University of North Carolina Athletics
Maryland Game Guide
February 3, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 3, 2009
By Lauren Brownlow
The Basics
No. 3/4 North Carolina (19-2, 5-2) will host Maryland (14-7, 3-4) on Tuesday night in the first of two meetings between the schools this season. The Tar Heels will play its next day games at home before playing three of its final five ACC games on the road. Carolina is coming off of a 93-76 win at NC State on Saturday. Maryland beat Miami 73-68 last Saturday; the Terrapins have won two of its last four games. The Tar Heels have won five straight games after dropping its first two ACC contests. A win would give Carolina its 51-st 20-win season and fifth in a row under Roy Williams.
Carolina holds a 113-55 edge in the series between the two schools, but the Tar Heels are just 14-8 against Maryland in the Smith Center. The Terrapins' eight wins are more than any other opponent has over Carolina in the Smith Center except for Duke (10). In Chapel Hill, Carolina is 53-17. Maryland has won the last two meetings in the series; the two schools have not met twice in a season since 2006 and that was also the last time Carolina has beaten Maryland. Carolina had won five games in a row in the series before dropping the last two. Roy Williams is 5-5 against Maryland overall and 5-3 at Carolina.
Game Time: Maryland at North Carolina, 8:00 PM.
Last Time: Carolina lost for the first time last season 82-80 in the Smith Center to unranked Maryland on January 19, 2008. Carolina was down for much of the game and faced a 52-41 deficit midway through the second half. Carolina fought back to take a four-point lead with 2 ½ minutes left on a Danny Green three-point play, 78-74. Maryland fought back to lead 80-78 and Tyler Hansbrough made a shot to tie it with 51 seconds to go. Bambale Osby hit a jumper to give Maryland the lead for good. Carolina shot just 38% from the floor and 40.5% in the second half. The Tar Heels shot just 15 free throws; it was the fewest attempted in the Smith Center (next-closest was 18 against NC State) and the fourth-fewest all season. Carolina out-rebounded Maryland 46-38 (21-11 on the offensive boards) and had 20 assists to just ten turnovers. But Maryland also only had ten turnovers; the Terps also shot 46.9% for the game and made 16-of-20 free throws, 15-of-18 in the second half and most down the stretch.
Tyler Hansbrough led Carolina with 17 points and 14 rebounds; he made just 6-of-15 shots. Wayne Ellington had 14 points on 6-of-16 shooting and added eight rebounds and five assists. Ty Lawson had 11 points and four assists but also had four fouls and three turnovers. Danny Green, Marcus Ginyard and Alex Stepheson added nine points each with Green chipping in eight rebounds. James Gist led the Terrapins with 22 points and 13 rebounds. Landon Milbourne had 14 points on 4-of-9 shooting (2-of-3 from beyond the arc). Bambale Osby had 12 points and Greivis Vasquez had 12 points, six rebounds, 11 assists and two steals.
Radio Coverage: Tar Heel Sports Network coverage begins at 7:00 PM.
Injury Report: Marcus Ginyard will be meeting with doctors soon to determine the status of his foot. He has been rehabbing it but has still had some pain. Tyler Zeller will meet with doctors as well in the coming days to determine whether or not he can return to practice.
Storylines
Valuing possessions: Taking bad shots or turning the ball over is something that the Tar Heel defense thrives on, and something that the offense tries to do on every possession. Williams doesn't mind the occasional turnover or even missed shots here and there, but neither of them had better be a careless turnover or a bad shot. Carolina has done a great job of cutting back on turnovers for the most part, committing just 12.0 in its last two double-digit wins. But against Florida State, it had 21 turnovers, a season-high. The good news is that over half of Carolina's turnovers in ACC play have been steals by opponents, meaning the errors are usually not just throwing the ball out of bounds. The bad news is that generally lends itself to a live-ball, transition-type situation. That's what Carolina thrives on, but it is normally the team making that happen.
Carolina's opponents have averaged 17.3 points off of Carolina's 14.4 ACC turnovers and the Tar Heels have scored just 14.8 points off just 13.7 forced ACC turnovers. Carolina's non-conference foes averaged 19.1 turnovers and Carolina scored 22.5 points off of those miscues. Carolina averaged 13.5 steals out of conference and 5.4 steals in league play. Carolina's opponents averaged 7.5 steals out of conference (105 total) in 14 games and in seven ACC games, Carolina's opponents have 56 steals (8.0). In its last two double-digit wins, Carolina's opponents have averaged 6.0 steals (Florida State had 12).
