University of North Carolina Athletics
Chaminade Game Guide
November 24, 2008 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 24, 2008
By Lauren Brownlow
The Basics
No. 1/1 Carolina (3-0) will open the 2008 EA Sports Maui Invitational at the Lahaina Civic Center with a matchup against Chaminade (0-0). Carolina is coming off of a hard-fought 84-67 win over UC-Santa Barbara on Friday night. Carolina is 10-2 in the Maui Invitational and has won the event twice, in the 1999-00 season and the 2004-05 season. The winner of this game between the Tar Heels and the Silverswords will face the winner of the Alabama-Oregon game in the semifinals on Tuesday afternoon. Roy Williams is 8-1 in the Maui Invitational.
Chaminade has played only one exhibition game and has not played an official game yet this season. It lost its exhibition game to Hawaii, 80-63. Chaminade was 21-8 last season but has just one player back from that team. If the name `Chaminade' sounds familiar, it's because that team beat No. 1 Virginia 77-72 on December 23, 1982. It's a game that's widely known as the biggest upset in college basketball history.
Game Time: North Carolina at Chaminade, 9:30 PM.
Last Time: This is the first meeting between Carolina and Chaminade.
Radio Coverage: Tar Heel Sports Network coverage begins at 8:30 PM.
Injury Report: Tyler Zeller broke his wrist against Kentucky. He had surgery and will likely miss the rest of the season. Marcus Ginyard will be out until mid-December after undergoing surgery on October 8th to repair a stress fracture in his left foot. Michael Copeland tore his ACL in a pickup game in May and had surgery in June. He will be out until sometime midseason. Tyler Hansbrough's exact status is still up in the air as he is still coming back from a stress reaction in his shin.
Storylines
Developing Carolina's depth: When outsiders talk about this team, everyone talks about how loaded it is. That may have been true going into the season and may even be true later in the year but it certainly is not true now. Carolina has nine Tar Heels averaging double figures in minutes per game but Tyler Zeller is out likely for the season and Tyler Hansbrough is still back in only a limited capacity. So even though Carolina has seven fully healthy Tar Heels averaging double-digit minutes, Carolina's bench has contributed just 19.4% of its points this season (48 out of 247) compared to opponents' benches scoring 60 of 196 points (30.6%).
Against UC-Santa Barbara, Carolina actually got good contributions from its bench but only a season-low 12 points. The Gauchos got 36 points from their bench. Part of the problem of course is that Carolina has not had Danny Green providing a spark off the bench and the majority of the bench points. Ed Davis has provided that this season, scoring 29 of the 48 bench points. But the other three Carolina guards - Bobby Frasor, Will Graves and Larry Drew - have combined for 11 points.
Roy Williams was thrilled that six of his players hit double figures against UC-Santa Barbara, a feat that has happened twice this season after not happening since a January win against Arizona. But what that win and these wins have had in common is that Carolina was playing down two main contributors and other people have had to step up. "In the summer, I said `Gosh, it's going to be great in Maui since we have so much more depth than anyone else,' and now we don't have it," Williams said. "We're still going to try and play people because this early in the year I don't think I can put that kind of load on people by playing somebody 35 minutes a game."
A game of runs: Carolina has had issues this season with opponents going on runs against it. The problem in those situations is not necessarily that its opponents are getting hot at the right times but more that Carolina is having trouble making baskets. Carolina had a drought of six minutes, seven seconds against Penn, part of which turned a 71-52 lead with 8:29 to go into a 76-66 lead with 4:02 left. Carolina led 76-58 with 5:53 to go and Penn it was cut to 76-66 in a matter of less than two minutes. Carolina committed four turnovers and missed three shots in that span. Against Kentucky, Carolina blitzed the Wildcats early, getting out to a 25-9 lead with 11:10 to go. But it scored just one point in the next 2:41 though Kentucky managed only to cut the lead to 13 points. In the second half, Carolina went without a field goal from the 8:10 mark until the 4:30 mark and without a point from the 8:10 mark until the 4:48 mark.
