University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: 70 Magic Number For Heels
February 15, 2003 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 15, 2003
By Adam Lucas
CLEMSON, SC--Carolina did not lose the Clemson game when Raymond Felton's last-second three-pointer bounced off the rim.
The Tar Heels did not lose the game when Rashad McCants sliced into the lane with 33 seconds left and a chance to tie, only to fumble the ball away without ever attempting a shot.
The Tar Heels did not lose this game by being outrebounded, even though the Tigers held a massive 42-27 advantage on the boards, including a 23-7 edge in the second half.
No, Carolina lost this game, a crucial one, by virtue of being unable to put the Tigers away. And they were unable to put them away because they were unable to come up with the defensive intensity and communication necessary to make defensive stops at key moments of the game.
The Heels had been sliding by at home even when they let opponents back into the game. Virginia roared back from a 17-point first-half deficit on Wednesday night to eventually tie the game. Carolina never got any breathing distance in front of Florida State, either. But those games were in the friendly confines of the Smith Center.
On Saturday afternoon, a slumbering Littlejohn Coliseum crowd appeared to fully expect that their orange-clad Tigers would find a way to lose against the Tar Heels. But every time it looked like Carolina was preparing to finish the job, Clemson would edge back into the game. After about three second-half edgings, the Tiger crowd finally caught on that the game was yet to be decided, and they provided a boost over the last six minutes of the contest, eventually pushing their team over the top.
Carolina probably could have quieted them with just a couple more made baskets. But what would have really silenced the endless repeats of "Hold That Tiger" would have been some defensive stops.
It's pretty simple, actually. Since Sean May left the lineup, the Tar Heels are 0-7 when their opponent scores more than 70 points. Without the offensive firepower to put up consistently big numbers, this team--in its current form--absolutely has to win with defense.
That means that the players involved must make the commitment to bear down on defense and, if necessary, take offensive possessions off in order to apply the shackles to opponents. But it's not just a physical commitment. It's also a matter of communication, especially in help defense, and that wasn't always present on Saturday. Too many times a Tiger penetrated and got past his man, only to find little resistance waiting where it might have been expected in the lane. Not only did the Tigers surpass UNC's magical 70-point mark, a plateau Clemson hadn't passed in their past seven games, they shot 54.9 percent from the field.
"It's more of communication," said David Noel, who played with some flu-like symptoms and spent some of his time on the bench with an ice pack applied to the back of his neck. "Once you get beat on defense you have to call for help, and when you call for help everybody knows they have to help. We didn't do a good job of communicating tonight with people not hearing it. We called it a lot, they just didn't hear it. At some points the [defensive] energy was there but at some points I didn't feel it was there. We had a lot of let-downs at key points in the game when we were trying to make our runs."
With current personnel, this team can't overcome those types of defensive letdowns. Combine those defensive difficulties with the second-half rebounding--or lack thereof--and this isn't a performance that will go in the time capsule. It's probably the most disheartening defeat since the Iona game, when a similar cloud hung over the postgame locker room.
The question now is how this group will respond. "We go to the next game and keep playing," said Rashad McCants. "We can't go back and change the losses, so we put them behind us."
And try to keep opponents from getting behind the defense quite so easily.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.
