University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Report Card Not Pretty for Tar Heels
December 27, 2005 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 27, 2005
By Adam Lucas
At the first practice after every Tar Heel basketball game, Carolina players get their report card.
Not the computer-generated kind where Mrs. Smith writes comments in the margin. It's the handwritten kind delivered by one of their coaches.
But at Monday night's practice session--the first time the Tar Heels had practiced since the 74-59 loss at Southern Cal--the reports took much less time than usual.
"It was the first game in two years that we haven't had a defensive award winner or a good plays award winner," Roy Williams said.
A little explanation: when Carolina coaches review game tape, they watch every player on every possession. It's a detailed process that requires approximately one hour per half of basketball (remember, they don't have to watch commercials). Players can receive multiple "good checks" and "bad checks" on every possession. For example, defensively David Noel might get a good check for his post defense, a good check for his defense on the ball, and a bad check for failing to box out. Good checks and bad checks are added up, and the player with the best ratio of good checks to bad checks on defense is that game's defensive award winner.
Winning the award requires at least a 2:1 good-to-bad ratio, and the winner receives two "plus points," which can be used throughout the season to excuse a player from post-practice conditioning. The fact that no Tar Heel reached that threshold is an even better indicator of the poor performance than any other stat--although the gloomy 57.1% second-half field goal percentage for the Trojans comes close.
Carolina players and coaches scattered for Christmas break immediately following the game. While most players were heading home for some much-needed recovery time, Williams was on the road, making several stops to watch members of Carolina's recruiting class of 2006 play in holiday tournaments.
"I'm sure the team was glad it was Christmas so they could get away from me," Williams said. "I would've liked to get right back to work on it rather than waiting five days or whatever it was to show them the tape."
The tape revealed several glaring deficiencies--Williams called it "a total breakdown in every area of the game for us." Defense will get most of the attention, but the 59 points (only 24 in the second half) also reveal some offensive problems.
Carolina point guards turned the ball over 7 times against just 9 assists, Tyler Hansbrough took just 7 shots, and the Tar Heels accumulated a season-high 25 turnovers. As the squad's overall field goal percentage has gone down--the team has shot better than 47 percent from the field in just one of the past four games after reaching that mark in all of the first four contests--the number of three-point attempts has increased. Carolina has attempted 86 trifectas in the past four games, a 67 percent increase over their first four games.
"We have to do a better job of getting the ball inside before we take the first outside shot we look at," Williams said. "We have to have better execution. Everybody has a job on every play and you have to do your part of the play. Whatever your assignment is, you have to do that to the best of your ability."
Notes: Wednesday night's game against UNC-Asheville is Carolina's second contest of the season against an in-state school that's not part of the ACC. Dean Smith preferred not to play those schools, reasoning that trying to play every in-state school would certainly result in someone being left out. "My feeling is I don't mind playing in-state schools, but we're not going to play them at their home court because we can't do it for everybody," Williams said. "When we play those schools home and away it takes away our opportunity to travel some and play some of those Carolina-Kentucky or Carolina-Connecticut games."...The game against the Bulldogs, which has an 8 p.m. tipoff, is a sellout.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.
