University of North Carolina Athletics
College of Charleston Game Guide
January 7, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 7, 2009
By Lauren Brownlow
The Basics
No. 3/3 North Carolina (13-1, 0-1) will host College of Charleston (10-2) on Wednesday night, trying to bounce back from its first loss of the season at the hands of Boston College, 85-78. College of Charleston is coming off of a 79-75 loss to Davidson on December 29th. College of Charleston is facing its first nationally ranked opponent of the season since Davidson fell out of the rankings right before their matchup. College of Charleston has a 2-2 record against the Tar Heels while sitting at 4-13 all-time against the AP top-25. College of Charleston defeated No. 3 and unbeaten North Carolina 66-64 on December 5, 1998. Carolina would go on to lose to Weber State in the NCAA Tournament that season but that was the highest-ranked team the Cougars have beaten. The next season, No. 2 Carolina beat College of Charleston 72-54, marking the highest-ranked team that Charleston has ever played. Carolina would go on to the Final Four that season. Bobby Cremins is 12-32 against North Carolina.
Game Time: College of Charleston at North Carolina, 9:00 PM.
Last Time: On December 21, 2001, College of Charleston defeated Carolina 66-60 in Charlotte in the Hardee's Tournament of Champions. It was the fifth loss of Carolina's 8-20 season. Carolina was out-rebounded by the Cougars 54-37 and shot 32.8% from the floor. Jason Capel and Will Johnson led the Tar Heels with 14 points apiece; Capel shot 3-of-10 from the floor but 6-of-7 from the foul line. Capel also had a team-high 10 rebounds. Melvin Scott was the only other Tar Heel in double figures with 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting, 3-of-5 from beyond the arc. He also had a team-high three steals. Troy Wheless led the Cougars with 21 points on 7-of-12 shooting. Jeff Bolton had 18 points and Shannon Chamber added 11.
Radio Coverage: Tar Heel Sports Network coverage begins at 8:00 PM.
Injury Report: Marcus Ginyard returned to limited action in the last two games after an October 8th surgery to repair a stress fracture in his foot. 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. College of Charleston forward Jeremy Simmons will not play as he injured his knee at Winthrop on December 22nd.
Storylines
Valuing offensive opportunities: Not to say that Carolina didn't treat every offensive possession as an important one, particularly down the stretch. But there has seemed to be an air of casual play creeping into to Carolina's offense, an offense that was once crisp and intelligent, avoiding turnovers and taking smart shots, even if that took six or seven passes. Carolina cut Boston College's lead to 56-54 with 15:05 to go. With 6:23 left and nearly 11 minutes later, Carolina was down 78-63. Carolina had 20 possessions in that span and turned it over six times (30% loss of ball) and scored nine points (0.45 points per possession). Carolina actually shot better from three-point range (1-of-2) than it did from two-point range (2-of-10) in that span, including a particularly bad sequence in which Tywon Lawson missed a lay-up and Will Graves missed a dunk follow. It got worse in the last 4:09 - after Carolina cut it to 78-71, the Tar Heels had a paltry 0.39 points averaged on 18 possessions and made 2-of-14 shots from the floor, 0-of-8 three-pointers and 3-of-6 free throws.
"You've got to make shots from the free-throw line. You've got to make shots when you need a basket to get over the hump," Williams said. "I think it was 56-54 and ... I very seldom even know what the score is until the last 4-5 minutes because I try to judge how we're playing by watching how we're playing and not go by what that scoreboard says. But we had three straight possessions and during one of those possessions is when we missed a lay-up and it started. Will (Graves) makes a little casual, sloppy pass to Tywon (Lawson). He missed a lay-up and Will misses a follow. I felt like if we could just get something going - but if you shoot 29 percent, it's hard to come back on people."
Carolina has also done a fantastic job of turning defense into offense, averaging 21.6 points off turnovers this season. But the Tar Heels had just five points off of 11 Boston College turnovers, four of which came in the final 3:05. Carolina did have four second-chance points off of two Boston College turnovers in the first half, but technically had zero points off of two turnovers. Still, the Tar Heels managed to score before the Eagles got the ball back. But in the second half, Carolina couldn't even do that.
