University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: UNC Basketball Mailbag February 3
February 3, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 3, 2004
By Adam Lucas
Very few college sports programs can claim national appeal. Notre Dame football is one, and North Carolina basketball is definitely another. Don't believe it? This week's Mailbag includes questions from six different states, and that's not even counting the questions we weren't able to use this week.
And, yes, a question about Damion Grant is included.
I've noticed that the Tar Heels have 5 home games and 3 road games in the first half of the conference schedule, while Duke has 3 home games and 5 road games. I always thought each team played 4 home games and 4 road games during each half of the conference schedule. Is there any reason for the imbalanced schedule? With 5 road games to go, this makes the hole the Heels have dug for themselves even bigger. Hopefully by the second half of the conference schedule they will have learned how to win on the road.
Todd Lucas, Huntsville, AL
Actually, this is the seventh year in a row that Carolina has had the 5-3 split in ACC scheduling. This year, five ACC teams (State, Virginia, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, and Clemson) evenly divide each half of their schedule between home and road games, while the other four teams split five and three (Maryland and Duke are the teams that go on the road just three times in the second half). In the old days, which in the ACC is defined as pre-Florida State, the league office did indeed try to ensure that each team had an equal share of home and road games in each half of the season. But with the Seminoles creating an odd number of teams in the league, it's no longer possible. Last year, the Tar Heels had five home games in the second half of the season and went 4-1 in those games, a strong finishing kick. They'll need to steal a couple on the recently unfriendly road to have a shot at an upper-division finish this year.
y the way, Todd isn't related, which we know for sure because he's too smart to be related to a sportswriter. He works for NASA, whereas I can't even spell NASA.
During the Clemson game Sean May was consistently out-positioned, played, jumped.... I read recently where his practice time is limited for fear of re-injuring his foot. Is lack of practice time beginning to affect his play and continuing to impair his stamina?
Duane Alexander, Jacksonville, FL
Sean May has definitely overtaken Rashad McCants as the most analyzed player on this year's squad. You're right, the coaching staff has been cautious with his conditioning because of warnings from the medical staff that a stress fracture is more likely to reoccur in the year after it happens. That's caused him to tire more easily than coaches, fans, and definitely Sean himself would like.
ut it's also true--and Sean would be the first to tell you this--that he needs to improve his performance when he is on the floor. His second-half minutes were limited against Clemson because of defensive breakdowns in the post, especially when the Tigers' Sharrod Ford consistently got solid inside position in the first 20 minutes on his way to 11 first-half points. "It was guarding the post," Roy Williams said after the game. "I don't pick on one player. If you're stinking it up I don't just take you out. I just felt that at that time he wasn't playing as well as someone else would at that point."
Williams has talked repeatedly about May's savvy, and while that's a positive, it also means that he is constantly thinking about his game. At times in the past few weeks, it has almost appeared that he is thinking too much. The staff has emphasized to the post players that if they take more than one dribble in the paint, they are drawing the defense to them and increasing the risk of turnovers. At the beginning of the year, when he was regularly posting double-doubles and dominating games, May was usually taking one dribble and going straight up with the ball. As he has lost some confidence, he has also been less assertive.
With the exception of Damion Grant (2 minutes) and Byron Sanders (5 minutes) Coach Williams used a 7 man rotation against Clemson. Granted other players have seen action for a minute here and there during games but since David Noel returned from his injury the 7 man rotation has been basically set. Now I know Coach Roy is the expert at coaching and not me so this may sound dumb but here goes: If you can will you ask him to explain why not use Grant (if he is indeed healthy), Sanders, Terry, Bohlander, and others more to at least be able to use full court press defense more without wearing out the original 7 man rotation's legs.
Henry Jenkins, Asheboro, NC
The bottom line is that the reserves have to earn playing time--they're not going to get it just because the starters need rest. Damion Grant was inserted into the Clemson game to provide a bit of post defense and immediately made a defensive error. When things like that happen, it lessens the chance of players earning more time. Williams also sees his reserves in practice every day. If one of them makes a move and begins to prove they need more minutes, it will happen.
Until then, the goal is to find a way to make the seven-man rotation work. To that end, Carolina has worked recently on installing some parts of the point zone, which provides a bit more rest than the typical frenetic man-to-man defense. And although you mentioned full-court press defense, Roy Williams actually isn't a big believer in the press. Most of Carolina's normal defensive sets pick up defensively at the midcourt line.
