University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: UNC Basketball Mailbag December 7
December 7, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 7, 2004
By Adam Lucas
It's exam week for the players, as they'll benefit from a lightened practice load this week as they prepare to finish the semester. But we never lighten the Mailbag load. If you've got a question about the Tar Heels, check previous editions of this column to see if your question has been asked before.
I was talking to several fans in Maui about when the Heels might be invited back to the tourney (I will never miss another Maui Invitational in which the Heels play), one of the fans mentioned something about a "1 in four" rule - I believe that was what he called it. Then while watching my Tivo'd Roy Williams show from Maui yesterday as soon as I got home, he also talked about legislation regarding the rule. Could you explain the rule, legislation and the chances of the Heels returning to Maui in the near future. If the folks who run the invitational base the chances of teams returning on fan support - I think the Heels should go back every year. I'm very proud of how UNC fans represented our loyalty in Maui!
Stephanie O'Brien
Los Angeles, CA
It's actually a "two-in-four" rule. Certain high-profile early-season events--the Maui Invitational, for example, along with the Great Alaska Shootout, Preseason NIT, and a few other tournaments--and classified as "exempt tournaments." When a team plays in an exempt event, they can play as many as four games, but it only counts as one game toward the NCAA-mandated 28-game maximum for a season. That's why Roy Williams recently referred to Carolina's games in Maui as "free games" and "extra games."
Carolina is a marquee team that every event promoter would like to have in their event. However, the NCAA recently limited teams to participation in only two events in any four-year period. Promoters don't like the rule because it limits the amount of high-profile teams they can include, which decreases sponsorships and other revenue. Last year, a federal judge ruled the two-in-four rule unconstitutional, but a federal appeals court reversed that decision last month.
The NCAA's reasoning behind the policy is that they think it allows non-marquee teams more access to the prestigious events. However, that's not what has happened--instead, it's resulted in a decrease in the amount of exempt events as promoters decide to go out of business instead of trying to build a field with lesser teams.
It's unlikely that we've heard the last of this issue. Depending on how a variety of court proceedings play out, it's possible you might see the Tar Heels in the Preseason NIT in November of 2006, and then they could potentially return to Maui (or another exempt tournament) in 2008.
I've watched the Tar Heels play their last four games. The media gives Rashad, Raymond, Marvin, and Sean all of the attention. That's no problem, but it seems like Jawad is always flying under the radar. All he does is go out and score 20+ points. Do you think that sometimes he gets lost in the shuffle and teams choose to focus on the other players?
Chris Pompey
Charlotte
Yes, definitely. All he's done so far is shoot 61.4 percent from the field (second on the team), score 16.6 points per game (second on the team), make 41.2 percent of his three-pointers (third on the team), and grab 4.3 rebounds per game (third on the team).
Most of the buzz that built about Williams during the early part of his junior campaign dissipated later in the year. But no one seems to remember that he was playing hurt and suffered through a combination of painful head injuries. A questioner in one of last year's Mailbags wondered if maybe Williams might bear some resemblances to George Lynch. This year, that's exactly what he's doing. Don't believe it? Check out his response to a recent question about his early-season scoring success: "I really don't care about the way I've been playing as long as we win games. I don't care if I just average two points, I want to win."
He's also extremely proficient at a little-noticed aspect of the game: watch him when he's positioned on the block while Carolina is shooting free throws. He bends his inside arm at the elbow, almost like he's getting ready to run a race. If the shot is missed, he slithers through and tips the ball back with that same inside arm to keep it alive for a Tar Heel offensive rebound. That's a play that doesn't show up on the stat sheet and is very Lynch-like. He also reminds us a little bit of another former Tar Heel in terms of recognition (or lack thereof)--Shammond Williams. When fans talk about the 1997-98 team, they always mention Cota, Carter, and Jamison. But Williams was essential to that team, just as Jawad is to this year's squad.
We've got more on Williams in this week's Tuesday Talking Points.