In the first five minutes of the second half, Carolina scored four points off of two BC turnovers and got within two points. For each of the seven turnovers after that in the second half, Carolina scored one point. Including second-chance opportunities, Carolina gave itself 14 possessions after those seven turnovers and still came away with just four points, all on free throws. Carolina shot 0-of-8 from the floor, 4-of-8 from the foul line and turned it over three times. Wayne Ellington had a nice steal and then was blocked from behind in transition. Ty Lawson knocked it away on a great effort play and is fouled but makes just one of two foul shots. They should have capitalized on the BC mistakes but Carolina's five steals were a season-low. If the Tar Heels can't force turnovers, they're already in trouble.
The last possession of the first half in which Boston College made a three-pointer summed up Williams' frustration. He felt as if his team was letting the Eagles determine the pace and tempo of the game. Carolina made three mistakes on that play alone, according to Williams, but that play was symbolic of Carolina's inability to impose its will. "We didn't do a very good job of attacking," Williams said. "Even the last play of the first half, we do what we were supposed to do and - we even had two fouls to give. We were trying to get a double team, they came off a screen and the guy that should be there is not there. So instead of us either getting a foul and them not even getting a shot off, then we give up a basket before the half, or if we get a turnover, we get a chance to go down ourselves."
Carolina might have rolled over some non-conference opponents in the past, but the Cougars are playing some very good basketball this year, beating a very tough South Carolina team in overtime and nearly knocking off Stephen Curry and Davidson. College of Charleston has the second-longest streak in the nation of not allowing 100 points in a game; the Cougars haven't allowed 100 points since 1977, or 951 straight games. Princeton has the longest streak and have not allowed 100 points since North Carolina beat them 103-76 in 1968.
Toughness: Considering what this team went through last season both in terms of close wins and losses and persevering through injuries, it's almost humorous to hear media members questioning whether this team has been tested this year. Almost everyone from last year's team is back and almost every one of them went through quite a bit of adversity in terms of losing teammates, winning games in overtime, making late comebacks and constantly facing down - and passing - tests. But ever since Carolina dominated Michigan State in Detroit, something has seemed off about the way it has played.
Everything culminated against Boston College with the Tar Heels seeming not so much like they were apathetic, but more like they had been hit in the mouth by a tough, physical team and weren't sure how to respond until it was too late. "They brought it to us first," Ty Lawson said. "They bumped us first if we were going to the basket. This is probably the toughest team we've played the whole season. No team has ever come to us and tried to rough us up and things like that. So that's the main thing that really helped them a lot because they were really tough. They were much tougher than us tonight."
Credit to Lawson for admitting that, but Carolina has got to understand that the dangerous teams are teams that are not afraid of them. Valparaiso was not afraid of them but did not have the firepower to beat Carolina. Santa Barbara was not afraid of the Tar Heels. Teams like Evansville and Nevada certainly didn't play like they were afraid of Carolina. But a team like Boston College - and any other ACC team, for that matter - who is not afraid of Carolina and has the talent to beat Carolina is a dangerous combination. Carolina got hit in the mouth so hard that it was down by as many as 15 points in the second half.
"You can't spot a good team with a ball-control guard that kind of lead and expect them to roll over and play dead for you," Williams said. "You've got to force your will on the team that you're playing against at your pace, your tempo and how you're going to play and not allow them to be the aggressor. In the first half particularly and then we were missing shots, we allowed them to continue forcing their will on us."
Carolina got closer by the end but it was too late. When even Tyler Hansbrough is getting the ball ripped away from him in the second half, the team appeared to be going through the motions. It culminated with Wayne Ellington being caught from behind in transition to get his shot blocked; Boston College scored to make it 78-63 with 6:07 to go. After that, Ellington makes a three-pointer, Lawson makes a great hustle play to steal it from Tyrese Rice and Hansbrough gets fouled on a rebound. But the following sequence demonstrated the futility that was to come - Hansbrough missed the front end of a one-and-one with Carolina with 11 with 5:22 to go and Danny Green hustles in for the rebound. He missed a lay-up, gets his own rebound and is fouled but still only manages to make one shot.
