University of North Carolina Athletics
Valparaiso Game Guide
December 29, 2007 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 29, 2007
By Lauren Brownlow
The Basics
No. 1/1 Carolina (12-0) will face Valparaiso (10-2) in the Smith Center on Sunday at 7:30 in its last game of 2007. Carolina is coming off of a 106-70 win over Nevada on Thursday night. Valparaiso's last game was December 22nd when it lost 68-58 at Wisconsin. Carolina will play its third straight home game out of five in a row before it begins ACC play on January 6th at Clemson. Valparaiso is off to its best start since 1944-45. This game marks the fourth year in a row that the Valparaiso Crusaders are facing the nation's No. 1 team.
Game Time: Valparaiso at North Carolina, 7:30 PM.
Last Time: This is the first meeting between the two teams.
Radio Coverage: Tar Heel Sports Network coverage begins at 6:30 PM.
Injury Report: Bobby Frasor tore his ACL against Nevada and will miss the rest of the season.
Storylines
Losing a teammate: The locker room after the Nevada game was full of concerned teammates, and that is understandable. The casual observer of Carolina basketball would have no idea how much Bobby Frasor has meant to this team, both on and off the court, in terms of his leadership. When the headline on ESPN.com read "Carolina reserve lost for the season," it made it seem somewhat less significant - not intentionally. Looking at his numbers, his loss would not seem significant from a basketball perspective on first glance. But Frasor won the defensive player of the game award for his limited work against Nevada, marking the fifth time this season he won the award out of just 12 games. "We're all just going to have to step up. He's a big piece of our puzzle, especially defensively. He talks and he's active. We all just have to step up and we all have to do what he used to do, do what he does for us," Wayne Ellington said.
A reporter then pointed out that the way his teammates were talking about Frasor, it would seem as if they had lost Tyler Hansbrough or a star player. But the way his teammates view Frasor and his contributions, he was nearly as important as Hansbrough or anyone else. "He does little things. He does the things that don't really show up on the stat sheet. He gets guys going. He motivates us. He talks. He's a big part of our puzzle. He's a leader for us," Ellington said.
As 18-22 year-olds, it would be understandable if the shock of losing an important teammate and friend who everyone admired would affect their play on the court. The last time a Tar Heel was lost like this so early in the season was probably Sean May, who went down against Iona early in the 2002-03 season. A team that had a lot of NCAA Tournament potential turned into an NIT club and lost quite a few tough games. Coach Williams has experience, both as an assistant coach and a head coach, with his teams losing significant members during a season and will need to do what he can to keep this team focused. Understandably, he was not yet ready to say who would "take the minutes" that Frasor is leaving behind, but he acknowledged that the challenge of dealing with a lost teammate who is hurting is not easy.
"There is a lull. You've got to challenge everybody. I think Bobby would be really ticked if they used that as an excuse. So we'll make darn sure that that doesn't happen. But I have been involved - I was here as an assistant when James Worthy broke his foot 14 games into the season," Williams said. "But things happen. You've got to keep going. The man upstairs doesn't give you things that you can't handle and Bobby will handle this. It's up to the team to pull together and play better. Whoever is going to get Bobby's minutes, it's up to them to play better."
Not letting up: Carolina and Nevada were back-and-forth for much of the first half and the largest lead Carolina had was 10 points, but Nevada kept it within single digits for much of the first half. It was a three-point game with 3:51 to go in the first half, 36-33. Then Wayne Ellington's three-pointer ignited a 13-2 run to end the half, including Carolina scoring eight unanswered points in the final 49 seconds. The Tar Heels went in at half up 49-35. Nevada would not score another point until 16:44 remained in the second half and counting the first half run, Carolina went on a 19-0 run in around four minutes.
"In the second half we came out and we were trying to stress that in those first couple of minutes, we hit a nice little run and we could put teams away. So we came out those first couple minutes, got a couple steals, hit a couple shots, went up by 20-something and you could see them kind of giving up or losing some confidence. From there, we were just trying to keep pushing and keep them down," Danny Green said.
The last two games, the end-of-half run has become a staple. Carolina went on an 8-0 run from the 1:56 to the 0:11 mark to end the first half against Santa Barbara to stretch its lead from 14 points to 22 points in a little over a minute and a half. Carolina also had a 13-2 run to start out the game. In the second half, Carolina began by scoring nine unanswered points in the first two minutes and a 19-5 run in the first four and a half minutes. The Tar Heels eventually stretched their lead out to 30-plus points. Even the Tar Heel reserves got in on the action, closing the game with seven unanswered points in the final 53 seconds after the Gauchos had gone on a 12-3 run in the final five minutes.