I have a procedural question regarding TV timeouts and free throw shooting. It seems that, in the past, when a shooting foul was commited after one of the four minute TV timeout increments (16, 12, 8, etc.), the shot(s) were taken before the timeout, which would take effect at the next dead ball, usually after the made free throw. I have noticed this year that when a shooting foul occurs in such clock situations, the timeout is taken first and players take the shots immediately following the timeout. Is this a new rule change or another of the experimental possibilities for the early season? If so, does this not break a player's flow and momentum after a two minute break? Any insights on the motivations for this change, if it is indeed a change?
Lee Quinn
Raleigh
Sometimes rules changes don't make much sense. This one, however, which is new for the 2004-05 season, seems to be a good idea. Media timeouts are indeed taken before the free throws this season. That's the opposite of past procedure, when a player would shoot the free throws, followed by a media timeout if the last shot was made.
But free throws aren't exactly a science these days in college basketball, and when the last free throw was missed, it sometimes resulted in long breaks between media timeouts, which are supposed to fall at the first dead ball under 16:00, 12:00, 8:00, and 4:00 in each half. Under the new rule, they're more evenly spaced and it creates a slightly better flow to the game.
Any break to a player's momentum is probably trumped by the fact that they get a two-minute rest before shooting. Coaches like to make their players shoot free throws after running in practice because it's much more difficult to shoot them when they're tired. A quick break won't make Shaq into Shammond Williams, but it is a slight benefit.
Where did Carolina come up with the new warm ups? Where did the color gray come from? There is not a better color than Carolina Blue, so why change?
Don Patterson
Chapel Hill
The gray shirts you've noticed are actually Carolina's shooting shirts, which are separate from the warm-ups. The warm-up tops are still Carolina blue and this year include a new addition--a hood.
Gray seems to be a popular color in the Nike line this year, as Kentucky also wore gray shooting shirts on Saturday.
I was interested in your 11/30 comments about UNC's points per possession and percentage possessions lost. I read and hear lots of people arguing about how to measure a bball team's defensive ability. The standard stat is points per game, which is not very valid for reasons too obvious to discuss. Roy talks about the opponent's shooting percentage, which I agree is impt, but which can also be misleading if the opposing team gets fouled a lot while shooting or if the team traps on defense and gets a lot of turnovers, but also allows more quality shots when the trap doesn't work. It seems to me that the opponent's points per possession might be the most valid measure of defense. Is there a site where these statistics are available? Can you post them on this site?
Tye Hunter
Chapel Hill
Tye, Dean Smith agrees with you, which is a lot more important than me agreeing with you (A quick side note: last week Jawad Williams met the media before the Kentucky game. One reporter asked, "Coach Smith said Kentucky may want a slower tempo than you do. Do you agree with that?" Williams's response was quick: "If Coach Smith said it, I agree with it." The only detail was the reporter was referring to UK Coach Tubby Smith, not Coach Dean Smith. Good to see "Coach Smith" still carries some weight around Chapel Hill). He produced a virtual textbook on the way he evaluates a game in 1981, when he published Basketball: Multiple Offense and Defense. It's an essential reference tool for someone like yourself who is interested in an advanced course on Tar Heel hoops.
Coach Smith believed total possessions should be calculated by totaling the stats that end a possession: field goals attempted, trips to the free throw line, and turnovers (a trip to the free throw line to complete a three-point play doesn't count as a trip). To get the points per possession, you simply divide the number of points by the number of possessions.
Here's the catch: you have to keep the stat while you're watching a game, because free throw trips aren't shown in a normal box score, which means you can't calculate the number of possessions.
Once you've calculated the number of possessions in a game, you can also utilize another of Smith's favorite statistics: percent loss of ball, which shows the percentage of possessions ending in a turnover and provides a frame of reference for evaluating turnovers. For example, if Carolina commits 15 turnovers in an 85-possession game, that's much different from 15 turnovers in a 70-possession game.
Between the extended football season because of the Continental Tire Bowl game this year (yay!) and the added depth on the basketball team, what do you think Jesse Holley's role will be this year, if any? Will we see him at all?
