University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: UNC Basketball Mailbag
December 2, 2008 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Dec. 2, 2008
By Adam Lucas
Could Zeller play in the ACC and NCAA tournaments and still receive a medical hardship waiver?
Under the NCAA's rules, it says that a player cannot participate in 30% of a team's regular season games and be eligible. What stands out to me is the word "regular." Tyler has played 2 games for the Heels, and they have 30 games on the schedule for this year. So, he could potentially play 8 more regular season games, assuming he comes back at all, and still qualify?
The time lines that I've read have said that typically this injury keeps a player out for 12-16 weeks. Going with the low end, that would mean he could potentially come back for the February 18th game for NC State. If he did play in that game and the rest of the regular season, he would have played in 7 regular season games, still under 30% for the year.
Could he also participate in the ACC (starting March 12th, which is right at 16 weeks) and NCAA tournaments, which could be as many as 9 games, and still be eligible?
Andy Alexander '98
We've gotten several variations of this question. The first thing to understand is that no one has any idea how fast Zeller will heal, and no one will know for at least another couple months. Until then, it's hard to guess. At this point, there's no reason to think that he won't redshirt, so don't misinterpret the rest of the answer--it's purely a hypothetical.
But let's just say he's a quick healer, and he is actually ready for play on Feb. 18. Ignore the fact that he'll have missed three months of practice time and game action. Let's consult the 2008 NCAA manual, which is a zippy little 439-page document that makes for great reading when you've finished memorizing the federal tax codes.
OK, everybody got their manual in hand? Turn to page 148, rule 14.2.4: Hardship Waiver. According to that rule, hardship is defined as an incapacity resulting from an injury or illness that meets all of the following conditions:
1. The injury occurs in one of the four seasons of intercollegiate competition at any four-year college. Zeller meets this condition.
2. The injury occurs prior to the first competition of the second half of the playing season and results in incapacity to compete for the remainder of that playing season (we'll come back to this one).
3. The student-athlete has not participated in more than 30 percent of the institution's scheduled contests.
4. A conference tournament counts as one game for the purposes of #3.
So Carolina has 31 countable games this year, which means to earn a redshirt Zeller would have to play in ten games or less. But wait--what about number two above? The injury definitely occurred in the first half of the season. But the little-known part of the redshirt rule that excludes the scenario Andy outlined above is the fact that the injury must result in "incapacity to compete for the remainder of that playing season."
In other words, the NCAA has already anticipated Andy's scenario and nixed it. If Zeller heals quickly, it'll be up to him, his family, the coaching staff, and the medical staff to determine whether he can return and contribute in a manner that justifies giving up an entire season of eligibility.
This is a topic to revisit in February; until then, it's just impossible to know anything. The safest strategy is to go with the official release and consider the injured wrist to "likely" be a season-ending injury.
All of the talk in Maui about Oregon's uniforms got me wondering: when did the Alexander Julian Argyle Carolina uniforms debut?
Hunter Walton
irmingham, AL
Dean Smith asked Alexander Julian to redesign the Tar Heel hoops uniforms prior to the 1991-92 season. At that time, Julian famously described the task as, "Like God calling asking you to make new halos for the archangels." The famous designer's changes included the argyle, a bolder trim, and an upgraded fabric. Before the final version was decided, he came up with several different sketches, including one drawing that looked suspiciously like a sweater vest. OK, maybe that was a little strange, but it's still better than a unitard.
The next major change came before the 1999-2000 season, with the jerseys that featured the interlocking "NC" on the front. Fans hated those jerseys...until the team made the Final Four, and all of a sudden they didn't seem so bad anymore.
All things considered, Carolina uniforms have remained remarkably consistent over the last two decades. There will always be subtle changes from year to year--a tweaked uniform means new product for Nike to sell--but nothing as dramatic as what the Tar Heels saw from Oregon in Maui. The Ducks had a crate full of Maui-specific team gear, including casual Hawaiian shirts, jerseys with a floral trim, and shoes that repeated that same trim. Oregon also wore the same Hawaiian themed warmup t-shirts worn by the Tar Heels. And no, those t-shirts aren't for sale.
I'm concerned about the early season free throw percentage being so low. It seems the team is shooting only around 66% in first few games. Is coaching staff addressing the shooting woes, or are the guys just slumping?
Geoff Clontz
Morganton, NC
You might have thought the season began on Nov. 15 against Penn. You'd be wrong. The season officially begins today, with the first Mailbag email about free throw percentages. Since Geoff wrote this note, the Tar Heel team free throw percentage is actually up to 69.5%, which puts them around the middle of the ACC. Last season, Carolina hit 75.7% from the free throw line, the best figure since the 1984-85 season and the third-best percentage in the ACC era.
