University of North Carolina Athletics
Guthridge Overlooked in Tar Heel Turnaround
February 17, 2000 | Men's Basketball
Director of Media Relations
Feb. 17, 2000
Why?
That's a question I have been getting a lot lately. Why have the Tar Heels suddenly begun looking like the team they were expected to be when pundits picked them atop the Atlantic Coast Conference standings back in October?
I have listened to and participated in numerous conversations about this year's men's basketball team over the last few months and heard almost every one of the pet theories that arise whenever Carolina loses. Too soft, too slow, not enough passion, not enough rah-rah players, not enough talent, too much talent, poor coaching, poor preparation, not enough muscle - all theories espoused during Carolina's early-season blues.
Lately, however, the Tar Heels have won five of the last six games and done so with a level of efficiency that has people shaking their collective heads. Suddenly, like it was from a magic beanstalk, the Boys in Blue are knocking down key shots, getting after loose balls, cleaning the glass and playing defense like a team that could make some serious noise in the postseason.
And everyone wants to know why?
Bill Guthridge - in my opinion, that's why.
And since he would never tell you that himself (and probably won't like the fact that I'm telling you) I'm going to tell you why.
Here are the reasons for Carolina's recent successes I've heard from the media and fans:
o Brendan Haywood continues to improve from when he was a 17-year-old freshman and is making better and quicker decisions when he gets the ball in the low post. He matched his career high assist totals in the wins over NC State and Wake Forest and continues to drop in field goals at better than an a 70-percent clip.
o Ed Cota is aggressively pushing the ball to the basket, creating easy shots for himself and his teammates. Cota's penetrating drives lead to easy layups and dunks for UNC's interior players and wide-open three-pointers for perimeter threats Joseph Forte, Jason Capel and Max Owens.
o Collectively, the Tar Heels are taking better care of the basketball. Turnovers are down, offensive boards are up and Carolina is getting good looks at the basket. (That's a television commentator's basketball term for being wide open.)
o The Tar Heels have improved their defense. The opponents are shooting a lousy percentage from the field, not making as many threes and not getting to the free throw line.
o The players know their roles within the team. Although Max Owens is not playing as much as he was earlier in the season when he was the team's second-leading scorer, he is making key contributions. The emergence of Julius Peppers as sixth man has been a huge lift, especially with Brian Bersticker's injury and Kris Lang's ailments. Even the "Blue Team" has made somewhat of a return appearance, if only to rest the starters through the final moments before a television timeout.
What - or more accurately - who is the common thread running through the aforementioned factors is Guthridge (and his staff). One of the assistant coaches laughed when I mentioned the obvious fact that Haywood has been recognizing double teams better recently and his passing out of those traps has been instrumental in Carolina's three-point attack. He laughed because that is something the coaches have been working on with the seven-footer for two and one-half years. They didn't recently discover the benefits of kicking the ball out to the open man. It just took some time for Haywood to get comfortable passing out of the post or shooting the jump hook before the double gets to him.
Carolina's game has for many years been based on getting the ball inside for easy scores. Haywood is shooting 73.3 percent from the floor, the second-highest single-season percentage in NCAA history.
During his three seasons as head coach, Guthridge has given Cota the green light to take defenders off the dribble. That's not a recent adjustment either. By nature, Ed is not an aggressive guy. He's happy with 10-13 assists a game whether he scores or not, as long as Carolina wins. Guthridge confidently reassures Cota the Tar Heels are a better team when he is attacking the defense. The Tar Heels can be just as successful with Cota shooting, as long as they are good shots, because his aim in the lane is deadly, and even when he misses Haywood, Lang or Peppers can get in good position to get offensive rebounds.
Cota's experience and aggressive play dominated portions of Carolina's wins over Maryland, Georgia Tech, Clemson, NC State and Wake Forest, and was instrumental in forcing overtime against Duke after a 19-point deficit.
