University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: UNC Basketball Mailbag February 17
February 17, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 17, 2004
By Adam Lucas
First of all, the Mailbag crack staff would like to take full responsibility for last week's loss at Georgia Tech, which was clearly caused by our smart-aleck reference to free throw shooting in last week's edition. We will try to refrain from applying the Mailbag Jinx to any future games. But just in case, we're going on record with Duke as our pick for this year's national champion. Go ahead and book it.
Fortunately, Damion Grant is immune to the perils of the jinx. He didn't play in Sunday's game against Maryland, but hold your emails--we've still got an update. With the weather turning snowy in Chapel Hill, he ditched the fan favorite flip-flops (which, yes, we've gotten a lot of emails about) and instead sported a very understated red, black, and gray sweater that perhaps indicated a future career in modeling. The seven-footer is making a move for consideration for the coveted Mailbag Evtimov Best Dressed Tar Heel Award, which is named in honor of the electric blue suit Vasco Evtimov once wore on the bench during a game.
Just wondering what happened to a few legends at Carolina. Walter Davis was an awesome player in his day, but haven't heard about him in years. Could you tell us a little about what some of these guys are up to these days? James Worthy, Walter Davis, Al Wood, Jeff Lebo, Derrick Phelps.
Phil Parker, Buies Creek, NC
Worthy is a part-time television analyst, Davis is a scout for the Washington Wizards, Wood is a financial planner (and you might have seen him at the Duke-Carolina women's game Saturday night), Lebo is the head basketball coach at Tennessee-Chattanooga, and Phelps is playing basketball overseas.
You'll be able to catch up with numerous other Tar Heel alums this weekend at the Florida State game. Roy Williams initiated the first-ever Carolina basketball lettermen's reunion, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive, with over 200 lettermen expected to attend. The alums in attendance will be recognized at halftime of the FSU game and also participate in several other activities over the weekend. Coach Williams also asks that all fans going to the game arrive a little early, as the first part of the reunion ceremonies will begin about 15 minutes before tip-off.
Rashad McCants is putting up big time scoring numbers as of late, and I realize he had scored 594 points last year as a Freshmen (6 fewer than Joseph Forte). Assuming he comes back for his Junior year (hopefully), and will put up similar numbers as his first two seasons as a Tar Heel, wouldn't his scoring numbers put him in the upper echelon of Tar Heel greats for scoring? Also, with 3 years under his belt will he not challenge Michael Jordan and Antawn Jamison's scoring marks as 3 year players?
Zach Brown, Dayton, OH
As of this moment, Rashad is averaging 18.1 points per game for his Carolina career (1,031 points in 57 career games, which ranks him 51st on the all-time Tar Heel scoring list). Even if he continues to rack up 20 points per game for, say, nine more games this season, that would still put him outside the top 15 on Carolina's list of all-time points in a season, which is headed by Lennie Rosenbluth's (who will be in attendance at Saturday's reunion and deserves a nice hand for the incredible mark he left on the UNC record book) 895 points during the 1956-57 championship season. Michael Jordan's 721 remains the most points ever scored by a Tar Heel sophomore, which also looks like it's out of reach.
Some of the career marks, however, are within reach if McCants stays four years at Carolina. If the Heels play 34 games during his junior and senior years and he maintains his 18 point per game pace, he'd finish his career with roughly 2,300 points, which would eclipse Phil Ford's record of 2,290. But early NBA defections have cut short several challenges to that mark, most notably Antawn Jamison (1,974 from 1995-98), Michael Jordan (1,788 from 1981-84), and J.R. Reid (1,552 from 1986-89). It's also worth noting that before freshmen were eligible, Rosenbluth (2,045), Charlie Scott (2,007), Larry Miller (1,982) and Bob Lewis (1,836) put up some incredible numbers in just three seasons. We'd venture a guess that Rosenbluth's 26.9 points per game career scoring average is one of the most untouchable marks of any in the UNC record book, especially if you require a player to play at least three seasons to be eligible for the title.
Since the ACC refs are sacrosanct, let's talk about the Big East. My contention is that most times referees are influenced by the home crowd, but that natural inclination is rarely mentioned in print or during a broadcast.
Last night Notre Dame upset Connecticut, 80-74, in part because UCONN committed 23 fouls to Notre Dame's 11. Amazing. Okafor, who swatted shots right and left at Chapel Hill last month, somehow couldn't manage not to foul the apparently superior Notre Dame players. He played only 24 minutes because he committed 4 fouls (and was still UConn's high scorer).
I also think Carolina got some calls against UConn, but thought the calls against Duke were about right. However, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that, if the non-foul by David Noel which apparently knocked Deng out had occurred at Cameron Indoor Stadium, they would have called it and maybe even called it a flagrant foul. Referees are only human.
ottom line: when you go on the road, you have to contend with the other team, their crowd, and their refs.
