University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: UNC Basketball Mailbag
November 13, 2007 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 13, 2007
By Adam Lucas
Welcome back, loyal Mailbag readers. I feel like we should exchange hugs and talk about how much we've all grown.
By now, you know the drill. Lauren Brownlow is this column's traffic cop--all questions can be sent to her. Make sure to include your name and hometown. We answer Mailbag questions in two ways: Lauren and I take care of questions every Tuesday on this site, and Jones Angell, Eric Montross, and I answer a handful during every Tar Heel Sports Network pregame show. The segment usually happens around 30-40 minutes before tipoff.
Some preemptive answers to frequently asked questions:
1. We can't answer recruiting questions. At all. Unless you want to be responsible for the NCAA throwing the Tar Heels in the pokey.
2. Single-game tickets are currently on sale. Just three games remain, plus singles for the Valparaiso contest. Just one of those games is before Christmas, so tickets can also be a gift idea.
Speaking of tickets, this is a good place to announce the beginning of the year's first Mailbag contest. As you might have heard, YouTube is a popular little website. We want to see your very best Carolina Basketball-related YouTube clips. Ideally, these would be original creations and not highlights some guy loaded of the Shaw game. The deadline for submissions is Nov. 27 and shortly after that we'll have a column featuring all the best entries. The entry Lauren and I like the best will win some combinations of tickets to a game and Tar Heel hoops-related books. The more creative, the better. For example, if you act out the final five minutes of the 1993 title game using Legos and/or your friends, you've got a good shot.
Oh, and one late-breaking bit of radio news which should be welcomed by our Charlotte readers: WRFX 99.7 FM has agreed to a 3-year deal to broadcast basketball games that begin at 7 p.m. or later. That should give the Charlotte area much better evening coverage.
On to the questions:
My question to you is, how does this year's non-conference schedule stack up against some of the other more difficult ones the Heels have played, and has there been any relationship between non-conference schedule difficulty and NCAA tournament performance against expectations? I do know that the 1999-2000 non-conference schedule was one of the most difficult ever with Cincinnati, Mich. St., Louisville, Kentucky and the Heels exceeded their NCAA expectations that year with a surprise Final Four. I know last year the non-conference was not nearly as difficult, and we didn't live up to expectations obviously in the tournament.
John from Raleigh, NC
It depends on how you define "difficult." For example, the 2005 team played just two ranked teams during their nonconference schedule and still managed to win the national title. The number of nonconference ranked teams played during the last 10 years:
2007: 3 (Elite Eight)
2006: 1 (Round of 32)
2005: 2 (National champion)
2004: 3 (Round of 32)
2003: 4 (NIT)
2002: 3 (Season never actually happened, it's all in your imagination)
2001: 1 (Round of 32)
2000: 4 (Final Four)
1999: 2 (First round)
1998: 3 (Final Four)
By the way, the worst thing about the above list is that 1998 now qualifies as ten seasons ago. For someone like me who still counts those Carter/Williams/Jamison/Cota teams as some of my favorites, that's sobering.
Back to the question--it's hard to find an exact correlation. And nonconference scheduling isn't as big an issue for Carolina, because the Tar Heels are always going to play good teams in tough environments during the ACC schedule.
I'm sure we'll have more on this as the season progresses, but the unique part of this year's schedule is the heavy road slate. It's just the third time in the last 20 years that Carolina will have played four true road games by New Year's Day, and this will probably be the most-traveled Tar Heel team since that 1998 squad that went to Richmond, Alaska, Chicago, Charlotte, Tallahassee, Athens (Georgia, not Greece), and Daytona Beach before Dec. 30.
There has been a lot of talk about Carolina's ability (and occasional inability) to knock down three point shots. I was wondering, does three point shooting directly effect the success of Tar Heel basketball teams historically? The Heels dropped 100 points on Shaw last weekend before a three point shot went in. Speaking of threes, will we have a new "Biscuits" this year?
Jordan Shamp
Jordan, I thought this was a great question...until I started looking up the numbers and getting depressed.
The three-point shot was instituted for the 1986-87 season. Since then, Carolina's best three-point shooting teams are as follows:
1987: 43.6%
1988: 43.0%
1995: 41.0%
2005: 40.3%
1991: 39.8%
There are three Final Four teams in that group; one of them is a national champion. The five worst three-point shooting teams are as follows:
1994: 33.0%
2000: 34.3%
2002: 35.0%
2004: 35.1%
2003: 35.3%
There's just one Final Four team in that group; none of the others even advanced to the Sweet 16.
In all, nine Carolina teams have shot less than 37 percent from the three-point line, and the 1998 and 2000 teams are the only ones to advance to the Final Four. The combined three-point accuracy of Carolina's seven Final Four teams during the three-point era is 1,445-3,779 (38.2%). For the record, last year's team made 35.8% of its trifectas.
No one could ever take the place of Dewey "Biscuits" Burke in our hearts and minds. However, good news: the Bojangle's promotion (two sausage biscuits for $1 on the day after Carolina breaks 100 points) is back this year. The best candidates to be biscuit bandits this year are probably Marc Campbell and J.B. Tanner. The latter was able to fire four three-pointers in four minutes of action against Shaw and later admitted he got some half-serious questions in the locker room about whether he needed to ice his arm.
I recently saw a black Michael Jordan UNC jersey in the current uniform style. Is Carolina planning on wearing black basketball uniforms anytime soon?