Still, Carolina hit the backboards hard and played fantastic defense down the stretch. In the final 6:38 of the game, Boston College hit just 1-of-4 shots from the floor, 3-of-6 free throws and turned it over four times, scoring just seven points. The rest of that half, the Eagles shot 12-of-23 from the floor (52.2%) and 8-of-8 from the foul line, scoring 32 points. Carolina has 12 of its 20 second-half offensive rebounds in that span and held the Eagles to no offensive rebounds in the final 8:27 after allowing 13 in the first half. That's the reason that Carolina managed to outscore the Eagles down the stretch - but it was too late.
"We got closer by effort. I talked to the team with our meeting this afternoon," Williams said. "With six minutes and 23 seconds to play, we're down 15. From that moment on, we out-scored them 15-7. The wild thing is we're 4-of-18 from the floor and 5-for-12 from the foul line. So you said, `Well, how did you even get it that close?' and it was because of effort. The kids did such a great job. We also got 12 offensive rebounds in the last six minutes. If we rebound like that the entire ballgame, we're going to beat everybody and half the NBA teams."
Carolina is going to have to learn that in league play, it can't wait until the end of a game to come out with that kind of intensity. Last year's team did well in responding to adversity. The 2005 team responded well to adversity. When his team trailed for the first time at halftime, what Williams told his team seems even more poignant now. "The one thing I said was, `This is good for us. We'll find out how competitive we are. We're not going to change the game in the first 30 seconds or the first two minutes. We've still got to play 20 minutes. We can't do anything about the mistakes that we've made already. We can do something about these 20 minutes.'
"I even believe this right now - I was never one that thought or had any thoughts whatsoever about going undefeated because you're not going to do that in college basketball now. But I do believe that we have some adversity right now and I think adversity has an opportunity to make you get stronger. I don't think adversity always makes you get stronger. It depends on how you handle that. So that's the way we're looking at it."
At The Game
Listening to the Tar Heel Sports Network at the game: The in-stadium frequency in the Smith Center will be FM 92.7. That station will have a non-delayed feed of WCHL 1360, the local affiliate.
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.
Fox Sports South/NESN coverage: The game will be available on Fox Sports South and NESN where available.
Names To Know
Deon Thompson: Very quietly, Deon Thompson's hot start as the only Tar Heel to score in double figures for all 12 games has begun to fizzle out. He has scored 11 points combined in the last two games and has averaged 7.0 points in the last three games. He has also shot 42.1% from the floor in that span after starting the year averaging 15.1 points and shooting 60.7% from the floor in the first 11 games. His rebounding average has also dropped from 7.5 per game to 3.7 in the last three games; his steals have gone from 1.4 to 0.3 and his blocks have gone from 1.5 to 0.7.
His minutes have also decreased from 26.8 in the first 11 to 21 in the last three. When Williams said he went small with Will Graves, that meant Thompson didn't play down the stretch. That's largely due to the fact that Thompson made just 1-of-6 foul shots. That's also an odd regression for Thompson; he began the year making 5-of-15 in Carolina's first three games. In the next seven games, he hit 23-of-31 (74.2%). But in the last two games, despite the exam break, he has shot 1-of-6 (16.7%), all coming against Boston College. He also had two turnovers, one of which was particularly disturbing to Williams. "I even told Deon, and this is not picking on any kid - I did a worse job than any player on our team - but to allow somebody to tie you up 40 feet from the basket just because you won't be aggressive and rip the ball through and get the guy off of you, we should never have that," Williams said.
Like the entire team, Thompson will need to bounce back and respond to a little adversity. He has done that pretty well so far this season, carrying the team's post game in the beginning of the season without Tyler Hansbrough and still continuing to play well when he returned, averaging 14.7 points and 8.2 rebounds in the first six games after Hansbrough's return. When Thompson doesn't play well, it's almost always a mental block he needs to overcome. But with ACC play beginning, Carolina will need more from him.
Will Graves: Marcus Ginyard is clearly not yet back to 100 percent, and it is something that concerns both Williams and Ginyard. But Will Graves showed signs of emerging as a consistent rotation player for the Tar Heels on Sunday. He took the leap from a bench player who could play adequate defense, get a few rebounds, hit some three's and run the floor into a player that Carolina could count on down the stretch and could provide the lethargic Tar Heels a spark that nearly helped them pull off an improbable victory. "We went small at the end with Will as the four-man because I thought we needed more pressure on the ball and more pressure on the perimeter," Williams said. "They weren't throwing inside and scoring over us, those big guys inside. So I do let the course of the game dictate what I want at that specific time. I thought Will did a good job for us and gave us a little more activity."
