University of North Carolina Athletics
Jacobs: Tar Heels Find Relief In Raleigh
January 28, 2010 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 28, 2010
by Barry Jacobs, TarHeelBlue.com
Raleigh is known for many things. Well, pretty many. But few would mistake the North Carolina state capital for a resort.
Even fewer would regard the asphalt-ringed RBC Center on the city's perimeter as an oasis of healing, a preferred destination for visiting basketball teams eager to regroup. And, if your visiting team happens to represent a school that's been an archrival since 1913, you'd think N.C. State's icy lair would be one of the last places you'd look for relief.
Yet relief - soothing, calming, warming, confidence-inducing relief -- is exactly what Roy Williams' struggling North Carolina men's squad found the other night in a nifty 14-point dismissal of the Wolfpack.
The Raleigh recovery ended a three-game losing streak, already UNC's longest since 2003, an NIT season and the last under Matt Doherty. "Needless to say, we feel a heck of a lot better than we've been feeling these last few games," Williams, box score in hand, said after the 77-63 win.
That the tide flowed in UNC's direction was no great surprise, given that the Heels won for the 13th time in the teams' last 14 meetings. But N.C. State did harbor high hopes, having routed Duke on the same court just two games earlier.
The first stat that struck the coach as he perused the game stats was his team's 10 turnovers, fourth-fewest of the year. Next was its 57.7 percent shooting in the decisive second half, even as N.C. State shot 29 percent.
The Tar Heels made 50.9 percent of their shots overall, nothing notable in the annals of Carolina basketball, where 50 percent field goal shooting is a reachable, reasonable standard. Both Williams' 2005 and 2007 squads made 49.9 percent.
The Heels converted at least half their shots for the ninth time this year. "Everybody understands, it looks so much better when the ball goes in," Williams said.
The Wolfpack had allowed a single opponent, Maryland, to make at least half of its shots prior to the Carolina game.
UNC's field goal conversion rate at N.C. State was its best since prior to the losing streak - in a strikingly similar home contest against Virginia Tech, the Heels broke open a close but not exceptionally intense game early in the second half en route to hitting 53.8 percent from the floor.
Shooting 50 percent usually spells victory, and not just for Williams' clubs. UNC is 9-0 this season when making at least half of its field goals. Maryland, the ACC's most accurate shooting unit (48.7 percent), is 7-1 when making 50 percent or better. Clemson, the third-best shooting club, is 6-1.
More telling against the Pack was the Tar Heels' control, their discrimination, in attempting field goals in the first place.
The N.C. State game was the seventh this season in which UNC hoisted 57 or fewer shots. UNC is 6-1 in such contests. Last year's more experienced unit averaged 66 shots per game; this year's team is 6-4 when trying that many shots or more. (Two losses came in games with 61 and 63 field goal attempts.)
The message is clear: with a preponderance of underclassmen, including both point guards, Williams' preferred breakneck offensive pace remains a high-stakes gamble. "We're not very efficient," the coach lamented following the Raleigh visit, noting a pair of botched fast breaks with a numerical advantage.
Still, Williams is not about to compromise his preference for attacking with the ball. He has, however, at least for now, installed a governor on the engine.
"The intention was not to throttle it back, the intention was to get a great shot every time," he explained of his game plan. "If we didn't have it on the break, then let's do a better job with our movement, a better job of our screens, a better job of our spacing."
Not surprisingly, there was also a psychological component to the coaching staff's adjustments.
Williams had publicly lamented his squad's lack of confidence, its quavering sense of urgency, in dropping four of five games in calendar year 2010 beginning with an overtime collapse at College of Charleston. So he worked his players hard in practice to get the repetitions in place that would produce more automatic execution of screens, spacing, and the like under duress.
And, both in practice and during a second-half timeout at Raleigh, Williams admitted to harnessing anger as a motivational tool. Not his anger at his team's lapses, which has been on ample display. Rather, he strategically provoked their anger at him, figuring it would make them play harder, if only to enhance what the coach called their "focus on playing the game."
The stratagems worked. "I wasn't very nice to them, and they answered, they really did," Williams said of last weekend's practices.
These are standard tools in the coaching bag of tricks. But knowing when and how to employ them to greatest effect, like knowing when and how to tinker with tempo and alignments, is what separates success from struggle, and explains why coaches like Williams win far more than they lose.
All of which should be as comforting as a visit to Raleigh for a squad that, following Sunday's home meeting with Virginia, finishes the regular season with six road games in 10 outings. That's the steepest climb to postseason faced by any ACC program.
One or even two wins over teams picked to finish at the bottom of the league won't solve every problem. But, in a conference that seems more unsettled than usual, going into February on a positive note certainly beats the alternative.
