University of North Carolina Athletics
Virginia Game Guide
January 15, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 15, 2009
By Lauren Brownlow
The Basics
No. 5/6 North Carolina (14-2, 0-2) will travel to Charlottesville to face Virginia (7-6, 1-1) in its second straight ACC road game. The Cavaliers are coming off of a 78-75 loss to Virginia Tech after beating Georgia Tech earlier this season in overtime for its first league win. This will be Virginia's first ACC home game. Carolina is coming off of a 92-89 loss at Wake Forest. Carolina is 0-2 in league play for the first time since starting 0-3 and eventually 3-5 in league play in the 1996-97 season. That team went on a long winning streak and went to the Final Four.
Carolina leads the all-time series between the two teams, 122-48. Carolina has not won back-to-back games in Charlottesville since the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons. Carolina leads the series 41-31 in Charlottesville and is 1-0 in John Paul Jones Arena in its only appearance there last season. Roy Williams is 9-3 against Virginia, 7-2 at Carolina.
Game Time: North Carolina at Virginia, 9:00 PM.
Last Time: Carolina held off Virginia 75-74 in Charlottesville last season on February 12, 2008. It was the only meeting between the two teams. Tyler Hansbrough had just six second-half points but all came in the final five minutes, including a basket with 21 seconds left to give Carolina a 75-71 lead. Sean Singletary hit a three-pointer to cut it to 75-74. Wayne Ellington missed the front end of a one-and-one with 2.8 seconds left but Carolina managed to play keep-away long enough to prevent Virginia from getting another shot.
Carolina shot 52.5% for the game but had 17 turnovers. Virginia shot 37.8% but turned it over only seven times. Carolina shot 7-of-12 from the foul line and Virginia shot 9-of-11. The Cavaliers also made 9-of-31 three's but two came in the final minute to keep it close. Carolina out-rebounded Virginia 43-36. Hansbrough led Carolina with 23 points on 10-of-15 shooting and also tied a team-high seven rebounds. Alex Stepheson also had seven rebounds. Wayne Ellington had 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting. Deon Thompson was the other Tar Heel in double figures with 12 points. Singletary led the Cavaliers with 27 points on 9-of-20 shooting, adding a game-high seven assists. Calvin Baker was the other Cavalier in double figures with ten points.
Radio Coverage: Tar Heel Sports Network coverage begins at 8:00 PM.
Injury Report: Mike Copeland tore his ACL in May and saw his first action of the season against Nevada. Tyler Zeller broke his wrist against Kentucky. He had surgery and will likely miss the rest of the season. Marcus Ginyard returned to limited action in the Nevada and Boston College games but has missed the last two games. He is still trying to get back into his normal form after having surgery on October 8th to repair a stress fracture in his foot. "Right now, we've made the decision for at least the next ten days to two weeks that we're going to sit Marcus down. We haven't practiced him since Tuesday. If we go till next Wednesday, it will be two full weeks," Williams said. "Hopefully at that time, we'll see a little bit more of the old Marcus that we'd love to have out there. But right now, it's not fair to him trying to put him in that situation where his body just won't allow him to do what he wants to do."
Storylines
Turnover margin: The timing of Carolina's turnovers have often been as bad as the turnovers themselves, but this team has uncharacteristically slipped in the area of ball security. Whenever a team's assist-turnover ratio drops, it could mean that a team is selfish. In the case of the Tar Heels, it seems to mean that the team is becoming more careless and sloppy with the ball and just needs to make better decisions. But it's still a problem that the Tar Heels need to fix - and quickly. Carolina has been able to force more turnovers than its opponents all season long but has seen a +6.4 turnover margin in non-conference play evaporate into a -3.0 margin in conference play. It has also seen an incredible 1.6 assist-to-turnover ratio fall to 0.7. "Up until two games ago, our assist-error ratio was probably the best of any club that I've had in the time that I've been back here," Williams said. "The last two (ACC) games, we've hurt ourselves and yesterday we really hurt ourselves. ... At halftime (of the Wake Forest game), I talked about that six of them could have been changed so easily just by doing the right thing, the sensible thing. Just don't go brain-dead and you won't have six of those 12 that we had in the first half yesterday."
