University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Back To Basics
January 31, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 31, 2004
By Adam Lucas
CLEMSON, SC--This is the kind of thing that happens to North Carolina's men's basketball team when they go on the road these days: ten minutes into the first half, the Tar Heels turned in perhaps their best defensive possession of the game. They thwarted every Clemson option, filled every passing lane. They even forced a loose ball as the shot clock melted away to nearly nothing, forcing the Tigers' Olu Babalola to track it down roughly 25 feet from the basket. He collected the sphere, came back toward the basket, and launched a three-pointer as the shot clock expired.
And it went in.
The shot gave Clemson a 23-17 lead, and if you've followed these Tar Heels, it shouldn't have surprised you at all that the desperation heave found the net. That's what desperation shots do against this team.
But let's be clear: this didn't just start happening only recently. Homestanding teams have made desperation shots against Carolina since they cut the bottom out of the peach baskets. When the Heels come to town, opponents play their best, and that's something that hasn't changed in at least 40 years.
What has changed is that Carolina used to simply smirk, grab the ball, and proceed to overwhelm their opponent. Four years ago, Will Solomon made five of six three-pointers against Carolina, and the Heels still pulled out a double-digit win.
This year's team doesn't have that smirk. Babalola's shot seemed to stagger them, seemed to introduce the first hint of doubt into what should have been a very winnable road game. Instead, they'll now have to be reminded for at least the next week that they have lost their last ten ACC road games, that they are 2-19 in their last 21 road conference contests.
Clemson's 81-72 win capped a January in which the Heels lost four of their nine games. Repeat that performance in February, and that NCAA Tournament bid that has looked like a lock for so long will suddenly move into bubble territory.
Most of the talk about Saturday will center on Clemson's ridiculous 84.6 percent three-point shooting. But what if they had missed a few more of those shots? Would Carolina have been any better off? There's no evidence to support that conclusion--after all, of the 20 shots the Tigers missed on Saturday, they rebounded 11 of them. That means the Tigers fired the ball at the hoop 45 times, and 80 percent of the time it either went in the basket or they rebounded their own miss.
That may be the ugliest statistic in the history of ugly statistics. The Tar Heels allowed a 55.2 percent field goal shooting first half, got a halftime tongue-lashing from Roy Williams, and were so chastened that they went out and allowed 56.3 percent field goal shooting in the second half.
Carolina's offense has problems, mainly because it is focused on getting the ball inside and the primary inside threats are in the midst of a slump. But the offense would look significantly better if it was reaping the benefits of a defense forcing numerous turnovers.
"We've got to figure out a way to defend everything better," Roy Williams said. "We've got to figure out a way to play basketball better."
For the fourth straight game, the Heels turned in a listless first half and spent the postgame interview session bemoaning their early lack of intensity. The Heels can get away with those poor opening halves at home, when the Smith Center crowd can jumpstart them in the second half. But on the road--and Littlejohn Coliseum wasn't exactly an unfriendly place to play, considering that even the student section had a smattering of Carolina fans--performances like Saturday's simply give overmatched opposing teams confidence.
Confidence is something that's in short supply for the Tar Heels right now.
"I'm very confused by this team," David Noel said. "One minute we're so high and the next minute so low. We're never consistent with the things we do. It's like, 'What are we?' We really can't sit back and say, 'Wow, we're on a good streak,' because we never get to that point."
That's not something you're used to hearing from a Carolina basketball player. The usual stock response is, "We know we're a good basketball team, we're Carolina, good things will happen."
Right now, good things aren't happening. Finding the answer isn't going to be easy, but it's probably somewhere in the three basic fundamentals Dean Smith instilled in all his teams, the same ones Roy Williams has preached since his arrival in Chapel Hill in April: play hard, play smart, play together. This team has sometimes played hard, occasionally played smart, sporadically played together. The closest they've come to putting all three together was against Connecticut, and things seemed to work out pretty well in that game.
Forget the shooting percentages, forget the zones, the man-to-mans, the entry passes. Forget how many points you've got, how many points your man has, what hurts and even who the opponent might be. Go 3-for-3 on those three basic goals, and the product is simple:
Good things happen.
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.
