University of North Carolina Athletics
Stellar Effort From Larkins Isn't Enough
February 26, 2007 | Women's Basketball
Feb. 26, 2007
By Lauren Brownlow
Erlana Larkins was frustrated. She had ten out of Carolina's 32 second-half points and 18 out of Carolina's 62 total points. She banged down low in the paint with Duke's Alison Bales and the rest of the Blue Devil front line for 36 minutes, absorbing contact and dishing it out as she fought for rebounds and points. She shot her only two free throws with 17:15 left in the game, and made both. She pulled down 19 rebounds in the game out of Carolina's 39 total, including 12 out of 21 second-half rebounds. Yet she sat there stunned as Carolina had lost not only the game, but also the battle of the backboards, 45-39, to the Blue Devils.
"She (Coach Hatchell) has been harping on rebounding, and like she said, it doesn't take skill or anything like that. It's just heart and effort. It's not all about me, even though I got in there and I got 19 rebounds, it's not about me. We have to do it as a team," Larkins said.
The Tar Heels actually outrebounded the Blue Devils 21-20 in the second half, but they were outrebounded 6-3 on the offensive glass in the second half and 18-10 on the game. Besides Erlana Larkins, the most rebounds anyone else had in the second half was Rashanda McCants and LaToya Pringle with three apiece.
"If everybody had rebounded like Erlana did, we probably would have won the game. Thank goodness she had those, because I thought the rebounding made a big difference. I knew it would," Coach Hatchell said. "So overall, except for Erlana, I was disappointed in our rebounding efforts by the rest of the team. If we had rebounded better and held on to the ball - we had some turnovers that were really costly at different times - I thought we were in a position to win the game."
This might seem like a game decided by rebounding, but it was not. It was a game decided by missed opportunities. Carolina took the lead, 56-55, on a Camille Little three-pointer with 7:45 to go. They would not score again until 54 seconds remained in the game. During that stretch, the Tar Heels attempted just seven shots and made none. The Tar Heels turned it over five times during that stretch, one just three seconds out of a timeout when Camille Little simply had the ball taken away from her with 2:58 to go.
However, even without the turnovers, the Tar Heels had quite a few chances to win the game. Larkins shot 0-for-5 in that stretch and four of the five shot attempts were lay-ups. She started off the first half shooting 4-of-5 from the field.
It was also a game decided by Carolina not forcing the issue. Coach Hatchell and the Carolina coaching staff were practically salivating when they noticed Duke slip into a zone in the second half. But it didn't quite go as planned, as the zone shut off two of Carolina's primary scoring options - Larkins and Ivory Latta. The zone was instructed to keep track of Latta at all times and double-team Larkins in the post when possible. Much to the chagrin of Hatchell, it worked and her team could not exploit it.
"When I saw them go zone, I was really happy, because we've been very effective against the zone. The first time against the zone, we threw it in to Rashanda and she turned the ball over. We didn't do a good job of attacking it with our drive-and-kicks. There were a lot of gaps and holes in there," Coach Hatchell said.
This year's team has it all over last year's team in terms of talent and athleticism. Yet in the second half, Ivory Latta and Erlana Larkins combined for 22 of Carolina's 32 points. Only six players played double-figure minutes. Jessica Breland showed some more potential, playing a strong nine minutes and scoring four points, pulling down two rebounds and nabbing two steals, yet she was limited with foul trouble.
Duke moved to 29-0 on the year and became the first and only team in the ACC to go undefeated in the regular season. Coach Hatchell certainly has seen this Duke team play very well, and though this game was not a flawless one for the Blue Devils, they are playing their best basketball as a unit right now. Carolina is not there yet. So, is it good to go into the postseason not having peaked yet?
"I told my kids in the locker room, `We haven't played our best basketball. We can play better than we're playing.' So that's what we're going to try to do, is play our best basketball in March and hopefully move to a higher level," Coach Hatchell said. "If I felt like we were playing about as good as we could play, I would be worried. Again, I think it's a challenge for us to keep working hard and realize that we haven't played our best basketball and that we can play better than we're playing."
Erlana Larkins was - and is - an absolute warrior. Just as she did against Maryland in the Final Four, she attempted to put the Tar Heels on her back and carry them to victory. But as in both cases, she failed and it was largely because she did not have enough help. When asked about this team's confidence headed into postseason play, she shrugged her shoulders and sighed.
"I don't know. Like Coach Hatchell said, we had an excellent game plan and she felt like we didn't do what we needed to do. She asked a rhetorical question, `What are we going to do about it?' So, hopefully we just all accept the challenge of going into the ACC Tournament and doing something about it," Larkins said. "I just think we have to answer Coach Hatchell's question and step up and accept the challenge about what we're going to do."
Lauren Brownlow is the managing editor of Tar Heel Monthly.