Two Carolina opponents have had 20 or more points off of Carolina miscues; Carolina is 1-1 in those games. Wake Forest set a new season high with 21 points off of 18 Carolina turnovers. Carolina has allowed only four opponents all season long to have ten or more points off turnovers in just one half of basketball; Carolina is 2-2 in those games. Boston College had 13 points off of nine Carolina turnovers in the second half and Wake Forest had 13 points in the first half off of 12 Carolina turnovers. Last season, Carolina was undefeated against the four opponents that had 20 or more points off turnovers against them (Davidson, Clemson twice and Florida State); the least-suspenseful in the bunch was probably a five-point win over Clemson in the ACC title game. Two went into overtime. Carolina averaged 19.8 turnovers in those four games and 13.7 in all others; its opponents averaged 24.3 points off turnovers in those four games and 11.9 in all others.
In 14 non-conference games this year, Carolina's opponents have averaged 14 assists, 19.1 turnovers and 10.2 points off Carolina's 12.8 turnovers. In two league games, opponents have averaged 12.5 assists but just 13.5 turnovers and a staggering 19 points off Carolina's 16.5 turnovers. Carolina's ACC opponents also have 9.5 steals and 7.5 blocks compared to 7.5 steals and 3.8 blocks by Carolina's other 14 opponents. Carolina has averaged 12 assists, 16.5 turnovers, seven steals and 12.5 points off turnovers in the two league games. In the other 14 games, it averaged 20.9 assists, 12.8 turnovers, 10.6 steals and 22.2 points off turnovers. To put that in perspective, Carolina has nearly as many points off turnovers in two league games combined (23) as it averaged prior to league play this season.
Carolina is being very limited in transition largely because its gambling style of defense has not paid off the way it has in the past. "Their (Wake Forest's) turnovers seemed to be a lot along the baseline where you don't get out in transition as much," Williams said. "There weren't as many steals. Yet we have a two-on-one fast break and we throw a stupid frickin' lob pass and don't even get a shot off. We would like to create more turnovers, but it's awfully hard to create turnovers when you have guards as good as their guards are."
Interestingly enough, even though it feels like this team is not playing like it was last season, Carolina had four single-digit assist games last year. Of those, Carolina won three of the four but one win was in overtime (at Florida State when Carolina lost Ty Lawson in the first half) and one was a buzzer-beater (the semifinal win over Virginia Tech in the ACC Tournament). The lone loss, however, was the Kansas game when Carolina tied a season low with 17 assists and added 18 turnovers. Carolina was able to squeak out victories by taking care of the ball down the stretch and forcing turnovers when it needed to do so. BYU may have held Carolina to just eight assists but the Cougars had six assists to 21 turnovers themselves while Carolina turned it over just 10 times. Kansas was the only team to force Carolina into single-digit assists and have more than 11 assists (17). The Jayhawks also forced 18 Carolina turnovers while committing 19 themselves, obviously part of what kept that game close early in the second half.
The bottom line is that Carolina's halfcourt offense has become largely stagnant, as many Tar Heels have said. There has been too much one-on-one play and the players on this team, all of which are veterans and all of which feel more than capable of making a basket when Carolina needs it, all seem to be taking tougher shots than they need to be taking. "You look at it again, 24 assists and 33 turnovers in two conference games - for the University of North Carolina to play an 89-point game and to have nine assists, that tells you a lot of the story right there," Williams said. "I'm not going to say that we're a selfish bunch. We're maybe too confident at times and think that, `I can just beat my man,' but in this league, you're not going to do that. We've got to accept that and we've got to move the ball better. We've got to work together as a team better."
In six losses this season, Virginia has averaged 13.8 assists to 14.3 turnovers; in seven wins, that number is 13.4 assists to just 13.4 turnovers. Its opponents averaged 14.5 assists to just 11.8 turnovers in Virginia's six losses compared to the Cavaliers allowing just 11.9 assists and forcing 15 turnovers in the seven victories. Virginia has turned it over an average of 15 times in two ACC games. But after turning it over just 13 times in an overtime win at Georgia Tech, the Cavaliers turned it over 17 times against Virginia Tech to go along with 15 assists. Virginia's two ACC opponents have averaged a measly 11.5 assists per game but have turned it over just 11.5 times as well. The Yellow Jackets turned it over just 12 times in the overtime loss to Virginia but Virginia Tech turned it over only 11 times.
