UNC 84, N.C. State 64
by T.H. on Jan 29, 2011 7:28 PM EST
in Basketball
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PrintSidney Lowe rather famously won his first game against Carolina as the coach of the Wolfpack, by breaking out a bright red blazer to wear during the game. (Also, by embarrassingly out-rebounding the Heels, as I recall.) It was a sign of a new era for State fans; just not the era they were expecting. Since that game, N.C. State has lost to UNC by 19, 9, 29, 14, 17, 9, 14, 13, and today and even 20 points. Through everything Carolina's gone through in the last few years, there's nothing to pick a team up like a game against the Wolfpack.
Today it was mostly Harrison Barnes' first big game in college. Barnes had nine points of UNC's opening 13-2 run, and State never recovered from the initial shock. The Wolfpack would never cut the lead to less than nine, while Barnes would finish with 25 points on 10-16 shooting. More importantly, he was relaxed and all smiles for an audience that included a group of his high school teachers. He often out-hustled multiple State players to lose balls, and really elevated his game. While his closing effort against Miami was too short of a spurt to promise a new and improved player, this game is a heartening sign; if he plays the same against Boston College, it's enough to call it a trend.
Whatever Barnes wasn't doing, John Henson was. The big man would finish with 16 points, 16 rebounds, and 7 blocks. And that last number underestimates his defensive performance. He was changing almost every shot that came within five feet of him; holding Tracy Smith to 12 points and leaving C.J. Leslie settling for bad distance shots. Although Barnes may get more press out of this game, Henson had the better performance on the day.
As for everything else, it went about as expected. There were too many turnovers and a couple of stretches where the team couldn't find the bottom of the net. The defense held, though, and even though Knox, Zeller and Drew spent large stretches in foul trouble and the three-point shooting was pretty minimal outside of Barnes, you can't really complain. Carolina won big, they won easily, and they're in a nice rhythm with a pretty rough stretch up ahead. Not a bad day for a nice, relaxing State game.
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You are right, Henson was fantastic. He really is turning into the player I thought he was going to be when he got recruited. He’s turned into a force on defense, but more importantly to me, he’s a lot more aggressive on the offensive end. He’s calling for the ball, making solid moves in the post, and even hitting free throws. And I also notice that he’s making a lot of entry passes into the deep post to Zeller. With most of the ACC opponents playing a zone against UNC, it’s good that Henson is stepping up to take the pass and do something with it.
Barnes looked good as well and it was nice to see him playing with more confidence and being relaxed. That is how he needs to play for the remainder of the season.
And like you said, not too much to say about the rest of the game. A good UNC team would have had NC State down by about 30 in the 1st half, but too many turnovers and misses led to the only 13 point lead at the half. Drew was still Drew and it wouldn’t be a post game if there wasn’t a complain about him. What stood out to me was the missed free throw, followed by him grabbing his own rebound, then taking a quick shot and missing without resetting the offense. But oh well, a great win.
I disagree about Drew
I’ve been as down on the kid as anyone, but I still contend it’s more Roy’s fault than his. He’s a good player, but I don’t think he’s a natural fit in Roy’s offense. One thing that has changed since Marshall has been starting games is that Drew is doing a much better job at pushing the ball up the court when he’s out there. And I think Drew ended up with a better Assist to Turnover ratio than Marshall today. Every player on the team made a play you could gripe about, it’s the nature of the beast. I think Drew is looking a lot better, and frankly a lot happier, since Marshall took over the starting PG position.
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. ~ Groucho Marx
Very true
I think that I look at Drew under a microscope because he’s just been sub par the past few seasons and it just makes you look for elements to pick on. But he does seem much more relaxed when he comes in the game and I think the switch from the starting lineup was necessary for him.
I really still don’t know about Drew. He did very few things right today I feel. He got himself into foul trouble early and managed to foul out, even with very few minutes. He did little to really help out on offense. I’m guessing that a very large proportion of the assists he had tonight, and on the season as a whole, have come from players knocking down more difficult shots compared to him actually giving them the ball in a position to get easy buckets. He finished the game on with 2 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists (gives the wrong impression imo) and 5 fouls.
Nice to see Barnes enjoying himself, he played pretty well
I would still like to see him and Henson reduce their turnovers, they both seem to make really silly mistakes about three times each a game.
But the thing that really struck me watching this game was how this team looks like a team. They really support each other and seem to communicate so much better than the disaster that was last years team. I don’t know if we’ll ever discover what was at the heart of the bad chemistry on last year’s team (I still suspect Ed Davis) but it’s so nice to see it gone.
I hope Henson takes Zeller aside sometime and teaches him how to dunk. I wouldn’t mind Zeller settling for layups in obvious dunk situations if I hadn’t seen him miss so many simple layups. I’m starting to wonder if he’s hurting or something because he seems like he has regressed the last few games. It really sticks out because he’s about the only guy who hasn’t really made big improvements as the season gone on.
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. ~ Groucho Marx
Barnes always seems to be good for 1 or 2 lazy passes that lead to fast break points for the other team. Not sure if that’s just him being a freshman, or him just being a little lazy with the ball. And Henson seems to just get going a little faster than he should from time to time and that causes the additional turnovers.
