University of North Carolina Athletics
Tar Heels By The Numbers
January 31, 2000 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 31, 2000
By Rick Brewer
Associate AD for Communications and Sports Information
There are people who can tell you the score of every Carolina-Duke football game ever played.
Or who can rattle off each American League batting champion since 1900 and what he hit. Or who know the scoring average of every starting basketball player in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Trivia?
Sure, but also these are examples of the diehard sports fan's staple of existence-statistics.
Many fans can go to a game and simply watch the action. They get excitement from that, whether "their" team wins or loses. It's the electric atmosphere of the competition that they really enjoy the most.
Some of these fans have played or studied the game and appreciate a well-executed fast break, a length-of-the-court bounce pass or a great defensive play, regardless of which team makes it. They try to guess what players and coaches will do in certain situations.
Others can only go home happy if their team wins. It doesn't matter if the players perform well and are simply beaten by a better team. It's a matter of winning and losing.
Then there are the fans whose main interest seems to be the numbers. They really don't care who wins. They want to watch the game and then get the post-game statistics to see if their observations on why it ended as it did can be supported by numbers.
Baseball was the first sport to really make use of statistics in the early part of the 20th Century. Football teams finally began to keep track of them in the 1920's. It took a while for basketball to pay much attention to them at all. That's why most college records are incomplete until the late 1940's or even later.
But, with the print and especially the electronic media making greater use of stats in covering athletic events, it has become imperative for colleges and professional teams to diligently keep track of them. Can you imagine a basketball broadcast today without the announcers throwing constant statistics at you?
Other sports have seen this and figured out ways to "make up stats" which did not even exist just a few years ago. Statistics have become that important, especially to broadcasters. For example, golf now calculates such stats as longest driving average and most greens in regulation, while tennis keeps track of first serve percentage and the number of unforced errors a player makes.
Statistics can be helpful in trying to figure out why a certain team performs as it does, but they can also be deceiving. For example, last Saturday it was often mentioned that Georgia Tech badly outrebounded Carolina in the Tar Heels' 70-53 victory at Atlanta. Tech, in fact, ended the game with a 44-30 edge on the backboards.
But, the Yellow Jackets took 26 three-point shots in that game to just 11 for Carolina. Missed three-pointers generally tend to carom further away from the basket than a missed 12-foot jumper. Brendan Haywood, Kris Lang and Jason Capel may have had inside position on many of Georgia Tech's shots, but they simply bounced too far out as they came off the rim. Players who were being boxed out actually had a better chance to get the rebound than the ones with inside position.
In trying to explain an unusual 13-8 record for Carolina at this point in the season, a simple look at statistics isn't much help.
The Tar Heels have been outrebounded six times, but won three of those games. When Carolina has shot less than 50 percent from the field, the team is still 5-5. Now all four games in which the opposition has shot at least 50 percent from the floor have been lost. But, that's just four of eight.
Much has been made of the number of turnovers the Tar Heels have committed during the year. On 12 occasions, Carolina has had more turnovers than its opponent. The record in those games is 6-6.
If one wants to really dig deep, Carolina has lost all six games in which the opposing team has attempted more free throws. But in five of those six, the outcome was in doubt late and the Tar Heels committed fouls to stop the clock and to try to force the opponent to make free throws to win. So it's difficult to use that as a reason for Carolina's record.
No, the best explanations are the ones which have been mentioned most often by those who have followed the program closely-injuries to key personnel, a lack of practice time early in the year due to the schedule of games and then exams, an inability by coaches to set up a regular playing rotation because of the injuries and a very rugged early schedule.
Now the Tar Heels face their most difficult assignment of the year against Duke, one of their arch-rivals. The Blue Devils may be playing the best basketball of any team in America right now.
Still, the great thing about sports is regardless of records and statistics, anything can happen on a given day or night.
A journeyman pitcher with an 81-91 career record like Don Larsen can throw the only perfect game in World Series history.
Serena Williams, playing in her first Grand Slam final, can beat Martina Hingis for the U.S. Open tennis crown.
The United States can rally on the final day against seemingly insurmountable odds to defeat the Europeans in last year's Ryder Cup competition.
Villanova can play an almost perfect game to defeat a powerful Georgetown team in the 1985 NCAA Basketball Finals.
A similar type effort will be needed by Carolina Thursday. The Blue Devils are outscoring their opponents by 89.3 to 68.4. Six players average in double figures in scoring and Coach Mike Krzyzewski has a deep bench which has gotten a good deal of experience with all the Blue Devil blowouts.
Simply looking at the numbers, Duke seems to have almost everything going for it, even on Carolina's homecourt. The Tar Heels may well need one of those special performances if they are to score a memorable upset.
Such a win would stun most fans, especially those who believe almost strictly in statistics.