Getting back to basics: It's a good news/bad news scenario - the Tar Heels are 0-2 in the ACC, but the Tar Heels are also a veteran-laden team that is much more capable of getting out of an early hole. The bad news is that it's quite a big hole and the ACC is a much-improved conference top to bottom this season. The good news is that a freshmen-laden team in 2006 climbed out of an early hole in league play as well (a 3-3 start) to finish in second place. Those freshmen are seniors now and have been here before. "I know this team and I know the character we have on this team. I don't question it or how tough we are," Danny Green said. "I know that we're going to bounce back and we're going to keep pushing forward. I feel like this team is going to be where we need to be when it comes to that point in the season where we need to show what kind of character we have or when we need to be coming together and having the right chemistry."
Fixing the assist-turnover ratio is just one aspect of this, but the Tar Heels have all talked about wanting to make sure they do the simple things well. It was something that Carolina was taking for granted when it cruised through its non-conference schedule. Now, getting into ACC play, coaches are more familiar with what the Tar Heels want to do and even the tendencies of certain Tar Heel players. Couple that with an increased level of talent on the opposing team and it means that the Tar Heels need to match the intensity and execution of their opponents. "Everything was working and it's all fun, but when someone really guards you and defends you and takes away something, you've got to be tough enough to execute your stuff even harder and do what works," Bobby Frasor said.
Some of Carolina's turnovers and bad shots were forced by Wake Forest's swarming defense and big forwards and guards. But some of it was just poor decision-making. Williams pointed out that in his 21 years as a head coach, he had rarely if ever seen a team have the kinds of problems that Carolina had just in-bounding the ball underneath the basket. Williams was forced to use two timeouts, one in each half - he didn't mind using the first-half timeout but the Tar Heels really could have used the second-half timeout. The Tar Heels spent half of a four-hour practice on Tuesday going over the game tape - all of it - just to see how the little things Carolina did wrong began to add up. The good news is, though, that those things are very easily fixable. "If I'm supposed to be lined up in Spot A and you're supposed to be lined up in Spot B, that's pretty easy to do," Williams said. "So that wastes 2-3 seconds trying to get guys in the right spot and that's just not very good concentration."
At one point late in the Wake Forest game, Williams called out to Tyler Hansbrough and reminded him that the Tar Heels didn't just need any shot - they needed a good shot. He encouraged Hansbrough to remind the team to be patient and wait for that shot. Carolina took better shots against Boston College than it did against Wake Forest, but those shots didn't go in. Boston College's open shots, however, did go in. Wake Forest didn't give Carolina many good looks, but the Tar Heels weren't willing to wait for one, either. "It's a pretty simple game - the quality of our shots has got to be better than the quality of their shots and hopefully we'll get more of them," Williams said. "Well tonight (against Wake), we got a few more of them but the quality of our shots either weren't very good or we didn't make them and they made enough."
Tywon Lawson admitted that this team has had some problems communicating and playing as a unit rather than working as a team on both ends of the court. Carolina's best defensive player and one of its best leaders, Marcus Ginyard, is not playing right now. But he hasn't been playing all season and Carolina has beaten top-25 opponents without him. Carolina has been able to get better shots - or at least more shots - than its opponents all season long. That has not happened in league play so far. "A lot of times, we were playing one-on-one today, me included - all of us were," Lawson said. "We've just got to work together to get shots and just help out on defense. Last year, we did move and set screens more on the offensive end. We got people open shots like Wayne (Ellington). He'll knock it down if he's open. We've just to work together more as a team."
There have been fans and pundits questioning the desire and heart of the Tar Heels. This is largely the same group that overcame the loss of a starting point guard last season to finish with a 36-3 record and won all of its road games, but last year doesn't matter at this point. But it is technically still those same guys out there and there have been flashes of that tough group from last season. After all, the reason Carolina won so many tough games, made some comebacks and won a lot of road games last season was often because it had to make up for poor play earlier in the games. The difference was that Carolina had a few balls bounce differently last season and was able to make 1-2 more plays down the stretch. That hasn't happened this year yet. But the effort has never been lacking, particularly at the end when this team could have given up and surrendered in both losses and instead the team fought harder.
"I've been very pleased with the effort at the end," Williams said. "In the Boston College game, my gosh - I couldn't ask our kids to play any harder than they did. It's just that we weren't very efficient. We were down late in (Wake Forest) the game and came back. I don't think that is a part of our problem. But I do believe that it's not just trying hard. We've got to add our brain to that part of it and I think that is more of the problem than our effort. But we haven't played very hard with intelligence.