The Tar Heels have shot 54.7% from the floor and allowed opponents to shoot 38.5% in its last two-double digit wins; against Florida State, Carolina was out-shot 46.7% to 38.1 percent. The good news is that in home ACC games, Carolina is shooting 45% (including Boston College) and allowing 40.3 percent shooting. On the road, the Tar Heels have shot 43.7% and allowed 40.7 percent. That's largely because Carolina has become increasingly successful into forcing opponents into taking lower-percentage shots.
Carolina has allowed just 21.0 points in the paint in its last two double-digit wins and against Florida State, it allowed 28. Adding free throws, the Seminoles managed 43 points off of easy or close shots. But that was the most Carolina had allowed since Wake Forest had a ridiculous seventy-two points off of free throws and points in the paint. In its first two games, Carolina allowed 88.5 points and of those, 58.0 per game were of the paint/foul shot variety (Carolina lost both games).
In its last five games, Carolina has allowed 69.8 points and 35.8 per game have been in the paint or foul shots. It might have seemed like an NC State offensive barrage in the second half, and in many ways it was. But the Tar Heels allowed NC State to score just 25 points in the paint or from the foul line, a season-low in ACC play. Almost half of NC State's two-point field goals were outside the paint (9 of 17) and 11 of its 28 field goals were three-pointers. Carolina will take that all day - particularly as contested as some of the three's were - and hope that opponents aren't feeling it as much as Courtney Fells was.
With the exception of Wake Forest, Carolina has held the three top five ACC teams in field-goal percentage it has faced to below their average; Clemson shot over ten percentage points lower than its average and NC State shot more than five percentage points lower (Carolina and Duke are the other two teams). But as for the bottom six, Carolina has faced four of those teams and allowed the No. 10 team (Florida State) to shoot better (46.7%) than its average (43.3%) and Boston College (6th) to shoot slightly better than its average in the loss (45.7%; the Eagles have shot 44.6 percent).
Even Miami, a team that shoots 43.5%, shot close to 40% against the Tar Heels. The only team that has shot worse than it has all season against Carolina was Virginia, which is 11th and has shot 42.2% (30.5% against the Tar Heels). Maryland is eighth, shooting around 41 percent. When Maryland shoots over 41%, it is 12-1 (2-1 in ACC play). When it shoots under 40 percent, it is 1-5 (1-2 in ACC play). Maryland has averaged just 12.4 turnovers in ACC play (12.7 in non-conference games) and has a total of 16 turnovers in its last two games, just seven against Miami.
Maryland was one of 11 opponents (in 39 games) to break 80 points on Carolina last season; the Tar Heels were 8-3 in those games. The Terrapins were also one of seven opponents to be whistled for fewer than 17 fouls (16). It's one of those losses on paper that's hard to wrap one's head around; the Tar Heels turned it over only ten times and had 80 points (34 in the paint). But Carolina shot just 38%, and made only 7-of-23 three-pointers, which goes a long way towards explaining it. Last season, Maryland was one of three teams to hold Carolina to under 40 percent shooting (Carolina was 1-2 in those games, including the Kansas loss).
The Tar Heels were also forced to score 33 of its 80 points outside of the paint and foul line. Maryland, on the other hand, scored just 52 of its 82 points in the paint and on the line. Carolina also allowed Maryland to shoot 46.9% and forced just ten turnovers. That's not something Carolina can allow to happen this time and expect to win. Carolina has to take care of the ball not only by avoiding turnovers, but also by taking smart shots. Maryland has done this better than Carolina the last few seasons.
Getting on the defensive boards: It ties into the previous storyline, but it is an issue that has plagued the Tar Heels this season at times. Carolina's defense relies on either forcing turnovers or forcing bad shots, and there have been times this season when Carolina has been able to neither force turnovers or bad shots, or to rebound the bad shots. Maryland is dead last in the league in rebounding margin at just +0.4 per game. But as some of Carolina's recent games against the bottom of the ACC - Virginia, Boston College, Florida State and Clemson rank at 8-11, respectively - any team can rebound well on any given night. Against NC State, Roy Williams was so upset with his teams' rebounding early on in particular that he even pulled Tyler Hansbrough for missing an early box-out.
