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Evansville Game Guide
December 8, 2010 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 8, 2010
By Lauren Brownlow
The Basics
Carolina (5-3) will travel to Evansville (3-3) in the Tar Heels' second road game this season. Carolina is coming off of a much-needed 75-73 win over Kentucky on Saturday. Evansville is coming off of a 57-56 loss at Air Force on Sunday night. This will be Evansville's first home game since November 17th; the Purple Aces have played four straight on the road and got a win at then-No. 23 Butler in overtime on November 27th. That put Evansville at 2-0 in their last two tries against ranked teams (they beat No. 22 Northern Iowa, last year's NCAA "Cinderella", last February). Carolina leads the all-time series 1-0; the only other meeting was in December of 2008 in Chapel Hill.
Game Time: North Carolina at Evansville, 7:00 PM, ESPNU
Last Time: Carolina beat Evansville 91-73 on December 18, 2008 in the Smith Center. Carolina shot 50% for the game and 51.5% in the second half; Evansville shot 51.4% in the second half and 46.4% for the game. Tyler Hansbrough broke the school scoring record and led Carolina with 20 points. Ty Lawson had 16 points, Danny Green had 14, Deon Thompson had 13 and Will Graves had ten. Shy Ely was the only Evansville player in double figures with 23 points on 9-of-19 shooting.
Radio Coverage: Tar Heel Sports Network coverage will begin at 6:00 PM.
Watching At Home
Turn down the sound: If you're watching the game 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.
ESPNU coverage: The game will be available on ESPNU. Doug Gottlieb and Dan McLaughlin will have the call.
Storylines
Avoiding empty possessions: Carolina has not been on the level of past teams in terms of points per possession for three reasons: a lack of three-point shooting, poor free-throw shooting and turnovers. If Carolina hasn't been plagued by one or two of those in each game, another has come back to bite them. Against Kentucky, they took care of the ball and shot free throws decently (particularly down the stretch) but made just 1-of-11 three's. Carolina struggled with all three in two Puerto Rico losses but didn't make enough foul shots (9-of-17) and turned it over too much at Illinois. In fact, the Illinois game is the perfect example of how empty possessions have plagued Carolina. The Tar Heels missed the front end of the bonus, went 1-of-4 on three-point play chances and went 0-of-2 twice. That's at least six points left on the board right there and taking out three-point play tries, Carolina came away with no points three times - adding that together with their turnovers (18), that means 21 of Carolina's 83 possessions ended empty - no field goal attempt and no points. But that's not unique to Carolina's losses; 115 of Carolina's 720 possessions have been free-throw possessions (in other words, not attempting a field goal, so no and-one tries). Of those, Carolina has scored one or no points on 60 possessions and scoreless on 17 either missing two foul shots 12 times or missing the front end of a 1-and-1 five times). In losses, it is worse, of course: on 31 free-throw possessions, Carolina went away with one or fewer points 18 times, scoreless six times and went 3-of-8 on and-one tries. In wins, Carolina has had just 11 scoreless free-throw possessions out of 72 and has converted 2-of-2 foul shots on over 40% of those possessions. On the year, Carolina has made 137-of-219 foul shots (62.6%); with just 18 more foul shots made this season, Carolina would be shooting about 71% and if those missed chances for points were split in half and added to the Vanderbilt and Minnesota losses, Carolina would have won by two and four points, respectively. Adding up empty free-throw possessions with turnovers, Carolina has "wasted" nearly 24% of its possessions in losses compared to just under 18% in its wins - still too high even in wins, but better than nearly a quarter of its possessions without even a scoring chance. Carolina can't afford to waste possessions on the road; the Purple Aces' opponents have turned it over 39 times in three losses (just 13.0) compared to 50 in their three wins (16.7). Carolina has averaged 15.9 this year but had just 12 against Kentucky and it must be more like that.