Since this team returns virtually everyone from that team, it's probably best to wait to push the panic button. This year's roster includes several solid free throw shooters, including Danny Green (who is uncharacteristically at 60% on just five attempts), Wayne Ellington, and Tyler Hansbrough. As Hansbrough works his way back into the lineup and gets to the line more often, you'll see the team percentage start to rise.
It will be interesting to see how Roy Williams handles close late-game situations when opponents are forced to foul the Tar Heels. Neither Deon Thompson (50%) nor Ed Davis (56.6%) is an especially solid foul shooter, which means they're unlikely to be on the floor in a fouling situation. Thompson has started this season 11-of-22 at the stripe. But he started last year 3-of-16 and then proceeded to hit 41 of his final 58 attempts (71 percent).
In the Oregon game guide, it was mentioned that Carolina played Oregon on consecutive days in 1968.
Under what circumstances would they have played back to back games?
Ron Graves
Spartanburg SC
Good catch, Ron (and by the way, thanks for reading those game guides, as it's extraordinarily hard to get those done so quickly in a three-game tournament like the Maui Invitational in which the opponent is uncertain until 24 hours before the game). Carolina and Oregon played on Dec. 2, 1968, in Greensboro. Carolina won that one, 89-78. Then the teams played again the next night in Chapel Hill, with the second-ranked Tar Heels winning more handily, 106-73. When the unusual scheduling was pointed out to Dean Smith, he replied, "It's not exactly a neighborhood rival."
That Oregon team started Stan Love, who would go on to become more famous as the father of Kevin Love, who would attend UCLA, where he majored in throwing outlet passes. It seems reasonable to guess the two-game set with Carolina was part of a larger East Coast swing for the Ducks, but it wasn't. They played a game at Utah on Nov. 30, came to North Carolina, and then played a home game in Eugene on Dec. 7. Back-to-back games weren't strange for the Ducks, as at that time they traditionally ended their regular season with home-and-home games against Oregon State.
That was the last time Carolina played the same opponent on two straight days until 1991, when the Persian Gulf War rescheduled a Carolina-State game in the Smith Center and forced a home-and-home series on Feb. 6 and 7.
Brownlow's Down Low
Through five games, UNC is one point away (Ed Davis) from having seven players averaging double figures in scoring. Granted, it's only five games, against inferior opponents, and two players have played in only two games due to injury. In any case, this scenario makes me wonder -- over the course of a year have the Heels ever had as many as six players average 10 or more points per game?
Rob Paton
Atlanta, GA
Lauren writes:
The 1989 team was the first - and only - team in Carolina history to have six double-figure scorers. Since the 1990's, Carolina has been to seven Final Fours and all but one of those teams had at least four players averaging double figures. Two of the teams had five in double figures, the 1995 team and the 2005 national championship team. The lone exception was the 1997 team that had three in double figures - Vince Carter at 15.6, Antawn Jamison at 22.2 and Shammond Williams at 16.8.Carolina has had just seven teams since 1954 that had two or fewer players averaging double figures. The most recent team to do that was the 2002 team that had just Jason Capel (15.6 points per game) and Kris Lang (14.0 points per game) in double figures. Dean Smith had just one team in which only one player averaged double figures - Billy Cunningham led the way with 25.4 points per game.
Carolina has five players averaging in double figures, not counting Tyler Zeller who was averaging 10.0 points before his injury. Carolina has had five or more double-digit scorers six times since 1954 and if the season ends the way it has begun, this would be the seventh. Three of those teams went to the Final Four (1972, 1995 and 2005), one went 32-4 and reached the Elite 8 and one won the league in 1959 with a 20-5 record. It's certainly a possibility that the freshman Ed Davis will emerge into a double-figure scorer, but it's far from a sure thing of course.
If the averages hold up, Tyler Hansbrough's 21.0 points per game would be the highest average by a leading scorer in such a group ever and the most since Robert McAdoo averaged 19.5 in 1972. Ty Lawson's 16.0 points per game would be tied for third-highest behind Dennis Wuycik's 18 in 1972 and Rasheed Wallace's 16.6 in 1995. Deon Thompson's 15.6 points per game would be the highest by a third-leading scorer, as would Danny Green's 14.6 points by a fourth-leading scorer. The most significant would be Wayne Ellington's 13.4 points per game; that would be the highest by a fifth-leading scorer by a large margin. The closest would be the 11.3 points per game by Marvin Williams in 2005.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
