Lucas: UNC Basketball Mailbag December 6

December 6, 2005 | Men's Basketball

By: UNC Athletic Communications

Dec. 6, 2005

By Adam Lucas

Ticket questions are popular here at Mailbag World Headquarters. Carolina basketball tickets are extremely hard to find, of course, so it's only reasonable that fans want to know the best way to secure seats at the Smith Center. Here's the good news: individual tickets for the next four home games are still available through the UNC ticket office. Just click here and pick the game that best suits your schedule. One thing about this team: it doesn't really matter who the opponent is, because they're going to play hard no matter what.

Now it's time for our annual obsessive request. Please, please, please, in the name of Dean Smith, Bill Guthridge, and James Worthy, don't send in questions that spell "Tar Heels" as one word. Yes, it's a minor detail and maybe one day the therapy will solve our obsession. Until then, it's the equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard. And trust us, you don't want to anger Lauren Brownlow, the Keeper of the Mailbag (who, incidentally, prepared a pretty cool fact sheet on the Carolina-Duke rivalry, so shoot her an email for more info).

Now, I know you don't like to talk recruits, so I will couch this question in last year's defections. (Though, for the record, your commentary offers me hope: "Like May, Hansbrough is likely to fully blossom when he's paired with another true frontcourt presence with similar skills and rebounding ferocity, something Carolina doesn't have this year--but is on the way for the 2006-07 season.")

Anyway, my question regards how Carolina (and other schools) manage scholarships in a world of uncertainty. I believe ESPN analysts tonight said that Wes Miller is not currently on scholarship. With four of Carolina's underclassmen leaving early this year, why wouldn't a guy in the rotation receive a scholarship? And how would Carolina distribute scholarships if say May, Felton and Williams all decided to stay? Finally, with the announcement of next year's heralded class of 6, and only four seniors on the roster, what happens to the guys holding the short end of the stick?

Mike Lucarelli, Vancouver, Canada

Have you ever noticed how in basketball circles (at least on the internet), people who don't like to talk about recruiting are always regarded somewhat suspiciously? It's like a crackpot English professor who doesn't want to discuss Shakespeare. People just assume there's something wrong with you. Just to be clear, we've never said recruiting isn't important. It's very important. It's just that worrying about which hat a 17-year-old will pull out of a bag is something coaches get paid to do, and there's so much silly speculation in the field that it makes it virtually impossible to get reasonable information on recruiting unless you work in the basketball office. Here's the key question: does his track record suggest that Roy Williams will bring in good recruiting classes? Yes. So wake us up when they get to campus (it used to be, "Wake us up when they sign," but the whole J.R. Smith situation forced us to change our mantra).

Whew, now that we've got that out of our system we can actually get to your question. Scholarship questions are popular in the Mailbag. One thing to remember is that the NCAA's much-hated 5/8 rule (5 scholarships in any one year, 8 scholarships over any 2-year period) has been eliminated. The only scholarship restriction to keep in mind is that teams can have a maximum of 13 players on scholarship at any given time.

Unfortunately, you can't believe everything you hear on ESPN. Wes Miller, who is one of the best stories of the early season, came to UNC as an invited walk-on. However, he is on scholarship this year. Since the Tar Heels only had 9 players on scholarship (well below the limit of 13), it made sense to give Miller a grant. However, he fully realizes that if 13 recruited players are on scholarship next year, he'll go back to walk-on status, and he's fine with that.

Scholarships certainly would have been distributed differently this year if everyone from last year's team had stayed. However, Roy Williams has said he knew in January Rashad McCants was planning to enter the Draft. And most everyone around Carolina basketball knew that unless Raymond Felton had an absolutely horrendous year, he was also going pro. May and Marvin Williams were the surprises, but even if you add them back in and keep Mike Copeland (who was added late as an insurance policy against the early defections) you've still got a scholarship to give to Miller for this year.

Two scholarship players, David Noel and Byron Sanders, leave the team after this year. That takes the number on scholarship to seven for next year--add six freshmen and the number is 13. Unless there is another unexpected departure, that means Miller is probably headed back to walk-on status, but that has absolutely no bearing on his value to the team or place in the rotation.

