University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: UNC Basketball Mailbag
February 3, 2009 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Feb. 3, 2009
By Adam Lucas
First, something very cool to start your Tuesday. Many of you have probably heard rumblings about the upcoming HBO documentary on the Carolina-Duke basketball rivalry (slated to air Feb. 23 on HBO, so start making friends with someone who has that network). We received an email from Scott Lansing, an editor/director with Sabotage Film Group, the group that's putting together the trailer for the show. Scott is a '93 graduate of Carolina's RTVMP program, so you know the trailer was in good hands. He wanted Mailbag readers to be among the first to know that the trailer is finished and ready for viewing here.
A couple people at Carolina have seen the entire show and have raved about it; there's an advance screening Sunday in Durham, so more reviews should start trickling in then.
By the way, we're still getting regular questions about Marcus Ginyard. He'll be meeting with doctors soon to get an update on his status. In the meantime, we caught up with him last week.
With the apparent carousel at #1 this year, my question is has a team ranked #1 ever lost and held on to the position the following week?
Dylan Terhune
Carrboro, NC
We don't have access to the records for every team, but we do have access to Carolina's records. These days, it's basically understood that a top-ranked team that loses will drop in the polls. It hasn't always been that way. During the 1985-86 season, the Tar Heels were ranked second in the preseason and then jumped to first after pasting UCLA in the season opener. They held the top spot for the next 13 weeks, even though they lost at unranked Virginia on Jan. 30. In fact, it took two straight losses--to Maryland at home and then at NC State--before pollsters dropped the Tar Heels to third.
An even more unusual poll scenario happened during the 1983-84 season. Carolina began the season ranked first, but dropped to second after one week despite winning the first two games of the year. Then, after one more week, the Tar Heels climbed back to first. They held that spot for the rest of the season, despite losing a Feb. 12 game at Arkansas and being upset by Duke in the ACC Tournament semifinals.
Is three the most ACC teams to achieve the Number 1 ranking in national polls in a single season?
Tom Solley
Atlanta, GA
Putting three different teams at the top of the AP poll is something that has happened only four times since the poll began over 50 years ago. It's just the second time the Atlantic Coast Conference has turned the trick, as Carolina, Duke and Georgia Tech were all ranked in the top spot during the 1985-86 season. Interestingly, Roy Williams has been involved two of the four times it's happened, as his Kansas team shared the top spot with Big Eight rivals Missouri and Oklahoma during the 1989-90 season. The other league to pull the trifecta was the SEC during the 2002-03 campaign (Alabama, Florida and Kentucky).
I started thinking about it in the last couple of games it seems like Graves, Drew, Frasor are no longer there and if they play there is not much production on the offensive side. So I just took the stats from the FSU game and see that Frasor had 8 minutes, Drew and Graves had 3. Now I don't know what I expected before the season but I was hoping they would be able to play maybe 10 minutes apiece especially during close games? So say could you somehow compare the 2005 team and minutes played with the 2009 in games say that were within 10 points?
Rito from Kansas
Roy Williams noticed the same thing you did about the Florida State game, except he looked less at how much the reserves played and more at how much his starters played. In that game, Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson played 37 minutes apiece. "They won't be able to give their best and play as hard as we want them to play if they're playing that much," the head coach said. Those figures changed to 31 minutes for Lawson and 33 minutes for Ellington against NC State.
As you might have noticed, Frasor hasn't exactly been on a hot streak offensively lately. He's made just one 3-pointer in conference play, and that shot came way back in the ACC opener on Jan. 4 against Boston College. That's led a bevy of emailers to wonder why he's still in the rotation. Let's let Williams answer that question: "Bobby is really good at moving the ball and really good defensively. I don't know that I've been playing Bobby as much as he deserves."
Wait a minute, don't send that email yet. I can already hear the moaning beginning: "What do you mean as much as he deserves? He isn't making shots!" True, but if you listen to what Williams says, you'll see that the two things he likes about Frasor--defense and moving the ball--are two of the things closest to the head coach's heart. It's plainly evident that Frasor has earned Williams's trust. Go back and look at the FSU game and you'll see that the Tar Heels called a timeout with less than a minute remaining and the Seminoles about to inbound the ball for the express purpose of getting Frasor in the game. He "sees the big picture," as Williams often says, and that's something that makes his teammates better whether he's making shots or not.