Jen Gilliam
Morrisville, NC
You could have seen him Saturday at the Smith Center--he was right behind the Tar Heel bench in his trademark Yankee cap, where he was able to exchange his usual head bobs with Roy Williams when "Jump Around" played over the arena PA system before tip-off.
Carolina has better point guard depth this year. They're also playing better defense, which means the energy he provided last season by coming in and sticking to opposing guards won't be as revolutionary. But he said during the football regular season he planned to return to hoops, although he'll miss even more basketball practice this year because of the bowl game. Williams said recently he hadn't spoken to Holley recently other than to wish him good luck in the postseason and didn't plan to sit down with him until after the Tire Bowl.
Some friends and I (all UNC grads) that live here in Los Angeles were watching the UNC/USC game, throwing some ideas around about how to create a "real" basketball atmosphere aside from the Sam Cassell dubbed "wine and cheese" crowd at the Dean Dome. What do you think about maybe one game a year at Carmichael? Just think about it, with the Heels back on the map, and in the center of the campus, what better place to honor past and present UNC b-ball? To make it easy, the games could rotate between in state rivals Duke, State or Wake (preferably just Duke and State). This way more students would get to see the game, be closer to the game, and really give our boys a feeling of a raucous crowd pumping them up against hated rivals!
10,180 rabid Carolina fans with great seats in tight space would be a beautiful sight. Picture a year when the Carolina-Duke rivalry could have one game at Carmichael and one at Cameron. Can somebody say college basketball Matrix?
Morgan Green
Los Angeles (originally Wilmington)
We know this is supposed to be an answers column, but we've got a question: why do Carolina fans love to continue to torture themselves with the wine-and-cheese comment? It was made over a decade ago and, quite honestly, is about as relevant to Tar Heel hoops today as Converse sneakers.
I don't mind the idea of one exhibition game per season at Carmichael. It seems like a nice tribute to the past and a good way to generate some excitement for a game that otherwise might not create much electricity.
There's two reasons moving a regular season home game to Carmichael wouldn't work: first, monetary. The Tar Heels have one of the highest attendance figures in basketball---at 20,802 per game last year Carolina ranked third in the nation (behind Kentucky and Syracuse and nearly 3,000 per game higher than any other ACC team) in average per-game attendance. You're talking about cutting the number of available tickets in half. At $37 per ticket, that's a loss of almost $370,000 for the UNC athletic department, a significant loss considering that home basketball games are one of the primary money-makers for the organization.
Secondly, there are a large number of people in the Smith Center who have paid exorbitant sums for the right to see every home game. How do you decide which of those people get access to the Carmichael game and break the news to the folks who are being denied tickets to, say, the Duke game? We wouldn't want to be the person in charge of that. The number of student tickets would actually decrease dramatically, because after all the rights-holders were satisfied, you'd have a minimal number of tickets left for students.
Now, to the wine-and-cheese issue. There was a time when Carolina home games were not exactly raucous. OK, they were embarrassingly quiet. But those days are over, thanks partly to the recent down years. Those seasons were miserable, but they also seemed to make Carolina fans appreciate basketball success a little more. Under Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge, it almost seemed Tar Heel fans had grown to expect wins. The past couple of years, however, with wins no longer a birthright, fans have gotten more involved in games and the atmosphere has been jazzed up considerably.
Don't believe me? Ask Connecticut head coach Jim Calhoun. After his Huskies lost in Chapel Hill last year, he said, "I hear about the wine and cheese crowd and I don't know where the hell they are but they were not here today. That is the most bogus thing I have ever heard in my life. We were here last year, and the crowd was great, and this year the crowd was even greater. This is one heck of a home court advantage."
Adam Lucas will answer your questions about the Carolina men's basketball program this season in an exclusive column published each Tuesday on TarHeelBlue.com. Lucas, editor of Tar Heel Monthly and author of the new book on Roy Williams and the Tar Heels Going Home Again, will answer your questions on personnel, strategy, opponents and anything on your mind about the Tar Heels other than recruiting specifics. You can email your questions to Adam--please make sure to include your first and last names and hometown.