NC State had four of its eight first-half offensive rebounds in the first 3:56, retrieving four of its first six missed shots to score five second-chance points. The Wolfpack would get just four more offensive rebounds the rest of the half on 19 more missed shots and scored no more second-chance points; its final offensive board with a chance to score came at the 5:50 mark. NC State had just three offensive rebounds on 13 misses in the second half, but the four second-chance points they scored were potential momentum-shifters.
A second-chance jumper cut the Carolina lead to nine with 8:51 left; a three-point play by Brandon Costner after a missed free throw with 5:58 left was a four-point swing in a little over 30 seconds, cutting the lead to 11 with 5:58 left. A pair of free throws less than a minute later after an offensive rebound cut it back to nine points. So even though Carolina was able to rebound 10 of NC State's 13 missed field goals, just four offensive rebounds allowed to a hot-shooting team nearly turned the game around.
On missed field goals alone, Carolina allowed Boston College to nab 13 of its 24 first-half misses and though the Eagles got just three misses in the second half, they only missed 14 shots. Wake Forest got 25% of its missed shots and that was a season-low, but the Deacons rebounded three of its 13 second-half misses and five of 19 first-half misses - again, with not many missed shots, Carolina has less of a defensive rebounding margin for error. Virginia rebounded over half of its own second-half missed field goals (18 of 35) and Miami retrieved nearly half of its first-half misses (11 of 24). Clemson had 17 offensive boards but on 44 misses, it wasn't as noticeable. Florida State, however, rebounded nine of its 16 second-half misses.
Oddly enough, Carolina has allowed more offensive rebounds and second-chance points in its five ACC wins than in its two ACC losses; in the wins, opponents have averaged 16.6 offensive rebounds and 12 second-chance points and in the losses, opponents had 12 offensive boards and 10.5 second-chance points. Carolina also did its best job on the boards against Wake Forest, out-rebounded the Deacons 51-37. Carolina didn't play the best defense in either of those games, but rebounding is finishing the defense and even as opponents shoot lower percentages from the field, that remains a defensive issue. As the NC State game and others have shown, giving a hot-shooting team second and third chances does nothing but put the outcome of the game in doubt.
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.
Raycom coverage: The game will be available regionally on Raycom. For a list of affiliates, click here.
Names To Know
Tyler Hansbrough: When Tyler Hansbrough is getting pulled out of a game for failing to do something like box out, surely the end of the world is near. But even Hansbrough is indeed human and he allowed Brandon Costner to get an offensive rebound early, prompting Williams to yank his star out of the game and give him an earful. He didn't do it to make an example of Hansbrough but the rest of the team couldn't help but get the message. "I think it helped our team because those other guys said, `My gosh, if he's going to yell at Tyler, he'll kill me,'" Williams said.
Coming off of his first single-digit scoring effort since the 2007 NCAA Tournament, Williams knew his star would be fired up. The length and athleticism of the Florida State frontcourt certainly contributed, as did NC State never double-teaming him contributing to his 31 points. But after giving the other team credit, as Williams likes to say, there were still things that Hansbrough needed to do better in general, and the reigning National Player of the Year moved well inside, posted up with authority and made a quick move to the basket or to pass back out against NC State.
Hansbrough is not solely responsible for Carolina's inside presence, though his improved play did contribute quite a bit to Carolina's 46 points in the paint. Some might look at the fact that he didn't attempt a foul shot against Florida State as something out of his control but both Hansbrough and Williams have said that's not the entirely the case. When Carolina's inside game is clicking, it's because Hansbrough and his frontcourt teammates are moving well, getting open and being decisive with the ball. "It (getting the ball inside) is always important for us and we've gotten away from that a couple of times recently. It's something that we've got to get the basketball in there," Williams said. "For Tyler to play a game the other night, 27 minutes and not get to the free-throw line, we can't have that. That's not an indication any more of the officials as it is that he's not being tough enough with the basketball inside or us not getting it in there. That's got to be big for us."
In his last two games against Maryland, Hansbrough has shot 16-of-30 (53.3%) and averaged 19.5 points, 9.0 rebounds, 1.5 steals and 33.5 minutes. However, Hansbrough has averaged just 4.5 free-throw attempts in the last two games against the Terrapins and has been in foul trouble in both games (three fouls in last year's loss and four in the College Park loss). In Chapel Hill last year, he made all five of his free-throw attempts but just 6-of-15 shots from the field, scoring 17 points and adding 14 rebounds (six offensive) in 39 minutes. In the 2007 loss, he had 22 points but just four free-throw attempts, four rebounds and four fouls. Carolina has already had a scare with Hansbrough struggling due to foul trouble; it doesn't need another one.