David Anderson II
Raleigh, North Carolina
David, if you ever say that again I'll hunt you down and ban you from the Smith Center. Despite the fact that one very prominent Carolina team occasionally wore black uniforms (Booo!) last season, don't expect to see that color on the hardwood anytime soon.
Oh, and good news: according to two-time ACC Equipment Manager of the Year Nate Yarbrough, those baseball unis have been shelved. It's safe to watch the Diamond Heels again.
What is the ACC record for the most consecutive ACC Freshman of the Year. By my count we are at 3 in a row, is that the longest? Do any of the players this year qualify for that category and could we reach 4 by the end of this season?
P. Law
Huntington, WV
The ACC record is four straight Rookies of the Year. Georgia Tech did it from 1983-86 with Mark Price, Bruce Dalrymple, Duane Ferrell, and Tom Hammonds.
Other than the Tar Heel trio of Marvin Williams, Tyler Hansbrough, and Brandan Wright, only Duke has had three straight winners--the Blue Devils won with Jim Spanarkel, Mike Gminski, and Gene Banks from 1976-78.
Will Graves is the only eligible Tar Heel this season. He did not play in Friday's exhibition because of a lingering ankle injury but should be available tomorrow night against Davidson.
There have been articles written that the athletic department has a nutritionist that helps the football team with their diet choices. I was wondering, does the nutritionist also serve the basketball team, and what in the world did Deon Thompson eat to help lose all of that weight?
Jeff Warren
Greensboro, NC
You probably saw this story about Jen Ketterly, who works with the athletic department.
One of the unsung heros of Carolina basketball is strength coach Jonas Sahratian, who has been instrumental in helping Thompson reshape his body. The first step was Thompson's recognition that he needed to make a change. After getting a push from Sean May last season, he eliminated some of the late-night Wendy's stops and began to eat smarter. That sounds easy, but as a college student it's easy to fall into a routine of eating whatever's most readily available. Thompson isn't quite on the Hansbrough diet just yet, but he's closer than he was at this time last year.
Brownlow's Down Low
If Tyler Hansbrough were to stay through his senior season, what would he need to average in scoring and rebounding to break the all time UNC records held by Phil Ford and Sam Perkins respectively?
Steve Lapham
Charlotte, NC
First of all, I should point out that Hansbrough already holds the record for highest scoring average by a freshman with 18.9 points per game. However, he does not hold the record for most points by a freshman - that belongs to Joseph Forte, who scored 600 in 36 games in 2000 (when the Tar Heels reached the Final Four and went 22-14). Hansbrough and the 2006 Tar Heels played just 31 games. If Carolina had played even one more game in 2006 then Hansbrough likely would have broken Forte's freshman record as he ended his freshman season with 587 points.
It's hard to know how many games Carolina will play in next season (2008-09) so it's hard to predict what Hansbrough would have to average to break both records. But what we do know is that this year's team could play in a maximum of 39 games (assuming Carolina gets a bye on Day 1 of the ACC Tournament), which would set a new school record. So let's look at what Hansbrough would have to average in a 39-game season to challenge the scoring and rebounding records (just for the sake of argument, of course).
Hansbrough currently ranks 38th on Carolina's career scoring list with 1,286 points. The career scoring leader - Phil Ford, as you correctly pointed out - has 2,290 points (which also ranks tenth in ACC history). Hansbrough needs 1,005 points to break Ford's record, which he could do this season if he averaged 25.8 points per game. Bob Lewis holds the record for best scoring average by a junior with 27.6 points per game. The last Tar Heel to approach a career scoring record in three seasons (or at least reach the top 10) is Antawn Jamison, whose 1,974 points rank seventh all-time. If Hansbrough averaged 17.7 points per game in a theoretical 39-game season, he would pass Jamison.
Hansbrough's rebounding average improved by 0.1 from his freshman to his sophomore season. So assuming that trend continues, let's say Hansbrough averages 8.0 rebounds per game this season. If Carolina played in 39 games, Hansbrough would have 312 rebounds. That would put him at 856 in his career. If Hansbrough wanted to break Perkins' rebounding record this season, he would have to pull down 624 rebounds and - assuming Carolina played 39 games - average 16.0 rebounds per game.
The fewest number of games Carolina has played in since 2003 is 30. So if the 2008-09 season lasted 30 games, that would be 69 games total in two seasons and Hansbrough would have to average 9.0 rebounds per game to break the record. The scoring record would be much more within reach if Hansbrough stayed; he would need to average just 14.6 points per game in 69 games to break Ford's record. Certainly, if Hansbrough broke Antawn Jamison's record of the most points by a junior (822), it would put him at 2,109 career points and much closer to Ford.
There are some career records that are in reach for Hansbrough, senior season or no - free throws. Hansbrough has made 429 free throws in his career which ranks ninth in Carolina history. Lennie Rosenbluth holds the record with 603 made free throws; Hansbrough needs just 174 made free throws this season to break that record, or 4.5 per game in a 39-game season. He has averaged 6.2 per game in his career.
Lennie Rosenbluth also holds the record for career free-throw attempts with 815; Hansbrough would need 326 attempts or an average just 6.4 attempts per game this season to break that record. He has attempted 568 free throws in his career (8.2 per game).
Adam Lucas most recently collaborated on a behind-the-scenes look at Carolina Basketball with Wes Miller. The Road To Blue Heaven is available now. Lucas's other books on Carolina basketball include The Best Game Ever, which chronicles the 1957 national championship season, Going Home Again, which focuses 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.