Names To Know
Tyler Zeller: A lot of people saw Tyler Zeller's explosion for a career-high 27 points against Kentucky as his coming-out party, his way of asserting himself as the focal point of this offense. Carolina would do well to get the ball to Zeller all the time but particularly against a team like Evansville that has just three players taller than 6-8 and one 6-10 player. But the homecoming trip for a Tar Heel is not an easy thing to handle mentally, and sometimes it manifests itself on the court. Only Deon Thompson and Jawad Williams shot over 50% in their homecoming games and Tyler Hansbrough had just 15 (low for him) at St. Louis on 6-of-13 shooting. Even Wayne Ellington shot 5-of-14 in his homecoming game at Penn at the Palestra and Raymond Felton's Myrtle Beach game saw the then-sophomore shoot 4-of-11 from the floor. Zeller's certainly a cool enough customer to handle the pressure, but if there's one way it could manifest itself, it might be fouls. If Carolina's three losses (all outside the Smith Center) have anything important in common, it's that Zeller has been in foul trouble in all three, picking up four in both of Carolina's Puerto Rico losses and three first-half fouls at Illinois. He won defensive player of the game honors for his work against Kentucky and he has admitted that his fouls in those road games were silly mistakes. But Carolina can't afford to have him limited on Wednesday night.
Kendall Marshall: Like most freshmen, Kendall Marshall seemed overwhelmed in his first true road game at Illinois. He had a season-high four turnovers in 16 minutes and tied a season low with two assists. He is leading Carolina in assists this season with 3.9 per game and is averaging an assist every 3.7 minutes and is seventh in the ACC in assist-turnover ratio (1.8). But that Illinois game began a two-game stretch for him in which he has scored just three points on 1-of-4 shooting and has five assists to seven turnovers. In his first six games, he had ten turnovers in 89 minutes to go with 26 assists and had scored 27 points on 10-of-14 shooting. The ten minutes he saw against Kentucky were a season-low and he had three assists and three turnovers. He had a good stretch to start out the first half but back-to-back turnovers saw him get pulled and in the second half, his two minutes were a season low as he managed just a turnover and a foul. He actually did bounce back well in the second half of the Illinois game after no assists and three turnovers in eight minutes with two assists to just one turnover in eight second-half minutes. It will be interesting to see if he can bounce back similarly at Evansville because Carolina absolutely has to have the point guard depth.
Colt Ryan: The 6-5 sophomore guard is the type of player Tar Heel fans should be very familiar with - a deadly outside shooter. He is leading the Purple Aces ins coring with 16.8 points per game and has made a ridiculous 18-of-32 three's (56%), good for eighth-highest percentage in the nation. He is also second in the Missouri Valley Conference in scoring. Ryan has helped make Evansville a very solid three-point shooting club but they are mostly a one-man show as he has made 18 of their 35 made three's this season. The only way teams have seemed to be able to neutralize him is via foul trouble; he has four or more fouls in two of Evansville's three losses. It hasn't seemed to limit his minutes much - he has averaged 33.7 this season and played all but ten minutes combined in the two games where he picked up four fouls. He struggled at bit more at Indiana and at Butler, averaging 14.5 points on 11-of-27 shooting (4-of-10 three's) but he hit 7-of-14 shots in the Air Force loss (5-of-7 three's) on his way to 20 points. His height makes him that much more of a matchup problem and Carolina will have to make sure it gets a hand in his face.
Kenny Harris: The 6-6 junior forward is certainly more undersized than most post players in college basketball, but he hasn't let them limit him. He is the second-leading scorer on the team with 13.2 points and is the leading rebounder with 6.5 boards, adding 15 offensive rebounds (2.5 per game). He also leads the team in blocks with 1.0 per game. He has managed to keep out of foul trouble as well, averaging just 2.7 fouls and picking up four just twice, staying at three or under four times. He is shooting 42.4% from the field but has made 4-of-11 three's (36.4%) and leads the tam in both free throws attempted (36) and made (25). He has made 8-of-25 two-point attempts in Evansville's three losses compared to 13-of-23 in their three wins, so Carolina must give him tough shots. He also has nine turnovers in those losses to just four in three wins and is averaging just over ten points in losses compared to more than 16 in wins. He struggled against Air Force, pulling down seven rebounds but hitting just 3-of-11 shots (2-of-3 three's) and attempting a season-low two foul shots (making one).
Lauren Brownlow is the executive editor of Tar Heel Monthly.
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