University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Flustered In A Hurry
January 12, 2009 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Jan. 12, 2009
By Adam Lucas
WINSTON-SALEM--Sometimes, the Carolina postgame locker room after a loss is not a particularly insightful place.
That's not the players' fault. They've been trained to say things like, "We have to want it more," and "We have to give a better effort." Maybe those things were true in Carolina's 92-89 loss to Wake Forest. But it doesn't particularly help you understand it any better, does it?
Suddenly, though, over in a corner of the Tar Heel locker room, away from the crowd gathered around Danny Green, Wayne Ellington provided a startling glimpse into what had just unfolded.
"We got flustered in a hurry," he said. "We wanted to catch up in a hurry and guys went one-on-one. We didn't keep our poise midway through the second half."
This is jarring because it's exactly what happened. You stared at the stat sheet and tried to figure out what went wrong. Maybe it was poor shooting (35.1% from the field). Maybe it was an inability to get defensive stops at key moments (Wake shot 53.6% in the second half). Maybe it was the 34 points from Jeff Teague or the even more stunning 20 points from Chas McFarland.
But here was Ellington providing a candid explanation of exactly what had gone wrong. The Tar Heels really did get flustered in a hurry. They were supposed to be the veteran team, the poised road team. You knew this team would lose at some point. You did not know they would get flustered.
In all of the previous 15 straight road victories, with this same personnel, there had been that moment when both teams stood eye-to-eye and Carolina smirked.
This time, it was different.
This time, the Tar Heels took several ill-advised shots late in the game and never seemed to fully grasp the situation and score.
This time, the Tar Heels seemed unsure. Unsure of how to stop the Deacs, unsure of how to chip into a deficit, and unsure of each other.
This time, Wake Forest did a sensational defensive job on Tyler Hansbrough--not just contesting his shots, but changing where he caught the ball and pushing him farther from the basket--and the Tar Heels never compensated.
"They have great length and size," Roy Williams said. "It's hard to get an open look inside. With Johnson and Aminu and McFarland and Tony Woods, that length keeps coming at you. It was tough for people around the basket. The thing with us is that we had nine assists and 18 turnovers. That's not the way we're supposed to play basketball."
Exactly, it's not. And with a team stocked with juniors and seniors, the preseason expectation was that this team would, if nothing else, be consistent. You didn't expect them to be flustered...much less flustered in a hurry.
This senior class has been a joy to watch because they've had fun from the moment they shocked the basketball world in 2006. Watching them Sunday, it didn't look like much fun.
"Yeah, I'm mad," Hansbrough said after the game.
About what?
"About losing. I'm just frustrated."
OK, maybe it's that simple. Or maybe it's not.
The Tar Heels miss Marcus Ginyard in tangible ways, of course. After a quartet of his teammates had tried (unsuccessfully) to defend Teague, it would have been nice to give Ginyard a turn on the Wake sharpshooter. Even more than that, though, the Tar Heels miss Ginyard in intangible ways. They miss his grin at crucial moments and they miss the way he provided a bridge between the seniors and everyone else on the roster.
For the first time, his teammates seem unsure. Ellington pinned the loss on a lack of effort. Lawson disagreed and said he thought the effort was solid, but that fundamental breakdowns--a lack of setting screens, for example--caused the defeat.
Probably, it's both.
"It'll take care of itself," Lawson said.
Actually, it probably won't. Don't misunderstand. That's different than saying it can't be fixed. Saying it will take care of itself implies it's as simple as rolling out the basketballs, and that's not true. As Lawson himself probably knows, it's going to require some effort.
The great thing about a veteran team is they have a longer perspective on the season. With a younger team, it would be time to hide in the bomb shelter with the canned goods. With this team, well, there's at least time to stop at Cook-Out for a milkshake before going into the bomb shelter.
Fortunately, the players have a little better sense of perspective.
"We've got to understand that it's early," Hansbrough said. "We have a lot of games to prove ourselves. Hopefully, the next couple games we'll do that."
Maybe that's the problem. Maybe, because of those familiar pieces, we placed this team in the proven category before they had actually done it.
"We'll find out who we are in practice," Hansbrough said.
The assumption ever since October was that these Tar Heels would walk out of the Smith Center tunnel a finished product. As it turns out, we might get to see some development after all.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