Carolina was able to keep up its runs largely because of what happened against Nicholls State. They simply could not dispose of the Colonels. In the second half, Carolina had just one significant run (of eight or more points) while Nicholls State had two such runs, including a 10-2 run from the 11:24 to the 7:47 mark and an 8-0 run in a little less than a minute, from the 5:36 mark to the 4:52 mark. Even though the Tar Heels were putting away road opponents by large margins, there were few significant runs in either the Rutgers or Penn games as the Carolina defense had trouble stopping the other team, even though the offense was steadily stretching out its lead in runs of 11-6 or 12-5 throughout the game. Carolina was able to close out Ohio State on the road with a 26-16 run over the final 16 minutes and closed out BYU in Las Vegas with an 11-2 run from the 3:54 mark to the 10-second mark. Carolina had significant runs against outmatched opponents South Carolina State and Iona, but they will face very few - if any - opponents as outmatched as those two the rest of the season. Against Davidson, for instance, Carolina allowed Davidson to open the second half with a 12-2 run over the first four and a half minutes of action and it took a 9-2 run by Carolina to get back into the game. It was Carolina's only significant run in the second half.
Carolina's motto this season is "Take everything, give up nothing." Carolina has been taking that motto to heart lately and needs to continue to do so on both sides of the court, staying focused and making good decisions on offense and playing solid defense. This team is more than capable of the kinds of runs we have seen in the last few games and it needs to keep up that intensity. "Coach says you've got to respect everybody. So you've just got to come out and take people's heart, play your hardest every time. That's what we need to do every time from now on like we did today," Ty Lawson said.
At The Game
Listening to the Tar Heel Sports Network at the game: The in-stadium frequency in the Smith Center will be FM 92.7. That station will have a non-delayed feed of WCHL 1360, the local affiliate.
Watching At Home
Turn down the sound: If you're watching at home while listening to the radio or over the computer via Carolina All-Access, there will inevitably be some delay. For the reason - and a possible solution - click here.
A full list of THSN affiliates can be found here.
FSN coverage: The game will be available on Fox Sports Network (FSN).
Names To Know
Ty Lawson: If Carolina fans - or Coach Williams - were worried about Lawson's ability to become an extension of his coach on the floor, they won't have to worry for long. Lawson is already prefacing most comments this season with phrases like "Coach says" or "Coach wants" and he mentioned how much it bothered him to see Coach Williams angry after the Nicholls State game. But Lawson is already digesting not only Williams' advice, but also his sayings. "Instead of just sitting around being fat and happy, I ran sprints and made sure I was still in shape and got in even better shape," Lawson said of how he spent his Christmas break.
The work ethic has been an issue for Lawson in the past in terms of getting in the best shape he can possibly be in. But with Frasor now out, his minutes will likely increase even more. He will need to carry a bigger load and be able to push the ball at the same pace all the time without tiring or getting into foul trouble. In all seven of Carolina's losses last season, Lawson had at least three fouls and had four fouls in three of the losses. In those three losses, he was limited to around 22-24 minutes. He played in more than 30 minutes in only 10 games last season, and two were overtime games. Carolina had a 7-3 record in those games, including two overtime losses to Virginia Tech and Georgetown and a loss at NC State.
Keeping in mind the fact that Lawson barely played against BYU, he is averaging around 26 minutes a game again this season but has played 30 or more minutes in two games already, Rutgers and Nicholls State. He played a season-high 33 minutes against Nicholls State. "I've just got to run more, get my endurance up and just work on playing defense without fouling so that I don't get in foul trouble so that I won't be on the bench," Lawson said.
Perhaps most importantly, though, Lawson is showing flashes of that intangible "killer instinct." Every Tar Heel fan has seen the highlight video of him yelling into the camera during the win at Duke last year. But he goes through the game with apparent ease and has a laidback persona on the court - not quite on the level of "Easy Ed" Cota, perhaps, but also not Raymond Felton-esque, either.
But this season, he has shown more of a penchant both to energize the crowd and his teammates and to finish off the other team. He has stressed more than once in his postgame comments how important it is for the Tar Heels to play consistently and stretch out leads.
He literally took that task into his own hands late in the first half, scoring six of Carolina's final eight points of the first half in the final 49 seconds. Danny Green stole the ball with around 53 seconds left; around four seconds later, Lawson had already scored and was going to the free-throw line. He missed the free throw, but corralled the offensive rebound and tapped it to Thompson, who missed and Alex Stepheson tipped it in. Then with 31 seconds left, Lawson got in the passing lane and stole the ball, converting it with a one-handed slam that made the Smith Center crowd go absolutely nuts. He nods and claps his hands, then with around five seconds left he corrals a panicked Nevada airball, takes it the length of the court, has time to dump it off to Thompson who taps it back to him for the score. He outscored Nevada 6-0 by himself in 49 seconds. It just shows how easily he can take over any game when his intensity and passion are up, and they seem to be up right now. "Going into the first half with the dunk and the lay-up, I saw them put their heads down. So after that, I knew the game was over," Lawson said.
Lawson is not the same type of defender as Bobby Frasor in terms of his ratio of good plays to bad plays as graded by the coaches, but he has shown a commitment to playing defense at a high level this season. He is averaging around 2.2 steals per game (without counting the BYU game, it's 2.5) and his gambles in terms of getting out in the passing lanes are paying off. Against Nevada, he set a career high with five steals. He is realizing that his own defense is something that can jumpstart the Tar Heel offense in terms of the fast break.