And I do agree with you about Zeller. I can’t tell you how many times I wish he would dunk the ball. And it does seem like something is bothering him. I’m sure being one of the only big men, he’s pretty banged up and might have something lingering that he’s fighting through.
If this team could get 2 of the 3 (Bullock, McDonald, Strickland) going at the same time, that would help open things up really get the offense going. Great point about the team chemistry. Last year’s team was probably one of the least enjoyable UNC teams to watch that I can remember. This year’s group seems like an actual team and that has carried over into them winning close games. I think last year’s team would get down and then just stop fighting. This team wants to fight and seems to have each other’s back. And just curious, but what makes you think Ed was the cause of the chemistry problems?
During the middle of last season I thought the team never even tried to fight in most of the games
Last year is the first time that I really disliked watching a Tarheel team, and I’ve been a fan since before Dean won his first NCAA championship. So I lived through the dark days of Doherty and the struggles of those days, but I don’t recall seeing one of those teams so lacking in spirit as last years squad. I rejoice that those days seem to be gone for good.
I have no “behind the scenes” info that would point at Ed, but I had concerns about him most of last year. Ed was clearly the most talented player on that team. He was quite capable of averaging 20/10 (pts/reb). But he also seemed very “stand-offish” when I saw him with the rest of the players. I can’t recall seeing him talking to his teammates or showing much in the way of leadership. It was obvious the team last year didn’t communicate well with each other during games (and I assume that went beyond games, too), but I thought Ed was worse than most. I know a lot of people focused on Thompson, Ginyard and Drew last year, and I had some suspicions about them as well, but I thought Ed was the guy who set the tone because he was “the man”. Then when Ed got hurt and was out for the season, the team started winning games and you saw them begin to act a little like a team for the first time since early in the season. It wasn’t like they completely gelled as soon as he was gone, so I don’t think he was the only factor, but it does seem possible that he was a major contributor.
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. ~ Groucho Marx
I had the same feeling
That team just didn’t seem to have any fight in them. Too many of the games looked like they lacked effort and I think that’s what drove Roy crazy. You can try and teach the kids the schemes and X’s & O’s, but if they don’t have the drive to be good or work hard, there isn’t much you can do.
That’s an interesting take on Ed. I can definitely see how you could draw that conclusion from his demeanor and attitude. Kind of has that same look that Jay Cutler does. Can’t really tell if he’s interested in what is going on or not. And then when things go bad, it definitely seems like he isn’t trying or caring.
It Occurs to Me
That it would be so easy for this team to resent Barnes. He arrived with enough hype to suck all of the oxygen out of the room, only to struggle early. But the team was all smiles when he went off yesterday.
The only comments I remember about last year’s team centered around how Thompson and Ginyard didn’t really want to have much to do with the freshmen. I think it was Henson who mention that this fall.
I had not heard that about Ginyard or Thompson
I was never a big fan of Thompson. He always seemed to be a me-first kind of player and I couldn’t stand how he’d play less minutes than anyone else (on the Championship team), yet it seemed like he was always jacking up shots. And I just think Ginyard probably realized he stayed around a year too long. I can’t imagine it was an easy chance going from a veteran team to a young team.
And I completely agree with you about Barnes. I think that could have caused a lot of animosity since he gets all the press, yet didn’t seem to back it up. But they all seemed to be happy for him yesterday. Although winning will usually cure a lot of what ails you too.
I agree with the team chemistry. Henson seems to be quite the character and seems to keep everyone relatively loosened up on the court, while all of the guys really seem to like each other. They talk to each other often and seem to have a good time while they are playing. I feel that if Henson and Barnes keeps performing like he did yesterday (and Bullock can start producing) this team will be extremely dangerous come tournament time.
I hadn't heard that comment before
I can see that happening with Ginyard. His class had left the year before and had won a championship. It must have hurt not to been able to play the big part in that you could have because of an injury. Add in the fact that he really struggled getting his game together and I could see him not working with the freshmen, or much of anyone for that matter.
But I can’t say I ever saw any of that in Thompson. I thought there were times when he tried to provide some game leadership, but then in my experience most of that foundation is really built during practice.
It would make a lot of sense that last years team was divided into factions, with Ginyard, Thompson, and Davis in one group, Strickland, Henson and the other new guys in another, with guys like Drew and Graves sort of caught in between. But if that was the case I still think Ed Davis was the guy in the best position to break out of that. Again he was by far the most talented player on the team, and that tends to carry a lot of weight.
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. ~ Groucho Marx
I'm sure this was covered a long time ago.....
but being relatively new to the blog, I just had a question.
Was there ever a reason given to why the Wear twins transferred back to UCLA? I heard they wanted to be closer to home and something about not liking what they were told in an off season meeting with Coach Roy.
Not sure if either of those things is true, but just thought I’d ask on here and see if anyone had a better answer.
As Near As I Can Tell
It was that they wanted to be closer to home, but I’m not sure if even that was explicitly said. (Outside of here, I guess.) They way Roy tells it, they met to talk about what he’d like them to do over the summer, everyone seemed happy, and then he was blindsided by their announcement to transfer.
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