"We're not going to shoot 35 percent and win many games, but if you shoot 35 percent on the road against another team that's ranked in the top five of the country and lose by three, that means that the kids are trying and doing some things right. So we're just going to try to focus on those, try to do a better job in the things that we're doing poorly right now and see if that helps us out for the next game."
Carolina was missing a point guard and had three of its starters playing through injuries last year at Virginia, but still managed to eke out a win. Carolina will need to show that same kind of toughness and resolve against a young but tough and talented Virginia team to get back to the talented but tough team it was last season.
At The Game
Listening to the Tar Heel Sports Network at the game: The in-stadium feed in John Paul Jones Arena will be 87.9 FM.
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.
ESPN coverage: The game will be available on ESPN.
Names To Know
Tyler Hansbrough: For whatever reason, Carolina's starting post players have struggled in the two league games this season. Part of the issue appears to be spacing and establishing position; both Hansbrough and Deon Thompson have been content to be pushed off the block at times. But when Hansbrough and Thompson combine to shoot 6-of-25 from the floor and Hansbrough is 0-of-6 from the floor in the second half, Carolina is not going to win many games. He also appears to be a bit more frustrated than he normally is and his conditioning, affected by his early season injury, is still better than most college players but considering how hard Hansbrough plays, it's not quite where he wants it to be yet.
Despite Hansbrough's dominance last season, he began ACC play averaging just 12.5 points in the first two games, shooting 13-of-18 from the foul line and just 6-of-18 (33.3%) from the floor. Carolina blew out NC State and beat Clemson in overtime. In the first two league games this year, he has averaged 19 points but has shot 9-of-27 (33.3%) from the floor and 20-of-25 from the foul line. The good news is that for the rest of league play last season after the slow start, Hansbrough shot 137-of-261 (52.4%) and averaged 24.7 points. This still marks Hansbrough's worst stretch shooting the ball in two league games percentage-wise since he shot a combined 6-of-16 (37.5%) in the final two ACC Tournament games after having his nose broken in the 2006-07 season.
Wake Forest gave Hansbrough quite a few problems by forcing him away from the basket and making him shoot jumpers or just not letting him catch the ball in good position in the post. Hansbrough has a much-improved jump shot, as he showed when he dominated the matchup against Luke Harangody of Notre Dame earlier this season. But the post is where he is the most lethal. "Teams are forcing him out and I think he's comfortable with it now because he's hit some jump shots, but he'll probably watch tape and Coach will tell him to post lower," Frasor said. "Of course when he does that, that's when he's at his most effective, getting low around the basket, getting fouled and hitting that jump hook. He's kind of gotten away from that jump hook that's made him so effective. Teams are definitely trying to force him out, but I'm not worried about it. He'll get the ball and somehow make a good play."
Virginia's front line does not look quite as formidable or as deep as Wake Forest's, but the Cavaliers do have four players 6-9 or taller (three at 6-11 or taller) that are a part of their rotation. The Cavaliers held the starting Virginia Tech front line (three forwards) to a combined 3-of-16 shooting and just nine points. The three also had just eight rebounds in a combined 55 minutes.
Ed Davis: Davis is not Carolina's go-to guy on offense in the post, but his presence in the game has made a difference on the defensive end for the Tar Heels. He received Defensive Player of the Game honors for his work against Wake Forest and watching the game, it appeared like a run-away victory. He had three blocked shots against a very talented Wake Forest front line and his presence clearly affected the Deacons. He is eighth in the league in rebounding with 7.3 per game, third in blocked shots with 1.8 per game and seventh in defensive rebounds with 5.7 per game.
According to Ken Pomeroy, the freshman is tenth in the country in defensive rebounding percentage and 217th in offensive rebounding percentage, leading the team in both. He is collecting 11.3% of all offensive rebounding opportunities and a ridiculous 28.1% of the defensive rebounding chances. To put it in perspective, standout forwards Luke Harangody is just above him at 28.2% and the athletic seven-footer Hasheem Thabeet from Connecticut is 33rd at 24.4 percent. He is also blocking 8.4% of available shots, 54th in the country.