Creighton Abrams, Springfield, VA
Officiating is something that seems to have gotten more attention this season, and it's going to continue to be a topic of discussion as long as ACC games are played on television, where fans have the benefit of instant replay. There's no doubt that crowds impact officiating, as Danny Ainge noted recently on an ABC national telecast of a Duke game from Cameron Indoor.
Another interesting subject is that of conference affiliation of officials. Certain officials referee games a certain way, which can hurt conference schools used to playing a certain way when they get into an NCAA Tournament game with neutral officials. Privately, some ACC coaches have said referees shouldn't have a conference affiliation, that nonconference games during the regular season shouldn't feature "our" refs or "their" refs. Games shouldn't be that subjective when they're as high-profile as NCAA Division I basketball games, but most officials have day jobs and can't jet all over the country like NBA referees until they are more adequately compensated.
Sometimes the way a team adjusts to how a game is being called can be critical to the outcome. Sunday night's UNC-Maryland game was called extremely tightly, as the crew of Reggie Cofer, Jamie Luckie, and Michael Stuart whistled the two teams for a combined 55 fouls. Four players were disqualified and four others ended the game with four fouls. That's in contrast to, for example, the Kentucky game, which included just 27 fouls and only two players who received as many as four fouls.
Everything I have read and continue to read about this year's Tar Heel team harps endlessly how they are paper thin. Breathtakingly thin. Historically. Perhaps the thinnest team since the dawn of time. Given the volume of words written on the subject, you'd almost conclude they were playing most games 3 on 5 or something.
While certainly there hasn't been a great deal after the second man off the bench, the box score of the Duke game was surprising. Number one ranked superpower Duke played 7 players and got 25 minutes and 2 points off their bench, with 4 players notching 40+ minutes. Carolina played 9 and got 49 minutes and 16 points off their bench (granted players 8 and 9 totaling only 4 minutes and 2 points), with only one player (Felton) playing more than 40 minutes. And actually the case was similar against Wake and Connecticut and many of the other games this season.
Not to float conspiracy theories, but you don't read much about Duke's lack of depth. Bizarre, no? In today's NBA draft reality, you don't see many teams going more than 7 or 8 deep. Assuming the Heels stays healthy, is it really that big a deal? Most teams it seems are in the same boat.
Howard Thompson, Austin, TX
There's no doubt that in today's era of college basketball, the days of a team going 10-12 players deep are over. But there's one key difference between Duke and Carolina: the Blue Devils have depth at a multitude of positions, while the Heels' reserves are mostly on the wing. Sean Dockery is giving Duke almost 17 minutes per game at the point guard slot, which helps keep Chris Duhon fresh, and Shavlik Randolph (21 minutes/game) is capable of giving Shelden Williams a rest, even after the Devils lost a McDonald's All-American (Michael Thompson) in the post to a transfer earlier this year.
Carolina, meanwhile, has no one to come off the bench for Raymond Felton, which is perhaps their most glaring weakness as the schedule tightens in ACC and NCAA Tournament play.
I was really happy to see some information on conference expansion in the last "Mailbag." I searched the net for hours one day and found next to nothing. Even the official ACC site barely touches the subject.
Can you tell us where to get the full details? Who are all the primary partners? What about tournament brackets? When are the teams actually joining? A lot of people are wondering about this at the water cooler.
Chris Middleton, Chapel Hill
The Tournament bracket hasn't yet been finalized. Once the ACC completes expansion to 12 schools (the league will go with 11 for the 2004-05 season), the new men's basketball schedule will include annual home-and-home series against the two primary partners, home-and-home series against four other schools, and single games against the league's remaining four schools. The following year, teams will play home-and-home series against the four teams they played once the previous year, home-and-home series with their primary partners, and single games against the other four. In other words, between now and 2006, there will come a season when Carolina plays Wake Forest just once, which is quite a shame. The ultimate result: the regular-season championship will be cheapened quite a bit. Dean Smith frequently said that the regular season title-holder was the league's true champion, because it was decided over an equal round-robin schedule. That won't be the case beginning with the 2004-05 season.
As was mentioned last week, Carolina's primary partners are Duke and State. Most of the other primary partners, with a few exceptions, make sense:
Clemson: Georgia Tech, Florida State
Duke: Carolina, Maryland
Florida State: Miami, Clemson
Georgia Tech: Clemson, Wake Forest (that Demon Deacon-Yellow Jacket rivalry sure is a classic)
Miami: Virginia Tech, FSU
Maryland: Duke, Virginia
NC State: UNC, Wake Forest
Virginia: Virginia Tech, Maryland
Virginia Tech: Virginia, Miami
Wake Forest: State, Georgia Tech
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, 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.