Through the Illinois game it seems that the Tar Heels have struggled shooting from the perimeter (18 for 58 through 4 games with a lackluster 2-13 from three against Illinois). I was hoping Marcus Ginyard or Reyshawn Terry would be reliable from three this year. Are the Heels just not in mid-season form yet or does this team lack true 3-point shooters?
Allen Crawford, Knoxville, TN

It's really not fair to Allen to use this question after Carolina's perimeter explosion against Kentucky, but hey, life (and the Mailbag) ain't fair.

Carolina probably does not have the designated zone-buster--the guy you can always count on to make 3 or 4 three-pointers each game--this year. There's no Rashad McCants standing around the arc keeping opposing defenses honest.

The Tar Heels will try to compensate for that by employing a three-pointer-by-committee strategy. Four Tar Heels attempted at least two three-pointers per game last season--Raymond Felton, Melvin Scott, Jawad Williams and Rashad McCants. Through five games, this year's squad has six players hoisting at least two per game--David Noel, Wes Miller, Reyshawn Terry, Marcus Ginyard, Bobby Frasor and Danny Green. The number of attempts per game haven't gone up--in fact, even counting Saturday's 27-attempt performance against Kentucky, the Tar Heels are averaging 17 three-point attempts per game, a full 1.5 per game less than last year--but they've been more evenly distributed.

You can look at that two ways. Either it's bad because there's no designated three-point marksman to turn to when a key three is needed or it's good because all six of those players are unlikely to have bad shooting days during the same game. Which is closer to the truth? Ask us again in about six weeks. As teams continue to try and take away Tyler Hansbrough's presence in the offense, it's reasonable to expect that three-point attempts will be very important over the next few games.

One other reason for the decline in three-point attempts this year--almost everyone on the roster has an unusually well developed midrange game. The first players that come to mind in that category are Terry and Green, but even a true guard like Frasor and a post like Noel have shown the ability to hit a 15-18 foot jumper. Most college offenses are two-dimensional--they either bang it inside or fire a three-pointer. Through five games, Carolina's midrange attack has been very effective and provided a nice alternative to the two extremes.

1. Could you tell me the official list of new Tar Heels that will have their jerseys in the rafters? I know may will be there, pretty sure Felton will, McCants and Williams not so sure about

2. Could you elaborate on what exactly the 'scramble defense' does? I've been hearing a lot about it lately and wouldn't mind some details.

Justin Sands, Philadelphia

1. May, Felton, and McCants will all have honored jerseys (not retired). May and Felton made it based on last year's exploits, while McCants's status as a second-team All-American during his sophomore campaign earned him the honor.

2. If you don't mind reliving some (hopefully) happy memories, we've got just the answer for this question. Check out the Tar Heel Monthly story linked here for the basics on Carolina's variety of defenses. The story originally ran last year at this time, so it contains some quotes from some players no longer with the Tar Heels, but the basic principles remain the same.

If you feel like you've seen more liberal use of the Scramble over the first five games, you're correct. But that doesn't necessarily mean it will become a staple of this year's squad. "Each year I always do a lot of searching to try and find out what is good for our team," Roy Williams said recently. "If we're still scrambling this much late in the year that means we're really good at it. With such a young team, I'm trying to find out what we are good at and then we'll emphasize that more than anything else."

I'm a dedicated reader that's been following the mailbag for a couple of years now. I think your team has done a fantastic job of keeping me in the Chapel Hill loop, even though I'm now very far away in NYC. I've always been intrigued by the statistics exercises you push yourselves through and, needless to say, the outcome is always very eye-opening (especially the eerily foreshadowing 1993 championship team comparison vs. the 2005 Heels--ed. note: That continues to be one of the most popular Mailbag topics ever, click here for the final season-in-review version).

In any case, I'm writing because in watching tonight's game against Illinois, my friend and I were having a discussion about points down versus minutes left. With 9 minutes left, the Tar Heels were only 9 points behind the Illini. I contended that as long our point differential was less than the minutes remaining (+/- 1), that the Heels would have at least a 50% chance to win. He said this was a daggum lie and that a team that was behind, going into the final stretch, has a much lower percentage of winning. Can you help settle our debate? What are the chances of winning so long as the Tar Heels point differential stays w/in the minutes left?

