University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Defense Takes First Steps
December 16, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 16, 2006
By Adam Lucas
There was good news and bad news in the Carolina locker room Thursday afternoon.
The good news: several pieces of cake--OK, it was more like a slab--still remained from Roy Williams's 500th win the previous Saturday.
The bad news: the day's practice plan was already making the rounds, and it essentially eliminated any cake-oriented urges players might have.
"Have you seen the practice plan?" Danny Green said to Wes Miller. "It's all defense."
"A lot of defense?" Miller asked.
"No," Green replied. "All defense."
And that was close to accurate. The Tar Heels did warm up with a couple offensive-oriented drills, including a pair of fast break drills and a secondary break refresher.
But then, for the most part, there was defense. There were quick slides. There were defensive stations. There was the much-loved Drill de Pfieffer, focusing on staying in a stance while moving laterally. There were more defensive stations. There was the deny/help drill. There were more defensive stations.
Opponents were shooting 43 percent against the Tar Heels. To Roy Williams, who knows he has a team stocked with depth, quickness, and athleticism, this qualified as a personal affront. Keep in mind that his first Carolina team allowed opponents to shoot 44 percent and the head coach spent that season threatening to jump out of airplanes on the way home from road trips.
So he put his squad through a two-day defensive boot camp. The Tar Heels weren't guarding the ball very well. They weren't defending the ball screen very well. They were occasionally making mistakes on simple fundamentals like closing out on a shooter.
What they did Saturday against UNC-Asheville, however, might have been even worse than any of those transgressions: they proved they could do it the right way. On the Bulldogs' very first possession, Carolina's starting five forced Asheville to use 34 seconds of the shot clock and then settle for an off-balance jumper by K.J. Garland. Four minutes later, the Tar Heels forced another shot clock violation. Less than a minute later, they forced another 35-second infraction.
Within the first six minutes of the game, they'd played 35 full seconds of turnover-forcing defense for the first time in several weeks.
"We were just being more aware," Marcus Ginyard said. "Everyone was aware of what was going on. If there was a double-team, the guy who was supposed to rotate was aware of it and was where he was supposed to be. Everybody was boxing out and everybody was talking."
He was provided with the easy way out and prompted with the suggestion that, two full months after Late Night, perhaps the newfound awareness was because the young Tar Heels were more accustomed to playing together.
He wasn't buying it.
"I don't think that has anything to do with it," he said. "Everybody should be aware of where the ball is anyway. Coach always talks about how there's only one ball out there, so everyone should know where it is."
Despite the early success, UNC-Asheville still shot 46.2% in the first 20 minutes. The Tar Heels clamped down and allowed just 23.3% shooting in the second half, but they've probably provided more fuel for Williams in the two days between Saturday's 93-62 victory and the next outing against Florida Atlantic.
Now they've proved they can play solid team defense some of the time. Don't tell them, but that's the easy part. Any team can do it some of the time. That won't be good enough when ACC play begins in January and it won't be good enough for Williams. He will demand that same level of play all the time. This is a man who hopped out of his seat with 0.6 seconds remaining in a 30-point game to applaud a headlong dive by Surry Wood for a loose ball. He does not take days off, and he does not allow his team to take plays off.
He looked pleased when his team played 28 straight seconds of solid second-half defense up by 30 points, but the pleasure turned to exasperation when a freshman committed an unnecessary foul 35 feet from the basket to bail out the Bulldogs.
"In spurts, we weren't as focused as we needed to be," Ginyard said.
He didn't need to see Sunday's practice plan to know what was in store. Most exams are finished, the campus is beginning to empty, and Williams has uninterrupted teaching time ahead of him. After watching his team look a little rusty offensively, Williams promised to spend some time fine-tuning the offense in the days to come.
But Ginyard has been around long enough to know what's in store over the next few days.
"Defensive emphasis," he said. "There's going to be some definite defensive emphasis."
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.