Against UC-Santa Barbara, Carolina had two significant field-goal droughts. In the first half, Carolina did not score a single point from the 11:22 mark until the 7:58 mark. The Gauchos ran off 11 points in that span to go up 27-22. Carolina had a similar drought in the second half when it went over five minutes without a point after it had taken a 60-48 lead. Fortunately, the Gauchos were only able to score five points in that span. "During the course of a basketball game, I do think that both teams have an opportunity to make runs," Williams said. "What we want to do is a little more consistent where we don't have somebody going 11-0 against us."
The 2005 team found its rhythm in Maui not only in terms of team chemistry but also in developing the ability to mount blistering, game-ending runs in which it simply steam-rolled the other team and took its will away. Carolina has so far not quite managed to do that this season but now would be a good time to start.
At The Game
Listening to the Tar Heel Sports Network at the game: The in-stadium feed at the Lahaina Civic Center is not yet available.
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.
ESPNU coverage: The game will be available on ESPNU.
Names To Know
Ty Lawson: Ty Lawson finally found - well - Ty Lawson mode against UC-Santa Barbara on Friday, leading the Tar Heels in scoring with 19 points on 6-of-7 shooting. After UC-Santa Barbara took a 27-22 lead, he hit back-to-back three-pointers to give Carolina a 28-27 lead. He did it again in the second half, hitting 2-of-2 shots and two free throws in a two-minute span when the Gauchos were continuing to chip away at the Tar Heel lead. His second half was his best half of the season; he played a season-high 17 minutes in that half, hit 3-of-3 shots, scored nine points, had two assists, one steal and no turnovers.
Even when the ball hasn't been going in for him, he's managed to find a way to help the team. He has 17 assists to just six turnovers this season. His defense has been outstanding and he was on the floor quite a few times diving for loose balls against the Gauchos. It's also not uncommon for Lawson to start slowly in terms of shooting. Last season, he shot a combined 9-of-21 in Carolina's first three games (including just 3-of-7 in the season-opener against Davidson). He shot just 5-of-22 in the first two games this season.
But what's more important is that in this system, everything starts with the Carolina point guard and he appears to have embraced that role this season. He's even trying to groom Larry Drew II, likely a future Tar Heel starter at the point guard. "Lately, me and Larry have been talking about game planning - what to do in the games and how to play and little mistakes that we're both making, so it translates to the games," Lawson said. "He's making assists, he's keeping the offense going and he's playing great d, so that's what we need to keep going to win this next thing in Maui."
Bobby Frasor: Any kind of shot the senior guard could have missed this season, he has missed. He has missed lay-ups (two) and three-pointers (1-of-9). He has even missed passes (he has six assists to five turnovers in three games). In his last 15 games of action, Frasor is shooting a combined 15-of-52 (28.8%) from the floor and 10-of-39 (25.6%) from beyond the arc. The odd thing about this season's misses is that the shots have been within the flow of the offense and have even looked good coming out of his hand, but have missed - sometimes badly.
Still, Frasor is averaging 19.3 minutes per game and has reminded Carolina why it has missed him so much - defense. He has earned defensive player of the game honors in each of the Tar Heels' first two games and has three steals in three games. "Nobody does the things that Bobby does. He's by far the most vocal. He's by far the most experienced. He's by far better at seeing the big picture than anybody else," Williams said. "He's head and shoulders above everybody else in talking on the defensive end and getting everybody where they're supposed to be and coming down the court when he's not the point guard, he's telling somebody to do something."
Darrell Birton: The 5-11 senior guard redshirted last season but averaged 7.4 points per game for Chaminade in 2007, shooting 38% from the three-point line. At West Valley College, he led the team in scoring with 13.6 points per game and made 92 three-pointers in two seasons. In the loss to Hawaii in the exhibition game, Birton had eight points but hit 2-of-5 three-pointers. He was a starter for the team and played 29 minutes.
Rickey Clayborn: The 6-4 junior forward transferred from transferred from South Suburban College where he led the team in rebounding over his two seasons. Last season, he averaged 10 points and ten rebounds. In the exhibition loss to Hawaii, Clayborn had ten points and a team-high seven rebounds (three offensive). He also had one steal and fouled out of the game in just 14 minutes.
Quotables
"Guys, you look at our guys sitting over with me, I've got more guys sitting over there with me that I get scared when our manager runs into a goal post." -Roy Williams (when asked if he was scared when Tyler Hansbrough hit the goalpost)
Lauren Brownlow is the managing editor of Tar Heel Monthly.