So, here I am watching a great game between Carolina and NC State until the end of the secong half. David Noel (I think) went one on one to the hoop against Marcus Melvin. The NC State player just grabs Noel in an intentional effort to stop him from getting to the hole. I thought something like that should be intentional. This foul also got me thinking. All of those that you normally see at the end of a close game; shouldn't all of those fouls be intentional as well?
Andy Bailey, Chattanooga, TN
Rule 4, Section 26, Article 6 of the college basketball rule book reads this way:
"An intentional foul shall be a personal foul that, on the basis of an official's observation of the act, is not a legitimate attempt to directly play the ball or the player. Determination of whether a personal foul is intentional shall not be based on the severity of the act. Examples include, but are not limited to:
a. Fouling a player who is away from the ball and not directly involved with the play. b. Contact with a player making a throw-in. c. Holding or pushing an opponent in order to stop the game clock. d. Pushing a player from behind to prevent a score. e. Causing excessive contact with an opponent while playing the ball."
As you can see, although some commentators might erroneously tell you that as long as a defender plays the ball, it's not intentional, that is not correct. Given the above description, Melvin's foul probably should have been ruled intentional. But officials usually try not to decide the game in the closing minutes, and the referee in question might have felt that a two-shot penalty plus the ball was too harsh a penalty at that point in the game. Of course, the rulebook doesn't mention anything about an intentional foul not being an intentional foul if it happens in the last five minutes of a close game.
It might be time for the NCAA to revisit their "intentional foul" rule and perhaps use a different wording. The way it's being enforced now is too inconsistent and too subject to interpretation.
We all know Coach Smith was pretty stingy with timeouts, I'm curious to know just how stingy he really was. If he could have carried over unused time outs from one season to the next, how many would he have had when he retired?
Tonja Kinsey, Virginia Beach, VA
Tonja, you've stumped us. But you can be sure that the answer is at least one more than the amount Michigan had left at the end of the 1993 championship game.
How do you get young players to believe in patience, restraint, wisdom and coolness in the heat of the moment, looking for the best shot, a better pass or driving for the foul with the game on the line? It feels like the constant running is keeping them out front in the first half but also getting them tired for end of the game winning shots and more important, weaving and moving without the ball to get a better shot. What do you think?
Eli Evans, New York
Fatigue has definitely been a factor for this team, both in the post and, less noticeably, at the point guard position. Raymond Felton has averaged a staggering 37.7 minutes per game in ACC play. As mentioned above, Roy Williams has begun to install the point zone in order to combat that problem, and he'll continue to try and steal a minute or two with the bench whenever possible.
As for your first question, the basic (and probably too simple) answer is that they have to see that approach work repeatedly in order to believe in it. When you've got four or five players on the floor who are all used to taking--and making--the big shot in the closing moments of the game, it may take a little longer for them to realize that at the ACC level, going one-on-one at the end of games probably won't create much success.
I have noticed a distinct difference between the RPI rankings and the Sagarin rankings and was wondering if you could provide some insight on each. I understand the NCAA relies heavily on the RPI rankings, making them far more important, but in terms of accuracy, which is more reliable in your opinion?
Jim White, Richmond, Virginia
The main difference you're probably noticing is this: the RPI ratings begin each season from scratch, with no date from prior seasons. That's not true for the Sagarin ratings, which factor in past performance from the past few seasons at the beginning of each season. That means that the accuracy really depends on when you want to look at them--the RPI can be fairly useless until about January 1, when teams have played enough games to make them meaningful. But once there's enough data to format the ratings, the RPI (which is intended to measure the strength of schedule and how a team fares against that schedule) is probably the best ranking around, and certainly better than the meaningless polls that come out each week. The primary difference between the two formulas, other than what's listed above, is that Sagarin takes into account the margin of victory and the game location.
Other RPI tidbits: the NCAA gives bonuses to teams for beating opponents in the RPI top 50 and for scheduling half of a squad's nonconference games against top 50 competition. There are deductions for losing a game against a team below the top 150 and for scheduling at least half a nonconference schedule against teams below the top 150. The basic RPI formula is 25 percent team winning percentage, 50 percent opponents' average winning percentage, and 25 percent opponents' opponents' average winning percentage.
If you're interested, Carolina's RPI as of Sunday according to collegerpi.com was 18. Teams in the top 40 are usually considered a safe bet for NCAA Tournament inclusion.
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.
