University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Sutton Proves Point Again
March 8, 2003 | Women's Basketball
March 8, 2003
By Adam Lucas
GREENSBORO--Mark this down: next season before the ACC Tournament, Sylvia Hatchell needs to be sure to have a chat with center Candace Sutton.
The pair had a one-on-one meeting before last year's Tournament, with Hatchell pointing out to the then-sophomore that she was left off of all three All-ACC teams.
"You've been overlooked," Hatchell told her sophomore center last year. "They don't see you as an All-ACC player. We're going to the ACC Tournament this weekend and you need to make a statement."
Sutton started her postseason with a double-double (19 points, 10 rebounds) against Maryland. She followed that by scoring 12 points and grabbing eight rebounds in the semifinals against NC State, before wrapping up her weekend with 19 points and eight rebounds in the conference championship loss to Duke.
Her point made, Sutton was selected to the first-team All-Tournament team. "I had a point to prove," she said at the time.
Although she was picked to this year's All-ACC third team, she must be trying to prove a similar point in this postseason. She narrowly missed a double-double in Saturday afternoon's ACC Tournament quarterfinal victory against Clemson, notching a season-high 20 points and nine rebounds.
The stats weren't the only similarity to last year's Tournament.
"Coach Hatchell and I talked before we came to Greensboro," Sutton said after the 80-71 victory. "I had a couple of goals in mind and just wanted to do whatever I had to do to win."
That basically sums up Carolina's effort against the pesky Tigers, a team that was clearly overmatched but simply wouldn't go away. Every time the Heels appeared ready to break the game open, Clemson--usually in the person of Chrissy Floyd, who took 28 shots and scored 21 points--was there with an answer. You never got the feeling Carolina was going to lose the game, but it never quite felt comfortable, either.
On two different occasions--a Jessica Sell three-pointer that provided a 12-point lead with 10:30 left in the second half and a Coretta Brown trifecta that gave the Heels a nine-point cushion with under seven minutes to play--it appeared as though Carolina had applied the final punch. Each time, though, Clemson came back, and the Tigers had their deficit down to three points with four minutes left.
That's when the Heels finally began to take better care of the basketball. They had 20 turnovers in the first 35 minutes of the game, with several the product of careless or forced passes. But over the final five minutes of action, they turned the ball over just once, and they made enough free throws to keep Clemson at arm's length.
The win showed something Tar Heel coaches have known all season. Although the Heels have plenty of talent in the backcourt, they're not a complete team unless Sutton is involved and scoring points on a consistent basis.
When she's making plays--perhaps her biggest one didn't even show up in the boxscore, as she kept alive a Nikita Bell miss that lead to a La'Tangela Atkinson layup that gave the Heels an eight-point lead with two minutes left--Carolina can win even with an average effort from their backcourt.
"That was definitely in the gameplan," Brown said. "We wanted to get Candace the ball inside. We didn't feel like they had anyone who could match up with her size-wise."
Or anyone who could counteract the effects of Sutton's second straight postseason with a point to make.
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.
