North Carolina Breakdown

I loved the way they hung in during the second half. Last year’s team would have given in, but this group kept playing hard and fought their way back. Several clutch performances (on both sides). Fun game to watch and a fun atmosphere.

Couple of additional points from someone at the game.

1) Gary is not going to make all of his shots but imperative they keep getting him open looks 10-12 feet from the basket as it pulls a big defensive rebounder out of the paint.

2) UNC played two platoons most of the game. I can recall on at least four occasions Williams substituting at least 4 men at one time. It was uncanny the disparity between the depth of the two teams. Credit Barnes for maximizing his resources but also a big credit to Todd Wright for the tremendous work he has done in preparing the Longhorns to go toe-to-toe with deeper teams.

Great write up. Agree with just about everything except:
a) I don’t think J’Covan was emotional like he was in the past. He got the elbow foul and, for the most part, controlled his reaction. J’Covan only had 2 fouls. He made a couple of nice drives, which he needs to do more often. Nice, controlled drives and he’ll get more whistles in his favor. My grade for him is more C+, almost B- because of emotional growth and hitting 2 major FTs at the end to give us a 3-pt lead with about 17 seconds left. This was a game that J’Covan showed some maturity and growth. Still had issues, but net for me was positive.
b) Matt’s performance was also deserving of a slightly higher grade. Not a lot of offense, but not any mistakes either while playing one of the best bigs in the country. B-

Maybe my grading is generous, but that was a well played and well coached game so I’m in a good mood.

The performance of our next 4 off the bench will go a long way toward determining how far we go in the tournament. J’Covan, Wangmene, Hill, and Lucas. If we can get quality minutes from those four, like last night, we’ll go far.

nice writeup.

as dissapointing as the end of the Pitt game was, I hoped at the time that Joseph & the team would learn from the experience. yesterday suggests they did.

in comparing to last year’s team, feel like we lost some talent…but everybody understands their role better and the parts are working better together this year. and bigger nutsacks, too.

seems like our squad has some resiliency, which is nice.

CoJo turning it on at the right time. he’s going to have to keep this in for this team to be considered a true threat in March.

Saw a stat that Texas had beaten North Carolina 3 time in a row. IN BASKETBALL! Now it’s 4 in a row. Who would have thought would ever happen.

Great writeup and great prediction, too. The point about the horns ability to keep working hard all the way to the end vs superior depth is a great point. Before the game, I thought NC’s depth would eventually wear UT down. Coach Wright is the unsung hero in yesterday’s victory. Barnes’ focus on physical conditioning paid huge dividends yesterday.

The horns are a better defensive team this year than last. Replacing Dex in the middle with Tristan is an enormous upgrade WRT team D.

Hill was OK but Wangmene was amazing.

J’Covan should not shoot the 3 ptr off the dribble or off a jump shot. If he restricts himself on 3 point attempts to just wide open set shots, his shooting accuracy will go way up.

Barnes played Lucas only 5 minutes vs NC. Lucas had all 0’s in the box score and played poor D. Barnes realized that Lucas was over matched and sat him. Against a quality opponent, the horns have 3 guards. That is why J’Covan’s continued improvement is so critical.

I liked Barnes’ reaction to J’Covan’s elbow throw. He was clear and concise in his lecture, but he didn’t turn 3 shades of red and he wasn’t in Brown’s face. It was (hopefully) a teachable moment in a big game.

Maybe Hess called those quick fouls for that very reason, trips.

**Note: just saw a highlight of Ced going into the endzone for for the Bengals.

This team is fun to watch. I loved their attitude, and the talent and speed when they aren’t fighting whistles, is simply amazing. This year could be a lot of fun.

Hook ’em!

J’Covan’s elbow foul was a legal play last season but the rule has been changed this season. Yeah, Barnes’ new lower key approach during a game is the best approach. Emotions are already running high so there is no need for the coach to amp them up anymore (especially late in a tense game).

Clearing space with the elbows akimbo wasn’t an automatic flagrant foul last season. I guess it was still a foul to elbow an opponent in the head.

Nice analysis – thanks Trips !

His two timeouts called to stop UNC runs seemed out of character for Rick, but they were badly needed in this game. … It was real, honest to goodness game-day coaching and I appreciated it.

Totally agree. I was pleasantly surprised. Hope he keeps it up throughout the season.

Wangmene’s transformation this season has been phenomenal.

At least early on, Hill did a tremendous job. He started wearing down, but put in a good contribution.

I still don’t see the big deal re: J’Covan. He has so far to go to be even an average player, it’s ridiculous.

Fear the leach?

I like the idea that all titles at BC will be “Fear the Leach” regardless of subject

I still don’t see the big deal re: J’Covan. He has so far to go to be even an average player, it’s ridiculous.
- when he doesn’t hurry his outside shot, it’s deadly. He’s 11 of 38, but I guarantee you half of those misses were “bad” 3-pointers, i.e. hurried and covered
- he’s makes 82% of his FTs, easily the best on the team
- he’s got a fast move to the basket
- he’s not afraid to make tough passes, which can be a bad thing
- he’s not afraid of much, actually
- has as many steals as Dogus

Having said all that, he’s got a lot of work ahead of him, but the good news is that he’s already come a long way in 14 months. Remember, he didn’t play basketball in 2008-2009. He was waiting to qualify for UT.

