.
By RyanK
March 28, 2008 2:31 AM | Link to this
justmyopinion, are you drunk? UNC has been to 4 Final Fours since 1995, including a national championship.
By CarolinaJacket
March 28, 2008 1:43 PM | Link to this
What a powerhouse and they just keep bringing them in. They have two five stars and a four star coming in to a team this good, that, as has been pointed out, loses no seniors. Even if a couple go pro they will still be loaded. Williams must be pretty good at something. And I am local President of the ABC club.
By Mark Bradley
March 28, 2008 3:56 PM | Link to this
In the 2005 ACC tournament semis North Carolina yielded 35 points to Tech’s Will Bynum and lost 78-75. After the Wisconsin game mentioned above, Roy Williams was so disgusted with his team’s defense that he covered both baskets at practice and had his team work on nothing but defending. (And that was the week of the Final Four.) I’m not entirely sure what “defensive efficiency” is, but I know from having covered the 2005 Heels that their defensive inconsistency was a source of great concern even to their coaches. And I know that this team, in the main, plays better D.
By old Tech fan (in NC)
March 29, 2008 6:26 PM | Link to this
Hope they play Davidson….