Steve Rowell, New York City

OK, we're using this email even though it might as well have been titled, "Warning! Uninformed statistical analysis certain to be ripped by stats professors ahead!"

It sounds like you're asking a probability question. In other words, what's Carolina's probability of winning if they're behind by X points with Y minutes to go? We'd love to give you a simple formula for this, but we don't think it exists (this is when stats professors will write in and explain how we're wrong). The problem is that it depends too much on other variables. If it was just Carolina playing in a vacuum with no opponent, it might be possible to determine a probability. But the outcome also depends on unquantifiable factors such as the performance of the other team, nerves, the foul situation, those darn free throws, and much more.

If anything, we'd say your equation is a good rule of thumb to keep in mind, but it's not a hard and fast formula. But we're interested to hear what others think.

Hope you're doing well (in an effort to save you time, as I know you get tons of emails, I'll end the brown-nosing there and move straight to my comments).

First, in the 11/29 edition of the mailbag, someone mentioned that games over holiday breaks should be on a first come, first served basis. I'm not a member of the CAA, so I have no say in what goes on with these tickets, but I will say that under the current system if you have a ticket that you aren't going to use you can take it to the will call window and just tell them "this is an extra ticket I won't be using, if any students come and want a seat, give them this." I have a ticket on the top row to every game, but I can usually find a better ticket (through friends, etc.), and if I do I just drop my top row ticket off at will call. Whether it gets given out or not, I don't know, but the more people that know this is an option, the better.

Moving on to my question...What happens at the end of this season when (hopefully) another banner-worthy season is completed? I thought that moving the US and NC flags to the middle of the Dome would create 6 or 7 years worth of space, but with the new National Championship banners we're right back to the same problem we had last year: too many banners, too little space.

David Staley, Chapel Hill

What's this about limiting the brown-nosing? Who made that rule? Now our self-esteem is going to plummet and we'll have to find someone else to suck up to us.

Thanks for the information on the ticket exchange. Hopefully fans with unused tickets over the holidays will keep it in mind. And by the way, if anyone needs an extra ticket, it sounds like David is your man (no, we won't pass along his email address so you can ask him for Duke tickets).

Look for a major banner reorganization at some point soon, possibly as soon as this coming summer. You're likely to see some different groupings (rather than the chronological order used now) that will free up some space for plenty of future accomplishments.

What in the world happened to our basketball jerseys? When did Carolina add grey as a color?

Why is Carolina, one of the premier basketball programs in the country, wearing copycat uniforms from Nike? I've seen them on Duke, Maryland, and Michigan. Who else has them?

Obviously, the NC uniforms were a complete debacle and I was pleased when we returned to the pattern similar to that of the original Alexander Julian. My question - why cant we go back to the original 3-color argyle? It was completely classy and uniquely Carolina. We have a tradition of excellence and should not be rotating our jerseys every couple years in the name of licensing revenues.

James Vanke, Atlanta, GA

Hey, did anyone notice Carolina wore different jerseys against Illinois?

Mailbag answer: only the hundreds of people who wrote to ask about them, with many of the emails coming before the game was even over. Because many of those emails came to the incorrect email address, we're taking this opportunity to remind you the submission email address <="" href="mailto:uncmailbag@gmail.com">.

Now for the good news: the jerseys the Tar Heels wore against Illinois were a one-time thing. Lately Nike has been branding some of their top programs as "Elite" schools. You might have noticed the thing that looks like a basketball on the neckline changed to silver last season. That was part of the Elite designation, and the silver/gray shoulder coloring was another way to further that branding. As James noticed, several other Nike teams (including Illinois) in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge wore similar jerseys. At least at Carolina, they won't be worn again.

The Carolina basketball jersey is a constantly evolving product. That's due in large part to the fact that Nike knows some fans will buy a new jersey any time there's a small change, so expect to see continued very minor adjustments in future years. The use of navy has been more pronounced recently, but there are no current plans for a dreaded navy (or black) alternate jersey to be worn in a game.

