University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: A Run To Remember
February 20, 2008 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 20, 2008
By Adam Lucas
RALEIGH--Six to zero runs shouldn't be definitive.
Really, is 6-0 even a "run?" It's more like a couple good possessions, or maybe--to be generous--a hot streak.
But Wednesday night in Raleigh, North Carolina turned in the most definitive 6-0 run of the season. Yes, this was a game in which the Tar Heels also put together a 31-7 blitzkrieg after falling behind 31-25 late in the first half. Forget about 31-7. 31-7 will not show you anything close to what was exhibited by 6-0.
Let's set the scene. Remember, this is the Carolina-State game in Raleigh, a place where the Wolfpack absolutely outfought the Tar Heels for 40 minutes last season. Anything is possible here...and just in case you might have forgotten, the final seconds of last year's game were played over the RBC Center PA system during pregame introductions.
So when State crept back to within 72-58 with 6:40 remaining, the crowd stirred a little. Their team had finally shown a glimmer of life and maybe, just maybe, they could make this interesting. Here is what followed:
Carolina tries to pound the ball inside to the relentless Tyler Hansbrough, who is fouled and hits his first free throw. He misses the second, but Danny Green simply outworks Tracy Smith for the offensive rebound. Wayne Ellington follows with a floater. Hansbrough, all on his own, steals the inbounds pass and then draws a foul on a frustrated Ben McCauley. Hansbrough again makes the first free throw and misses the second. This time, it's Marcus Ginyard who outworks Smith for the offensive rebound--and these aren't tap-outs, they are simply outjumping and outhustling. Ginyard then proceeds to take the ball from the midcourt stripe all the way down the lane, where the red sea parts beautifully, for a one-handed dunk. When Ginyard dunks the ball, there is only one other Wolfpack player with even one foot in the lane.
It takes exactly 43 seconds for a 6-0 run during which State never even gets the ball inbounds. You could have watched the other 39 minutes and 17 seconds in order to get the full taste of Carolina's 84-70 win, the rare 14-point victory that wasn't as close as the score indicated. But all you really needed to see were those 43 seconds.
"I thought they would push back on us a little harder," Ellington said. "But they got fatigued. We got the ball up and down the floor and you could see them get tired."
Here, some truth: you would be tired also if you were forced to deal with players like Hansbrough and Ginyard for the better part of a basketball game. Fine, we all saw Hansbrough score 32 points. What you might not have seen was the way he completely took State freshman J.J. Hickson out of the game. Literally, he took him out of the game. Hickson sat on the Pack bench for the better part of the second half.
"It's about getting better position than him," Hansbrough said. "Defensively, you have to front him, get around him, and deny him the ball. That's really frustrating for a player when you can't get the ball. And when he did get the ball, we got it out of his hands as quickly as we could."
That Hickson finished the game with 13 points on nine shots is only because he grabbed a couple meaningless late baskets. Until the game was out of reach, Carolina effectively eliminated him from State's offense.
They did it with perhaps the most liberal use of trapping this season. After being absent for most of the season, that strategy has been a growing part of the Tar Heel defense over the past two weeks.
"Everybody is seeing the big picture," Ginyard said. "When we run traps and one guy doesn't see it, he might not rotate and that throws off everything. But right now everyone is ready to move, and we move when the trap starts moving. When we execute traps the way we did tonight we get more steals and can really force the tempo."
The traps were so effective that at one point Ginyard--playing with a chip on his shoulder after an early-game bump from Javi Gonzalez--lobbied Roy Williams for even more pressure. After Hansbrough had a steal (yes, another) and dunk (yes, another) to make the score 56-38, Ginyard looked over at the bench and held up the signal for another trap. Williams responded by signaling for straight man-to-man. With lobbying that would have made his hometown near the Beltway proud, Ginyard almost sheepishly threw up the signal for a trap again.
The head coach, of course, made the final call, and the Tar Heels played straight man-to-man on that possession. But Ginyard's desire to apply the knockout punch was a welcome sight.
"We wanted to continue to pound them," he said. "We wanted to force them to make plays. And at the end, I felt like they gave in."
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.