The freshman has rebounded very well all season, averaging a ridiculous 0.39 rebounds per minute. In league play, he has averaged 0.31 rebounds per minute, second only to Deon Thompson's 0.32. Davis is leading all Tar Heels in field-goal percentage in ACC play, making 5-of-8 shots in two games (62.5 percent). But Davis definitely needs to be more aggressive on offense; he can be a force in the paint and if he can make some shots and help the Tar Heels, he needs to do that. Deon Thompson has also made five field goals in league play, but has attempted 19 shots. He only has three more points (13) than Davis does (10) in two ACC games.
Sylvan Landesberg: A true freshman has been the one to carry this Virginia team and keep it above water this year. The 6-6 guard can do it all; he is fifth in the league in scoring with 18.5 points, fifth in minutes played with 33, tenth in field-goal percentage (48.7%) and ninth in free-throw percentage (82.4 percent). He already has eight 20-point games and 11 double-figure games this year. He is also second on the team in rebounding with six boards per game and ranks third in assists with 2.6 per game. He has a margin of nearly 50 over his next-closest teammate in free throws attempted with 102 and has made nearly 70 more (84) than his next-closest teammate.
The freshman has been remarkably consistent, shooting over 42.9% in all but two games this season. However, in true freshman fashion, he shot a combined 1-of-17 combined in those games, one a loss at Minnesota and one a win over Brown. Taking out those two games, Landesberg would be shooting 54 percent from the floor. In two ACC games, Landesberg has averaged 23 points, shooting 16-of-29 (55.1%) from the floor and 14-of-15 (93.3%) frm the foul line. He has also averaged seven rebounds and five assists in two league games. Against Virginia Tech, Landesberg had 20 points on 7-of-11 shooting (6-of-6 from the foul line) to go along with eight rebounds, five assists, a steal and six turnovers.
Mike Scott: The 6-8 sophomore forward is second on the team in scoring with 11.7 points per game despite averaging just 28.1 minutes. He also leads the team in rebounds with 9.0 per game, a figure that is fourth in the ACC. Scott started 21 games as a freshman and finished second in rebounding with 5.3 per game in 18.1 minutes. Scott leads the league this season in offensive rebounds with 3.8 per game. He also leads the Cavaliers in field-goal percentage, making 57% of his attempts. Against a physical Georgia Tech front line, Scott had 11 points on 3-of-8 shooting (his second-worst shooting day of the year) but added ten rebounds. Carolina has struggled some recently against athletic big men who can step out and shoot three's, and Scott can certainly do that.
In ACC play alone, despite that cold shooting day, he has shot 10-of-18 from the floor in two games, 1-of-1 from the three-point line and 6-of-12 from the foul line, averaging 13.5 points, 8.0 rebounds and 3.5 offensive boards. He also averaged one block, three fouls and 2.5 turnovers in 26.5 minutes. Against Virginia Tech, he had 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting but had just six rebounds, tied for his third-fewest all season. Scott's performance has been key to wins and losses - in seven Virginia wins, he has shot 60.3% from the floor and averaged 4.7 free-throw attempts per game, putting up 13.1 points, 10.0 rebounds (4.4 offensive boards) and 1.3 turnovers. In the six losses, he has shot 53.1%, averaging 10 points, 7.8 rebounds (3.2 offensive) and 1.8 turnovers.
Quotables
"It doesn't make any difference that the barbeque place is closed over there (across the street from Lawrence Joel Coliseum) or anything - by God, we've got to play better. If you can figure out how to get the barbeque place open over there, at least I'd have a good sandwich when I left here." -Roy Williams after the Wake Forest loss
"When I was a high school coach, they asked me if I wanted to be the assistant principal my last year. I said, `Why would I want to deal with discipline and buses?' That's all an assistant principal gets to deal with. You don't ever have any good things to deal with. I'll bet you (ACC head of officiating) John Clougherty's phone doesn't ring very often with a coach saying, `Gosh, those officials did a great job last night.' It just doesn't happen. So poor John needs to enjoy the off-season because during the season, it's got to be a hard job for him." -Roy Williams
"Things aren't so smooth - right now is when we need you. We don't need somebody over there cheering when we're up 35. Right now is when we need you. Who knows, the chicken or the egg - do our kids go a little harder on the defensive end because the crowd starts cheering or does the crowd start cheering because the kids go a little harder? So I think it's a two-way street and let's all get in there and see what we can do." -Roy Williams
Lauren Brownlow is the managing editor of Tar Heel Monthly.
