University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: The Closer
November 16, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 16, 2006
By Adam Lucas
CHARLOTTE--Somebody get Marcus Ginyard an entrance song.
That's what the ace closers are supposed to have, right? The manager looks into the bullpen, taps his right arm, the stadium lights start to flash, and then the speakers are pumping with "Hell's Bells" or "Enter Sandman."
That's how Ginyard should enter a game, because he's turned into Carolina's closer.
For most of the first half Wednesday night, he sat on the Tar Heel bench and watched Winthrop's Torrell Martin pile up three-pointers. At first Martin simply had a nice little hot streak going, but by halftime, when he had already tied his career high with six three-pointers and notched 20 points, he was in danger of joining the Barry brothers, Geoff Brower, Harold Arceneaux, and every other hot-shooting guard who has ever downed the Tar Heels.
Some closers take naps early in the game. Some stretch.
Ginyard simply watched. Maybe took a couple of mental notes. He played just 4 first-half minutes, but he knew his time was coming.
Finally, after Martin began the second half with five quick points in the first 2:50 to raise his game total to 25, Roy Williams had seen enough. He walked down his bench. Forty seconds later, Ginyard entered the game for Reyshawn Terry.
At that point, Torrell Martin was 9-for-13 from the field and 7-for-9 from three-point range. And Ginyard couldn't have been happier.
Martin's tear was unacceptable. And Ginyard was prepared to stop it.
"We can't let a guy go off like that," he said. "That's something that gets our whole team down. So what I love to do is watch a guy get hot, and then I go in and change the game around. "
You caught that, right? He loves it. That's why he's so good at it. Jackie Manuel used to get significant attention for his spidery build and quick first step, a combination that made him a quality defender. But he also had a quiet confidence that no one could score on him--and that if they did somehow manage to put the ball into the basket, it was just a fluke.
Ginyard has that same air about him. He didn't exactly strut onto the court, but it was evident in his expression that he felt Martin's hot streak was over.
"He looked real comfortable out there," Ginyard said. "I tried to take him out of that comfort zone. I wanted to get a little closer to him and go after him aggressively when I was boxing him out to keep him off the boards. I could tell he was getting frustrated. Once I saw that, I knew I was doing something good and wanted to stay in his head."
There's that intangible that is part of Ginyard's defensive package. Physically, he's a good defender. But he also pays attention to subtle details that allow him a window into his opponent's mindset.
"In the first half, I noticed he was really going to the boards hard," Ginyard said. "In the second half, as his shots stopped falling, he was just watching other shots go up and wasn't going to the boards as hard. Then we could hear them talking to each other and yelling, so we knew they were frustrated."
Like all closers, Ginyard had the help of an underappreciated setup man. Danny Green won't get much attention for his performance against the Eagles. He played just 9 minutes because of a sprained ankle, and the stat sheet says he was responsible for just 1 rebound and 1 steal.
But he also may have turned the game. Late in the first half, Winthrop stretched their lead to 38-26. Tywon Lawson went coast-to-coast and fed Tyler Hansbrough for a dunk, and then Green forced a Martin turnover. One possession later, he tied up Martin to force a jump ball; when Carolina regained possession, Bobby Frasor hit Brandan Wright with an alley-oop pass that Wright caught near the top of the square on the backboard and slammed through.
It had looked like the Eagles would enjoy--at minimum--a double-digit halftime lead. Green isn't the most technically sound defender, but his constant harassment of Martin during that one-minute stretch began the Carolina comeback.
"I was trying to make him do something he hadn't done all game, because he had just been catching and shooting," Green said. "I wanted to make him put the ball on the floor and he didn't look comfortable doing it. So I kept after him."
One day, the 73-66 victory could probably go in the Roy Williams and Dean Smith clinic tape as an illustration of why they believe in the power of the big man. Winthrop looked unbeatable when they were firing in 3-pointers at a 53.3% clip in the first half. But Carolina's gamble for the last 40 years has been that the opponent's outside shots will stop falling in time for the Tar Heels' more high-percentage shots--usually taken by players like Hansbrough or Wright--to put the game away.
And that's exactly what happened. Effective field goal percentage is supposed to account for the value of a three-pointer by adding extra emphasis to made shots from beyond the stripe. Even using that formula, though, Carolina still outshot Winthrop, 55.4% to 47.8%.
Martin, by the way, missed his last seven shots and ended the night with those same 25 points he had when Ginyard entered the game.
Be honest, Marcus. When you saw him rack up 20 points, didn't at least a little piece of you want the challenge of stopping him? Just to see if you could close him out?
Ginyard laughs.
"Definitely."
Adam Lucas's third book on Carolina basketball, The Best Game Ever, chronicles the 1957 national championship season and is available now. His previous books include Going Home Again, focusing on Roy Williams's return to Carolina, and Led By Their Dreams, a collaboration with Steve Kirschner and Matt Bowers on the 2005 championship team.