Interestingly, the blue Carolina wore in the Stackhouse era was much more of an electric shade that what the Heels wear currently, which is easing back toward powder blue. The Alumni Review did a terrific story on the "true" Carolina blue a couple years ago, and the basic answer was that everyone has a different answer. Officially, the true Pantone Carolina blue is PMS 278. Three other colors are used in the official logos: deep blue (Pantone 282), silver (Pantone 877), and metallic silver (Pantone 429).

Brownlow's Down Low

ESPN.com has been running a fantasy NCAA basketball tourney with the greatest players from each school. Typically, the players have great offensive skills. Then I watched the young Tar Heels play some excellent defense in the last five minutes and come within a rebound of knocking off Illinois. I was wondering if the folks at mailbag have an All-time UNC defensive team. Without the resources of a record book to go by, my team includes Dick Grubar, Bobby Jones, Sam Perkins, MJ, George Karl, Steve Previs, George Lynch, Dudley Bradley, Jackie Manuel and Rick Fox. I based my criteria on steals, hustle, rebounds, blocked shots and just plain being in the mix. MVP goes to Bobby Jones (O that steal against Duke!). In the pros, he had to guard Dr. J all the time.
Dick Rabil, Gaithersburg, MD

Lauren writes: Before I give the list of the best all-time individual players, I wanted to recognize some great Tar Heel team defensive performances (out of respect for Coach Smith).

Don't ever say that defense doesn't win championships. The 1981-82 squad held their opponents to an average of 55.4 points over 34 games - compare that with the next-lowest number, 62.3 points a game over 24 games, and that was in 1959-1960. (The average number of points allowed in most of the 1950s was in the 60's.) The 1992-93 team had 357 steals, second best in Carolina history, and bested only by last year's championship team with 262 steals. The '93-'94 squad had the most blocks in a season with 219 blocks.

Unfortunately, the problem with recognizing individual defensive achievement is that steals and blocks were not tracked until the 1975-1976 season. So, while my list is biased towards more recent players, I did my best to include some of the older ones.

First Team

1. Derrick Phelps - Probably one of the best, if not the best, defensive point guards to play in the ACC, not just Carolina - despite the fact that he didn't slap the floor as much as more heralded defensive point guards. His 247 career steals rank first in Carolina history and 10th in ACC history. Without the Phelps back bruise in the ACC Tournament, do the Heels win that title on their way to the national championship? Without the Phelps concussion, does the talented 1993-1994 squad get knocked out in the second round of the NCAA tournament by Boston College? Here's a better question - with Raymond Felton, do the Tar Heels lose to Santa Clara? I didn't think so. And Phelps wasn't half the shooter Felton was. If that's not the best indicator of his defensive prowess, I don't know what is.

2. Michael Jordan - If you ever get a chance to watch highlight footage of Michael at Carolina, do it. His insane quickness and great basketball instincts allowed him to step in countless passing lanes and snatch balls away (169, to be exact), then usually take them the other way for some sort of spectacular dunk. (Afterwards, Coach Smith would probably pull him aside and tell him that Kenny Smith was open.) Or if anyone tried to shoot on him, he was definitely capable of swatting it away, and he managed to do that 71 times.

3. George Lynch - Along with teammate Phelps, he is one of the best defensive players in Carolina and ACC history. He was all hustle and all heart, but he also has the stats to back it up: His 241 steals rank just behind Phelps in Carolina history, and 12th in ACC history. But Lynch is also known for being the heart and soul of that national championship squad - and since his team voted him MVP, his jersey hangs in the rafters.

4. Sam Perkins - For a post player that chose his jersey number (41) based on his sleeve length, it might not be that impressive that he logged 245 career blocks, a number that still ranks second all-time in Carolina history. But Perkins also logged an impressive 125 steals, and his quickness and hustle enabled him to guard anyone from Ralph Sampson to a two-guard.

5. Brendan Haywood - His whopping 304 career blocks rank first by an almost 60-block margin in Carolina history, 8th in ACC history. His 2000-01 season of 120 blocks is also first in Carolina history and 8th in ACC history. You'd be hard-pressed to find a harder worker on the defensive end of the floor, and he helped lead that team to one of the best field-goal percentage defenses in the country.

Second Team

1. Raymond Felton - He led the Tar Heels in steals all three years he was here, ending up with 192 total. As Dick Vitale put it, Raymond was a master at "using defense to create offense", intercepting passes and slapping balls away to start the Heels' notorious fast-break offense last year. He wasn't just the floor general on offense; the defensive intensity of last year's squad usually ebbed and flowed with Raymond Felton.