Early deficits have been something the Tar Heels have faced far too often this year. But credit should go to Guthridge for sticking to the game plan and keeping his players poised and under control. NC State almost ran the Tar Heels out of the new arena with a 14-4 opening salvo, but the Tar Heels slowly fought back to take a lead into intermission, Maryland repeatedly hit open jumpers and had an 11-point edge until Carolina turned up the defensive intensity and rallied, Clemson shaved a 13-point Tar Heel lead to four late in the game with a barrage of three-pointers, but Carolina methodically cut down the Tigers with defensive stops and easy inside baskets.
Last Saturday afternoon, the Tar Heels played one of their finest stretches of the season in the final eight minutes in beating the Demon Deacons. Leading 58-55 with 8:04 to play, UNC closed out the contest with a devastating 29-9 run. Haywood scored inside, Forte and Owens drilled threes, Capel got to the line and Cota mixed it all together. Like against the Terps, Tigers and Wolfpack, Carolina got the defensive stops on key possessions it didn't get in the four-game slide in January.
Virginia beat the Tar Heels the first time around in Charlottesville because UNC turned the ball over 21 times and couldn't stop the Cavaliers driving to the basket. Guthridge has emphasized defense since he took over as head coach and his commitment to teaching better defense has paid off in the recent stretch of victories. Even in the Duke game when Carolina fell behind by a large margin due to sloppy ballhandling, poor shot selection and porous defense, it was the improvement defensively that opened the door for the great second-half comeback.
Guthridge shifted Carolina from a pressure man-to-man to a soft man with more zone play after the Tar Heels returned home from their rigorous pre-Christmas schedule. With the injuries to Ronald Curry, Bersticker and Lang altering the components of a team that would have likely thrived playing up-tempo defense, Guthridge went back to the soft man principles that the Tar Heels used to reach Final Fours in 1997 and 1998. It took some time to re-teach those soft man and zone concepts, especially in the course of the ACC schedule. Yes, Wake Forest and Florida State (played without Cota) got some open looks when men didn't rotate out fast enough, but that was still early in the learning curve. Today, it's getting tougher and tougher for teams to get open three-point attempts when Capel, Owens, Cota and Forte come out up top and Lang and Peppers chase them down in the corners.
In the last six games, the Tar Heels have limited opposing teams to 37.6 percent shooting from the floor and have actually made more three-pointers than the opposition (38 to 37). Carolina's defense forced Maryland to shoot 37.7 percent, Georgia Tech 27.4 percent, Duke 45.7 percent, Clemson 39.7 percent, NC State 40.0 percent and Wake Forest 36.2 percent.
Second halves have been winning time of late for the Tar Heels, and credit for that has to be at least shared by the head coach. The Tar Heels lead the country in field goal percentage (.504), and shoot 52.8 percent in the second half. In the last six games, Carolina has made 55.6 percent of its field goal attempts in the second half, compared to 32 percent for the opposition. Those numbers indicate to me some pretty solid X's and O's coming from the bench.
All these statistics sound great, but in my opinion the chief reason for this improved play is the coach. He didn't panic when critics were out in force. He didn't blame the non-conference schedule which was one of the toughest in school history and clearly one of the most difficult in the nation. Southern California, Georgetown, Purdue, Michigan State, UNLV, Cincinnati, Miami, Indiana, Louisville and UCLA all have winning records and all but two of those games were played away from the Smith Center. The Bearcats, Spartans and Hoosiers are among the Top 10 teams in the country.
Guthridge kept after his team not to lose its confidence and the dividends of that perseverance have shown up in the last few weeks. Win or lose, Guthridge said he felt his team was getting better. He could see it in practice and it would show up in spots in games. Unfortunately, there were some games when it didn't show up long enough to win. Lately, that improved play has Carolina playing some of its best ball of the season.
The Tar Heels are not all the way back to where they want to be. An NCAA Tournament bid is not assured yet. That will come with what Coach Guthridge has been preaching all year to his team - good defense, hit the boards, take care of the ball and get good shots. And that's exactly what they have been doing.