If you're looking for a 2005 comparison, consider the case of David Noel. Today, we mostly remember him as the senior version who scored effectively during the 2006 season. But during the 2005 season, he didn't score much at all--because that wasn't his job. He scored just six points in the entire 2005 NCAA Tournament. But he stayed in the rotation because he understood his role, understood what Carolina was trying to accomplish, and had a good grasp of how he fit into that plan. Frasor is in that same spot, and as long as he doesn't try to force his offense he's going to play consistent minutes. And don't rule out the possibility that at some point along the way, he's going to make a big shot. "I've been shooting a lot more and going to the gym at night," he said. "I have to get in a rhythm, so I can take my time and take the shot confidently. I'm thinking about it too much. I've got to get that muscle memory."
Now, about the rotation at large. Will Graves didn't play at all against State, and Williams explained it with his standard answer about playing time: "I didn't want him to play." It's too early to write Graves completely out of the rotation, however. Williams praised him last week for making the most defensive improvement of any player on the roster in the last year, and he has the kind of versatility and size that could make him a valuable cog. The key here, too, seems to be confidence. When Graves received minutes against FSU, he looked concerned about making a turnover, which led to--you guessed it--a turnover.
All the talk about Carolina's lack of bench scoring is missing one key point: the Tar Heels don't necessarily need scoring from the bench. Unless the reserves go into the game en masse, they're always going to be on the court with at least one quality scorer, because Carolina's first five are so proficient offensively. Instead, the Tar Heels need other things from Ed Davis (rebounding, defense, post presence), Larry Drew (manage the team, get the ball to the right scorers, minimize mistakes), Graves (here's one spot where scoring wouldn't hurt, as hitting open shots is a big part of his game) and Frasor (defense, poise).
As for a comparison to the 2005 team, that squad essentially had three reserves playing double-digit minutes in the year's close games: Melvin Scott, Noel and Marvin Williams. That trio averaged approximately 55 minutes per game combined in close games. So far this season, Graves, Drew, Frasor and Davis are averaging approximately 54 minutes per game. That's an interesting area to watch as the season progresses.
Brownlow's Down Low
I know it's probably because I'm getting old and my recent memory (last 2-3 weeks) overrides 2-3 MONTHS ago, but it seems the Heels have played extremely well in the last few minutes of the first half this season. This leads me to a two-part question: Is this really statistically true? And if so, what theories do you have for the reasons for better play during that one segment of the game? (Something tells me Roy would like this answer too.)
Dean Williams
Goldsboro, NC
Lauren writes:
Your recent memory and your long-term memory are both correct, although Carolina's late first-half pushes have certainly been huge in ACC play particularly. On the season, Carolina has shown the difference defense makes late. Its own field-goal percentage is similar - around 50% both in the final 2:30 and the rest of the first half - but opponents have shot 27.8% in the final 2:30 compared to 41.7% in the first 17:30.In Carolina's two ACC losses, opponents have ended the first half on a combined 13-9 run. But in its five league wins, Carolina has outscored opponents 41-12 in the final 2:30. Even with the two losses, the Tar Heels have outscored seven ACC opponents 50-25 in the final 2:30 and have shot 53.1% in that span while holding opponents to 32.3% shooting. The big difference is in the losses, the two opponents combined to shoot 55.6% from the floor while in the five wins, five opponents have shot 22.7 percent.
In the rest of the half in ACC wins, teams have shot 36.6%, certainly better than the 22.7 percent. But in the losses, teams have used late surges to gain momentum; Boston College and Wake Forest had shot 41.8% before the final 2:30 and 55.6% going into halftime. Carolina, on the other hand, lost momentum in those two games by shooting 47.5% before the final 2:30 and 37.5% in the final 2:30. In ACC wins, Carolina found its rhythm at the end of the half and put opponents away, improving its shooting from 45.5% to 58.3 percent.
What is the reason for this? Well, my theories would probably involve a few things, one of which would be feeling out opponents. Ty Lawson was criticized for not pressuring Jack McClinton the entire game the way he did at the end of the first half against Miami. But Roy Williams pointed out that it takes time for Lawson to figure out what his opponents, generally very talented ACC point guards and scorers, are going to do. Another important point to make is that Carolina's style of play tends to take the legs away from its opponents, and the extreme dip in shooting percentage late appears to show that.
It could just be that this particular team takes time to get comfortable on both ends of the court. But those momentum-shifting runs have been very important going into the locker room at halftime.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