If J’Covan can keep improving, especially with his decision making on passes, he’ll be one of the best guards in the nation by middle of next season.

Go back and watch the last five minutes or so of the game and you’ll see why Barnes likes J’Covan. He made a sweet entry past to Tristan (I think) and Tristan dunked for 2. Then a couple of minutes later J’Covan flashed to the basket right through the paint and around a couple of defenders, drew the foul and sank the two FTs to put us up by 3 points with only a few seconds to go in the game.

If he’s not in, those two things may not have happened, and Corey’s last second shot would not have won the game.

By the end of this season, J’Covan will have a lot more minutes like that, and fewer mistakes. Trust Barnes on this one. It’s why Barnes didn’t go ballistic on J’Covan for the elbow foul. He knows he’s got a diamond in the rough, and that that diamond wants to shine so much he was willing to sit out a year of basketball to come play for UT and for Barnes.

You’ll have to excuse my man love for this kid, but when someone sacrifice$$ to come to UT to play ball, I’m going to give him a lot of patience to grow as a player and as a man.

Trips: If you go to Inside Carolina, they think Karl Hess was wearing a burnt orange jersey. Example here: http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=78&f=1410&t=6909583

I thought you were a little hard on Hill and Johnson. My cringe factor on both of them has been reduced significantly. I actually think Johnson’s going to make most of those jumpers, and even though he missed a bunch, he hit the one that put Texas ahead for the first time in the second half. Hill is doing a good job screening and hitting the boards. He should be able to finish by now, but since that’s iffy, I wouldn’t hold it against him.

Balbay’s biggest accomplishment yesterday, IMO, was dunking off the leg that has the big honkin’ brace.

Texoz, to me this had the feel of a second-round game. I think everyone on the team has to get better before they’re getting any further.

Bob, true. We’ll find out Wednesday just how good this team really is. I’ll take a loss if it’s close. A win would huge, but I’m expecting about a 5 to 10 point loss, which would be okay considering it’s the 2nd long road trip of the week and it’s against #14 Michigan State who are probably a little better than their ranking. Their 3 losses were at Duke, at UCONN and at Syracuse.

Also, Michigan State’s last road game was Dec 7th (@ Syracuse), and had a blowout yesterday vs Prairie View A&M, so they should be nice & rested for UT.

Looking forward to it.

Good stuff. I thought Brown did an admirable job of keeping his head in the game. The early 3 he took made me cringe but overall I think it was a good effort. Certainly was a game where emotionally he could have imploded but he didn’t. That was encouraging.

Hamilton’s playing at a serious AA level. Certainly worthy of 3rd or second team.
Joseph is simply a welcome sight like an oasis after two years of backcourt drought following Augustin’s departure. Dude is flat out good.

Trips,

Could you elaborate on your comment below?

“I prescribe a 1,000 defensive slides and some four man shell work.”

Thanks for the comments fellas.

Art, 1,000 defensive slides was more tongue in cheek. We were punished with these when we got beat off the dribble.

The four man shell drill would actually help Jordan. It teaches you ball-you-man positioning based on where the ball is on the floor. When Jordan was beaten on a simple curl cut from the top of the key, he failed to jump to the ball when it was passed to the wing and as a result he wasn’t able to get between the cutter and the passer.

“If J’Covan can keep improving, especially with his decision making on passes, he’ll be one of the best guards in the nation by middle of next season.”

Let’s not go overboard. He’ll probably be the third best guard on a very strong, perimeter-oriented team.

“at UCONN”

Neutral game in Hawaii.

“If you go to Inside Carolina, they think Karl Hess was wearing a burnt orange jersey. "

This is absolutely laughable if true. I was embarrassed as a basketball junkie listening to that crowd boo patently obvious calls against UNC, considering they should be one of the more educated fan bases in the country. The fact that people watching it on TV, and therefore having a better viewpoint, thought the same thing—not that he was bad both ways (which he was), but that it was biased towards UT—is almost beyond comprehension. That’s a stupid fan base if true.

Thanks for the write up. I also thought that Barnes showed better in-game management (e.g. time-outs to stop NC runs). using more ball screens with our limited post options, …

I thought the uptempo game would be critical. Not sure why we didn’t recognize that against USC (and their big front).

The one thing I question is the use of Doge on Harrison. I realize that JH was having trouble guarding him. But, Doge was giving up way too much height to be any more effective.

Best spot to put this, I suppose, since we’re kinda shifting focus to MSU:

http://michiganstate.247sports.com/Board/96/Appling-Lucious-sit-out-of-practice-557991/1#a557991

Lucious has an ankle sprain. Status for Wednesday unknown (either way).

Hey Kevy great call ,you nailed it . I had the good guys by 5 but thought they would be in the high 80’s. Great break down.

I would really like to see Joseph and Hamilton run the pick and roll with J’CB as the third man at the ARC. Talk about wide open shoots for all of them. Mix or match them they would be great.

I have to give kudos to Barnes for the second half game management , Barnes was making adjustments just like a real coach, I hope this becomes a regular part of his game plan.

“use of Doge on Harrison” I had a hard time when I saw the Dog on Harrison B. I would rather have Dog on the ball and a taller person like Hamilton on HB. You try to defend there best shooter with so little time remaining and deny the pass. Good “W” for us.

SMH, I understand the thinking about Dogus on Barnes… Hamilton is still prone to turning his head and losing his man, and he’s still not good at sliding to cut off drives.