Ty Lawson: Facing off against former high school rival Greivis Vasquez - at least a half a foot taller than Lawson - has never been easy for Carolina's speedy junior point guard. In two career games against Maryland, Carolina is 0-2 and Lawson has shot 7-of-16 from the floor (43.8%), 3-of-8 from beyond the arc and just 1-of-3 from the foul line. He does have 13 assists to four turnovers in the two games, but he has had four fouls in each loss, limiting him. Last year, Lawson had four assists and three turnovers (he went 9-to-1 in his freshman year) and he has yet to record a steal against Maryland.
Against Florida State in particular, Lawson showed his maturation as a player and his ability to adapt. .He committed only two of Carolina's 21 turnovers against Florida State and going up against a tough defense, he missed only one shot on his way to 21 points. He also led the team with nine rebounds, despite standing just a shade under six feet tall. Lawson does have just one steal in his last two games after starting ACC play with nine steals in the first five games. Fouls have also become an issue with him. Nine of his 18 fouls in ACC play have come in the second half of the last three games, meaning he committed a total of nine fouls in the other 11 halves of basketball.
Playing that well against a tough defender like Toney Douglas is significant, and it's worth noting that despite point guards having a big day against Carolina offensively (including Douglas), Lawson is not generally responsible for defending that person one-on-one. That changed against NC State as Williams told him he would guard whichever point guard was in the game for NC State one-on-one. Lawson was also forced into four turnovers, partly due to the fact that State chose to keep two players in the backcourt to slow up Lawson. It worked at times but mostly, it opened things up offensively for Carolina.
Things have rarely been easy for Lawson on either end of the court as teams have figured out how important he is to this Carolina offense, if they didn't know already. But he has shown in recent games an ability to rise above whatever teams are throwing at him. "Maryland, I don't know what kind of defense they'll play but in the second half against Miami, they played zone just to try to keep things out of going in the middle," Williams said. "We're going to face more and more of that in each and every game we play with people trying to stop Tywon's penetration."
Bobby Frasor: After watching Courtney Fells rain down three-pointer after three-pointer, it probably seemed to most like Bobby Frasor wasn't playing any defense. Roy Williams and the coaching staff didn't see it that way; Frasor won the team's Defensive Player of the Game Award for his work against the Wolfpack. It's likely that on at least two of the shots, Frasor was marked for a "good" defensive play because he had done all he could. "He's really good defensively," Williams said. "It didn't look like it when Courtney was making all those shots but you look at a couple of them - Bobby had a hand right in his face and they were just big-time shots. I don't know that I've been playing him as much as he deserves.
"Also, I looked at the stat sheet the other night at Florida State and we had Wayne playing 37 minutes. They're not going to be able to give their best and play as hard as we want them to play if they're playing that much."
His 24 minutes were ten more than he has played in any ACC game this season and marked the most minutes he has played since the Ohio State game last season. His shot isn't falling like he would like it to fall, but he has just two turnovers in seven ACC games (both against Florida State) and has not hurt the Tar Heels offensively, giving regulars a breather as Carolina struggles to find effective depth. Frasor is not as quick as he once was before he tore his ACL and had the foot problems. But he is still one of Carolina's most intelligent defenders and the more time Marcus Ginyard has to miss, the more valuable Frasor becomes.
It's a common misconception by Carolina fans that just because the admittedly-slower Frasor gets beat on the dribble from time to time that he is a defensive liability. The fact is that every Tar Heel gets beaten off the dribble and it's what you don't see that makes Frasor as effective as he is. The reason - or a large part of the reason - that Fells became much less effective down the stretch was because Frasor simply worked as hard as he could to deny him the ball. "Late in the game when they were looking to get him the ball, that was my main objective - don't let him get it. It's a lot easier to guard him when he doesn't have the ball, so that's what I was trying to do," Frasor said.
Greivis Vasquez: The 6-6 junior point guard started out non-conference play very well, averaging 18.1 points, 4.8 assists and 6.4 rebounds, shooting 42% from the floor and 34.1% from beyond the arc. He also had an assist-turnover ratio of 1.9. In seven ACC games, he is shooting 30 percent from the floor, 20.5% from beyond the arc and averaging 12.3 points, 7.0 rebounds, 5.1 assists and has an assist-turnover ratio of 1.7, averaging three turnovers per game compared to 2.5 before ACC play.