2. Jackie Manuel - His 148 career steals are not an impressive stat on their own. But any Carolina fan who paid attention during his career knows that those long arms and quick feet still haunt the dreams of the best players in the ACC. Like J.J. Redick, the sharpshooter whom Jackie limited to 15-46 from the field and 11-34 from the three-point line.

3. Rick Fox - He wasn't just a pretty face, after all. Sure, he played for the Lakers, acted in movies, married (and divorced) Vanessa Williams, but he got 197 steals as a Tar Heel (third in Carolina history) and had a reputation as hard-working, quick defender.

4. Dudley Bradley - He led the team in steals his junior and senior seasons, and his 97 steals in the 1978-79 season is still a Tar Heel best and No. 2 in ACC history. He also had what was perhaps the most famous steal in Tar Heel history, snatching the ball from N.C. State's Clyde Austin and jamming it home, just in time to avoid a 1-point Tar Heel loss after they had blown a 20-point lead.

5. Scott Williams - His play was physical enough to cause an altercation between Coach K and Dean Smith, and he was just an all-around tough player who didn't give up. His height helped him get his 160 blocks, to be sure, but he also managed 140 steals.

Others that deserve mention:

1. George Karl - Nicknamed the "Kamikaze Kid" for his penchant to dive for loose balls.

2. Steve Previs - A Dean Smith favorite for his hard work on the defensive end.

3. Bobby Jones - He got the game-clenching steal and basket to give the Tar Heels a two-point victory at Cameron. He made the NBA's first team All-Defensive squad eight years. He was described as having uncanny instincts on the court and great ability to anticipate passes.

4. Ademola Okulaja - He was a player who was all over the place, all the time, throwing his body around to get to loose balls. He overcame a relative lack of quickness (compared to classmates Carter and Jamison) to get 175 steals.

5. Joe Forte - His defensive skills might not be as memorable because of his offensive prowess and his relatively short career at Carolina, but in only two seasons he managed to get 121 steals. And his 16 rebounds (a record number by a Carolina guard) were a big reason the Heels managed to beat Duke at Cameron in 2001.

6. Rasheed Wallace - `Sheed was quite the intimidating presence in the low post, and proved it with more than his intensity - he logged 156 blocks in just two seasons, and even managed six in one game against Georgetown in the NCAA second round. His '93-'94 season of 93 blocks is second in Carolina history only to Haywood's 120-block season.

7. Kevin Salvadori - Don't look so surprised - Salvadori somehow managed 174 career blocks while playing three out of four seasons as a reserve. It is especially impressive when you take into consideration that his low-post counterpart who started, Eric Montross, had five fewer blocks in his career (169).

8. Ronald Curry - Never quite got his jumpshot back, but was able to use his quickness to play great defense on some of the league's best players.

9. Mike O'Koren - His mindset was simple: no one would outwork him. His offensive output for the Heels netted him three-time All-America honors, but the evidence that his determination paid off on the defensive end is clear - 183 steals.

10. Kenny Smith - By his own admission, "the Jet" benefited from a smothering trap defense and used his scorching quickness to pick off passes and take them back the other way for dunks. But the numbers speak for themselves - 197 steals.

This year's team has plenty of hustle players that could one day be mentioned in this discussion. David Noel was half of the duo that held J.J. Redick scoreless in the second half last year against Duke, and I'm sure we all remember his impressive steal last year during the N.C. State game, followed by a "rock the cradle" dunk - his words, not mine. (Although, I guess it might be a little hard to remember that after that ridiculous dunk--ed. note (again) Tar Heel Monthly subscribers can look forward to a terrific full-page high-flying shot of that dunk in our next issue--against Kentucky on Saturday.) Marcus Ginyard already has 10 steals, and Danny Green has five blocks coming off the bench. Bobby Frasor and Wes Miller combined to play great defense on Dee Brown, holding him to 6-19 from the field (0-6 from the three-point line) and harassing him into five turnovers. As a team, the Heels have already forced 94 turnovers in five games - that's an average of almost 19 a game.

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.