University of North Carolina Athletics
Brownlow: The Forgotten One, Remembered
February 15, 2009 | Women's Basketball
Feb. 15, 2009
By Lauren Brownlow
"I love playing against a press," Cetera DeGraffenreid said, allowing herself to finally smile a bit at her performance against Georgia Tech.
Evidently, she does. That wasn't quite as obvious in the last meeting with the Yellow Jackets when DeGraffenreid had just two points on 1-of-10 shooting. But today, the Tar Heels adjusted after 19 first-half turnovers by getting the ball in the hands of their point guard in position to make a play. She had 12 of her career-high 22 points in the second half, eight during a decisive 19-2 run that included three assists by DeGraffenreid accounting for seven points.
"We were actually setting it up like that, just giving her a high ball screen out front," Hatchell said. "In the open court like that coming off that, she's hard to guard. If they do rotate and try to stop her, then we've got Italee (Lucas) on one side, we've got a low-block post on the other side and we've got a trailer or a back-action person coming in behind her. So we've got people open if she can't take it on in there. She's doing better and better reading that, too.
"Some of this is like what Ty Lawson does. Hey, you copycat and you learn from the best. I thought she did a pretty good job with it."
Like Lawson, the sophomore point guard has at times been forgotten amongst other emerging stars on the team. But also like Lawson, she is what makes the Tar Heels go and that has become increasingly clear as the season winds down. Since scoring ten points against Connecticut and Georgia Tech on 4-of-18 shooting, she has shot 50% from the floor in the last six ACC games, averaging 14.8 points, 3.8 assists and 2.8 steals. She has also attempted 6.5 free throws per game.
Carolina can certainly knock down three-pointers this season, but the Tar Heels have a weapon in DeGraffenreid that they can access at any time. She ran the Tar Heel break and ignited the Tar Heel defense by knocking away passes and hounding the Yellow Jackets' guards.
Carolina had 19 possessions and just 13 points down the stretch, including missing the front end of a one-and-one and taking two shots less than ten seconds into the shot clock. Carolina also turned it over seven times in the final 9:55, playing right into Georgia Tech's hands. Just as quickly as Carolina was up and assured of an easy win, it was down five and couldn't buy a basket.
But in this game, everything happened just as quickly but a lot more quietly. All of a sudden, the scoreboard showed Carolina had a 19-point lead and all of a sudden, the team that it couldn't stop in the first half had scored just six second-half points with 7:15 to go and Carolina was up by 20 points.
MaChelle Joseph's Georgia Tech team was more physical, tougher and more aggressive on both ends of the court against Carolina in the first meeting. She appreciatively noted after the game a much different looking bunch, and attributed it at least in part to the development of DeGraffenreid.
"They've improved tremendously since we played them in Atlanta," Joseph said. "I thought that their point guard play was much better today. It's obvious that their coaching staff has done a great job of teaching those young guards time and score situations, when to run and when to slow down. Carolina's usually on fast-forward all the time and it seemed like today, they did a good job. They know we want them to be on fast-forward because we want them to shoot it quick so we can get the ball back and run the other way. I thought they did a great job of controlling tempo."
In the final four minutes of a tight game in Atlanta, DeGraffenreid shot 0-for-4, turned it over twice and missed the front end of a one-and-one. In the previous 15 minutes, she had taken just one shot (missing it) and had two turnovers. She took one foul shot the whole game.
So she took over. When Carolina needed her to take over in transition, she did that. She was icing down a rapidly-swelling welt on her lip from taking a particularly hard shot on an acrobatic move to draw a foul. She was also able to effectively use the clear-outs as the shot clock wound down, driving into the paint and either drawing fouls or dishing to open teammates.
But in typical DeGraffenreid fashion, the point guard refused to take any kind of personal credit for her performance. She claimed her bad outing in the last game didn't add anything extra to her motivation - but she was certainly not going to let the Tar Heels lose.
"My only concern was they beat us last time and they're not going to beat us again. That's all I was thinking," DeGraffenreid said.
If she keeps playing the way that she has been, it will be very difficult for anyone to beat the Tar Heels again.