"He's getting better defensively. I was really surprised through the first four or five games that he didn't have more steals because I think that he can be a real pest defensively. It's just something that he hasn't concentrated on, hasn't felt comfortable with, hasn't had the stamina, hadn't thought in that way, whatever way you want to talk about it. But he had four steals in the first half in the Santa Barbara game and he had five steals tonight. I think that he can be extremely disruptive defensively just as he is with the pace that he pushes the ball," Williams said.
Quentin Thomas: As a senior with his fair share of injury issues throughout his career, Thomas knows the frustration Bobby Frasor must be going through. His compassion for his teammate has been well-documented. But from both a basketball and a leadership standpoint, it will now be up to Thomas at least in part to make up for the loss of Frasor. Leadership and maturity - not to mention his teammates' respect - are two things of which Thomas has plenty. But from an intangible point of view, with his minutes likely to increase and his role becoming more important, Thomas will need to lead this team as best he can. From a basketball point of view, after a career of fluctuating playing time and injuries derailing his play, it is his time.
Last season, Thomas made just 5-of-16 field goals (31.3%) and 4-of-6 free throws (66.7%) for 14 points in 27 games. This season, Thomas has already hit one more field goal and is shooting a much higher percentage in just 12 games (6-of-13, 46.2%). He has also made 8-of-10 free throws and has 20 points. He began the season making just 2-of-7 shots from the field in Carolina's first seven games but has shot 4-of-4 from the field in the last five contests. He is someone who is often criticized for his lack of offense but he has been much smarter in his shot selection and has not taken a three-pointer since the third game of the season.
The only problem for Thomas this season has been his assist-to-turnover ratio. When he came back from his foot injury against Penn after missing nine games, he played in 23 of Carolina's final 25 games and had 45 assists to just 19 turnovers in that span. This season, Frasor and Thomas have 25 assists apiece, tied for second on the team. However, Frasor had just ten turnovers (lowest among rotation regulars) while Thomas has 21 turnovers, third-most on the team behind Lawson and Hansbrough. In his only turnover-free games this season, he also did not have an assist. But both of his turnover-free games were tight match-ups against Davidson and BYU. The senior point guard had a combined seven points in those two games on 2-of-2 shooting and 3-of-4 from the foul line. He also had three of his five steals this season in those two games and played a combined 22 minutes.
Samuel Haanpaa: The 6-8 sophomore guard is a bit streaky, scoring as many as 32 points in a game this season but also going scoreless in two games and scoring six points or less in five games. Despite that, he is the second-leading scorer on the Crusaders at 11.7 points per game and is a lethal threat from the three-point line, ranking fourth in the Horizon League and 26th in the country in three-point percentage (47.2%). Against Chicago State on December 15th, Haanpaa hit 10 three-pointers, the most by any player in a Division I game this season. He has hit five or more three-pointers three times this year and ten times in his career. In Valpo's first four games, he shot 7-of-34 from the field (20.6%) and 5-of-24 from the three-point line (20.8%). In the last eight games, he has shot 37-of-58 (63.8%) from the field and 29-of-48 (60.4%) from beyond the arc. In Valpo's last two games, Haanpaa has hit a scorching 17-of-21 shots from the field (81%) and 12-of-16 three-pointers (75%), averaging 24.0 points per game and added 3.5 rebounds in 34.5 minutes per game. Against Wisconsin, he shot 6-of-8 from the field and 2-of-4 from beyond the arc on his way to 16 points.
Shawn Huff: The 6-7 senior forward is leading the Crusaders in scoring (11.8 points per game) and is second in rebounding with 5.0 boards per game. After scoring in double figures just once in Valpo's first four games, he has hit double digits in six of the last eight games. He shot just 38.9% from the field and 30% from beyond the arc, averaging 10.0 points per game (after an 18-point effort in a loss to Vanderbilt) in that span. But in the last eight games, Huff, has shot 52.2% from the field, averaging 12.6 points and shooting 48.8% from beyond the arc. He averaged just 1.5 three-pointers in the first four games and has averaged 2.6 in the last eight games, including a 5-of-7 effort against Ball State. In the last two games, he has made 5-of-11 from beyond the arc. After averaging 6.8 rebounds in Valpo's first five games, his rebounding average dipped in the next five, when he pulled down just 13 total rebounds. But in the last two, he has pulled down 13 including eight rebounds in the loss at Wisconsin. He shot just 3-of-10 from the field in that game and scored eight points, but his eight rebounds were a team high, as were his two offensive rebounds. On the season, he has shot 47.6% from the field and 47.2% from beyond the arc, ranking second on the team in made three-pointers. He also leads the team in free-throw percentage at 84.2% but has attempted fewer free throws than anyone in the rotation (19).
Quotables
"I was scared to death when I was walking off the court with him (Bobby Frasor) - I told it was a cheap trick to get a standing ovation. I was scared to death but I was trying to make a comment that would be funny." -Roy Williams
"I realized that by starting Danny (Green) the crowd doesn't get to watch him dance before, so I probably should have gotten somebody else out there." -Roy Williams
Lauren Brownlow is the managing editor of Tar Heel Monthly.