He made his share of mistakes that Williams wasn't pleased with - he missed a follow dunk in the second half with Carolina within two points at 54-56. He was a part of the defense on the play that broke down at the end of the first half when Rakim Sanders hit a three-pointer. He fouled Tyrese Rice down the stretch when perhaps a better decision would have been to foul someone else. But Graves played 14 minutes and had seven points and seven rebounds, including four offensive rebounds. He had four of Carolina's 11 second-chance points and when he played the final 5:49 of the game, he had five rebounds (three offensive boards) and one putback. He's not the best defender on this team, but Graves always hustles and Carolina really needed the lift he gave them off the bench.
Andrew Goudelock: The 6-1 sophomore guard is the leading scorer for the Cougars and one of five returning starters from last year's squad. After averaging 13.2 points per game last season, he has averaged 17.9 points per game on 47.3% shooting from the floor (42.9% from beyond the arc). He also leads the team in made three-pointers with 27 and is second in both assists (2.6 per game) and steals (1.2 per game). He has stepped it up even another level in the last three games, averaging 22.3 points and shooting 51 percent from the floor and 46 percent from beyond the arc, averaging 4.3 made three-pointers. In the Davidson game, he had a season-high five turnovers but did have 22 points and seven rebounds. He shot just 2-of-9 from beyond the arc but shot 8-of-13 from two-point range. Goudelock has been in double figures all season and has hit 20 points in six of 12 games. He can be an absolutely lethal shooter and has been on a torrid stretch in the last few games.
Jermaine Johnson: Johnson is another of the five returning starters this season for College of Charleston and the 6-7 senior forward is second on the team in scoring with 11.2 points per game. He has also had seven straight double-figure scoring games and of those, he has five double-doubles. He also leads the team in offensive rebounds (3.2 per game) and rebounds (8.8 per game). In College of Charleston's two losses, he has shot 46.7% from the floor and averaged 12 points, 11 rebounds and three turnovers. In the ten wins, he has shot 60 percent and averaged 11.7 points, 8.3 rebounds and just1.6 turnovers. Against Davidson, he had his second-worst shooting day of the season making just 3-of-8 shots. He still ended up with 16 points because he made 10-of-12 foul shots. That is significant for Johnson as previous to that, he had made 15-of-34 foul shots (44.1 percent). He also had 13 rebounds against Davidson.
Quotables
"I have no idea if that (leg) sleeve was to help that or if it's just Marcus (Ginyard) making another fashion statement. With him, you never know." -Roy Williams
"I don't want somebody to come in my living room and steal my brownies. I'm going to do everything I can to make darned sure they don't do that." -Roy Williams
"I've thrown the water cooler and knocked Gatorade all over a couple players. I got Tywon (Lawson) one year. I told him later I wished I'd gotten him better. I don't plan anything. What they see is what they get. It's a true thing. I've hurt my wrist before. I've hurt my fist before hitting things. I certainly don't plan those because I've got to play golf after the season's over with." -Roy Williams
"Bunker shots, particularly long bunker shots. I love the beach, but I love it sitting on my rear end watching the girls walk by, not hitting balls out of it." -Roy Williams on his least favorite golf shot
"I made one hole-in-one on the practice range one time and I went out and got the ball out of the court. ... She (Wanda Williams) really ticks me off. It was 118 yards, hit a pitching wedge about 12-15 feet past the hole, backed it up and went in the hole. I went home, got Wanda, drove over and showed it to her and she said, `This is so close it shouldn't even count.'" -Roy Williams
"They kind of cheated. There was a Go-Kart race and we were supposed to all line up, get to the line. Because the Karts are right behind each other, mine was in the back. Marcus (Ginyard) was like, `Wait for Danny, wait for DG to come up.' So as I'm coming up, the guy says go, and he's like, `Wait, wait, wait.' Bob (Bobby Frasor) just takes off and then Marcus takes off. Me and Tyler (Hansbrough) are in the back and so I kind of got short-handed on that one." -Danny Green on the Senior Challenge
Lauren Brownlow is the managing editor of Tar Heel Monthly.
