University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Cougars To Test Tar Heel Tempo
March 26, 2008 | Men's Basketball
March 26, 2008
By Adam Lucas
Washington State head coach Tony Bennett has a perfect understanding of this weekend's Sweet 16 storyline.
"There's a big collision coming, isn't there?"
There is indeed. Thursday night's Carolina-Washington State game will mark a collision between two of the nation's proudest conferences, the ACC and the Pac-10. It will mark a collision between two programs with very different traditions--Carolina is America's second-winningest program and WSU had won just seven of 50 league games before the arrival of Dick Bennett in 2003.
But the most important collision, and the one that will have the most impact on which team advances to the regional final, involves tempo. For the first time this season, the Tar Heels will finally bump into a coach just as committed to controlling the game's tempo as Roy Williams. The Tar Heels want to play a fast game. Washington State wants to play a methodical game.
"Similar to our game against Notre Dame, our transition defense is very important," Tony Bennett said earlier this week. "They're the most impressive team in the country in terms of getting down the floor and scoring off your misses and makes. We're playing against extreme talent and our style of play will be very important."
That style of play values smart decisions, experienced guard play, and high-percentage basketball. Sometimes that's a code for a head coach trying to compensate for other deficiencies, but that's not the case in Pullman. The younger Bennett is using a style that has been tested for over thirty years in college. His father turned some of the most barren basketball outposts in America--including Wisconsin Green-Bay (which went from 4-24 before Bennett's arrival to a team that beat Jason Kidd-led Cal in the 1994 NCAA Tournament) and Wisconsin (the Badgers had played in three NCAA Tournaments in 97 years before Bennett's arrival before their new coach took them to three tournaments in six seasons, including the 2000 Final Four).
The elder Bennett came out of retirement to lead Washington State for three seasons before handing the reins to his son. Tony, a former member of the Charlotte Hornets who met his wife during his stint in Charlotte, has applied the same tested principles to this year's Cougars.
Ken Pomeroy's tempo stats place WSU 335th out of 341 Division I teams in adjusted tempo. But while the other teams near the bottom labor on offense because of missed shots or turnovers, the Cougars rank 11th in America in Pomeroy's calculations of points per possession, a favorite Dean Smith stat for evaluating offensive prowess.
WSU's sticky defense is among the most formidable in the country. In terms of pedigree, the school ranks third in its own state behind Washington and Gonzaga. But instead of flash, Bennett has succeeded with hardnosed players with a commitment to his man-to-man principles.
That means the common storyline leading into Thursday's game will be Carolina's offense against Washington State's defense. And odds are that at some point early, the Tar Heels will surprise WSU with their ability to zip down the court even after made baskets. "That's the most demoralizing thing we do," Wayne Ellington said this weekend in Raleigh.
But the opposite matchup might actually determine the outcome. The Cougars have hit 48 percent of their field goal attempts this season. If the Tar Heels are able to play the type of defense they've flashed occasionally over the past month and then dominate the backboards--WSU's rebounding margin of +0.6 ranks 152nd in America--the game's tempo will accelerate.
While WSU's senior backcourt of Derrick Low and Kyle Weaver don't appear to be trap targets because of their experience and reliability, the Tar Heels trapped more often in late February and could try that strategy early as a way to force tempo.
"They're good defensively," Bennett said. "They're like UCLA. Once they turn you over, they're right back down the floor."
Washington State might be better equipped than any recent Carolina foe to stop those dashes down the floor. Unlike teams that made a one-game effort to slow the pace--like Florida State in the ACC Tournament--the Cougars have played that way all season.
"It's not like we're trying to become a solid transition defensive team in the next few days while we get ready for them," Bennett said. "Hopefully, what we've done throughout the season will pay off...It's not like we're going to change our gameplan completely to be successful in this game. We just have to do what we do at an elite level."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