But as usual, when he plays well, Maryland generally plays well also. He still hasn't shot well in Maryland's three league wins - 30.2% - but he has averaged 6.0 free-throw attempts per game (and made 5.0) on his way to 14.3 points, 5.7 rebounds, 6.0 assists and just 2.0 turnovers. In Maryland's four losses, he has just five total free-throw attempts and has averaged 10.8 points on 29.8% shooting. In the win over Miami on Saturday night, he shot just 4-of-15 and had only 11 points but added ten rebounds and nine assists, nearly a triple-double. He also had zero turnovers. It was his first turnover-free game not only in ACC play, but also in the entire season.
His stats against Carolina over two career games - both wins - haven't been spectacular, but the trouble he gives former high school rival Ty Lawson (at least six inches shorter) on both ends of the court has been important in both Maryland wins. He has averaged 11 points, 4.5 rebounds, 8.5 assists, 1.5 steals and 6.0 turnovers in the last two games against the Tar Heels. In the win in the Smith Center last season, he had 12 points on 3-of-9 shooting but made 5-of-6 free throws and added six rebounds, 11 assists, two steals and six turnovers in 38 minutes.
Landon Milbourne: It might be easy to forget about what Milbourne contributed last season, with Bambale Osby and James Gist dominating the Maryland frontcourt. But the versatile 6-7 junior forward torched the Tar Heels last year for 14 points on 4-of-9 shooting (2-of-3 from beyond the arc), adding one steal, two blocks and one turnover in 32 minutes. This season, he is second on the team in scoring (13.1 points), rebounds (5.6) and steals (1.2). He leads the team in field-goal percentage and is tenth in the ACC (51.4%) and also leads the team and is seventh in the league in offensive rebounding (2.9 per game).
In ACC play, he is averaging 14 points and shooting 50 percent from the floor, adding 6.9 rebounds (3.6 offensive boards), 1.1 steals, 1.1 blocks and 32.1 minutes. Oddly enough, he has shot better from the field in ACC losses (52%) than wins (46.7%) but has gotten to the foul line 4.3 times in the wins compared to just 1.5 times in ACC losses. He has shot a ridiculous 18-of-19 from the foul line in ACC play (94.7%) and has made 52-of-61 (85.2%) this season. Against Miami, Milbourne had 17 points on 6-of-13 shooting, adding six rebounds, two assists and shooting 5-of-6 from the foul line.
Adrian Bowie: Bowie often serves as a backup for Vasquez when necessary and did so some last season as well, dishing out three assists to no turnovers in 17 minutes against Carolina last season. The 6-2 sophomore has 54 assists to 48 turnovers this season but 16 assists to 17 turnovers in ACC play. He is third on the team in scoring with 10.6 points per game and has averaged 12.7 points in ACC play, shooting 49.3% (up from 46.2% on the season). He is also averaging two steals per conference game in just 27.4 minutes and has made a 20-of-27 foul shots (74.1%). He is second on the team in field-goal percentage, made free throws and is tied for first in steals. He is also third in offensive rebounds and assists and fourth in rebounding.
Like the rest of the Terrapins, he is getting to the foul line significantly fewer times in ACC losses (3.0) than in wins (5.0) and has been in a significant amount of foul trouble in losses (3.8 fouls) compared to in wins (2.8). Five of his 12 double-figure scoring games have come in seven ACC games. He also has four assists to just one turnover in the last two ACC games after starting out with 12 assists to 16 turnovers in the first five games. He also fouled out of two of Maryland's first three ACC games (the Terrapins started 1-2) and has just eight fouls in the last four games. He also has a 1.5 assist-turnover ratio in the Terps' wins compared to 0.73 in losses.
Quotables
"Yeah, I got a little cocky there." - Tyler Hansbrough on taking his second three-pointer against NC State
"He might have to go to the dentist again because he was gritting his teeth so hard, but he didn't say anything." -Roy Williams on Tyler Hansbrough's response to his benching early in the NC State game
"Now because of some of the things going on in our country, what you should be is you need to be a financial guy. You need to be in the top of the world in the financial industry, lose a billion dollars and get a billion to get rid of you. In coaching, what we do is we lose money and we lose jobs." -Roy Williams
"Saturday's game particularly, I was motioning (demonstrates the push-off violation) and the referees don't really like that, but the crowd is usually roaring so they don't exactly come over and talk to me. So I have to give them some signs every now and then and show them what I'm talking about." -Roy Williams
Lauren Brownlow is the managing editor of Tar Heel Monthly.
