University of North Carolina Athletics
NC State Game Guide
February 23, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 23, 2011
By Lauren Brownlow
The Basics
No. 19 North Carolina (20-6, 10-2) will travel to NC State to try to sweep the Wolfpack (14-12, 4-8) in the season series. NC State is coming off of an 87-80 loss at Maryland on Sunday night while the Tar Heels squeaked by BC at home, 48-46, on Saturday afternoon. NC State's loss interrupted a two-game ACC winning streak for the Wolfpack while Carolina was able to win its third game in a row and 8th in its last nine tries. Carolina has already doubled its ACC win total from last season. The Tar Heels lead the all-time series with NC State 143-75 and have won 15 of the last 16. Carolina is 56-44 against NC State in Raleigh and 8-3 at the RBC Center; the last loss there came in 2007.
Game Time: North Carolina at NC State, 9:00 PM, Raycom
Last Time: Carolina beat NC State 84-64 in Chapel Hill on January 29, 2011. The Tar Heels led by 13 at the break despite shooing 37.8% because the Wolfpack shot just 23.3%. But in the second half, Carolina shot 58% and scored 50 points. Carolina out-rebounded NC State 53-39 and had a 20-14 edge on the offensive glass. Carolina did not shoot well from three-point range (4-of-16) or the foul line (14-of-24) but made 29-of-54 two-point tries (54%). Carolina had 19 assists to 15 turnovers while NC State had 12 assists to 16 turnovers. Harrison Barnes set a then-career high with 25 points on 10-of-16 shooting. John Henson had 16 points, 16 rebounds and seven blocks while Tyler Zeller added 14 points and Justin Knox had 10. Lorenzo Brown led NC State with 20 points on 8-of-16 shooting; he had a game-high seven assists. C.J. Leslie had 14 points on 6-of-12 shooting and Tracy Smith, who fouled out, had 12 points.
Radio Coverage: Tar Heel Sports Network coverage will begin at 8:00 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.
Raycom coverage: The game will be available on Raycom. Steve Martin and Mike Gminski will have the call.
Storylines
Running good offense: It's no secret that NC State has been struggling on defense nearly as much as Carolina has struggled offensively at times, but the Tar Heels have faced two of the worst defensive teams in the ACC in Wake Forest and Boston College in their last two games and that hasn't mattered. Carolina has turned in some of its best defensive performances all year long, but the offense has not gotten going. The most frustrating - or encouraging, depending on how you look at it - part is that the shots generally aren't bad ones, according to Roy Williams, They just aren't going in right now. The bigger concern for the head coach was the way the team executed on offense late in the BC game when it had been running smoothly prior to that. Carolina lost almost all of its 15-point lead in the process of making ill-advised decisions from contested shots to turnovers. "The problem we had in that game in that stretch where we had those five turnovers, Reggie (Bullock) had an eight-footer, Leslie (McDonald) had a wide-open three, we got a couple of offensive rebounds in that stretch - it was bad offense. We had the turnovers as well. Kendall (Marshall) penetrated against five guys in the lane. Harrison (Barnes) penetrated against four guys in the lane. We did some things that weren't very intelligent, too." It doesn't matter how weak a defense is perceived to be in the ACC - there are athletes on every team good enough to stop an opponent not running its offense crisply. NC State is sandwiched between the two at 11th in the ACC in conference-only scoring defense (74.2 points per game allowed) and just above the two at 9th in field-goal percentage defense (45.5%), but Carolina has faced all three of the bottom teams so far (Wake, BC and Georgia Tech) and without the first BC game, shot a combined 33.9% against those defenses. Even with the first BC game, they shot 40.1% against those defenses. And many of the teams that don't defend well also don't defend 3's well, but that hasn't mattered, either. State is 2nd in the league in three-point defense but against State and the No. 3 team, FSU, Carolina has shot 12-of-36 (33.3%). Against teams 8-12, Carolina has shot 26-of-87 (29.9%) and without the first BC game, that number drops to 22.7%. So again, it hasn't made any difference how well teams defend the three - Carolina hasn't been able to make them. NC State will likely zone Carolina and try to make their guards beat them. And the Wolfpack's defense is improving: before the Maryland contest, none of NC State's opponents had shot over 41.9% and they won two of those four games. Teams are averaging 22.6 free throw attempts in NC State's ACC losses compared to 13 in their wins and have shot 52% from two-point range in NC State's losses compared to 45.8% in State wins. Maryland made 23-of-25 foul shots - at home - against NC State on Sunday and still struggled to put the Wolfpack away, all while shooting 58.2%. But that is ultimately how they did it and that's not to say Carolina will have to shoot 60% to win, but if it is running its offense well and through the people who need to touch the ball, things should eventually start to work themselves out.
Names To Know
Dexter Strickland: In the first meeting with NC State, Carolina's players 6-8 or taller combined to score 65 of Carolina's 84 points on 26-of-42 shooting while the rest of the team had 19 points on 7-of-28 shooting. But Dexter Strickland was the only guard that had a good day, scoring eight points on 3-of-7 shooting and adding eight rebounds, four assists, three steals and just one turnover. He has always played well against NC State, averaging 11 points on 55% shooting, 2.0 assists and 1.7 steals. But he has struggled recently in ACC play, and the Tar Heels need him back. It can't be overemphasized just how much the sophomore's role has changed recently; he went from the starting shooting guard to adding backup point guard to his list of duties and having to completely change his mindset when he goes into the game to spell Kendall Marshall. After a brilliant game against FSU when he had 15 points (an ACC-high this season for him), he has followed that up with ten points in the last four games on 2-of-13 shooting. He has not made a basket in the last three games and the odd thing is that he has attempted a lot more three's. In fact, of his 13 shots, six have been three's (he missed all six) and in the previous 23 games, he had attempted 133 shots and just 20 were three's. If Strickland can find a way to mix his newfound duties with his ability to get to the basket and get out on the break, he could help Carolina's offense - and his own, for that matter - fall back into place.
Tyler Zeller: He has virtually carried the Carolina offense in the last two games; he had a third of Carolina's points (16 of 48) against BC and has 34 of their 126 points in the last two games. He has also made 13 of Carolina's 40 two-pointers; the rest of the team has made just 27-of-68 (he is 13-of-22). And he has taken a quarter of Carolina's foul shots in that span as well. Without Zeller's shooting, to put it simply, Carolina has made 34-of-106 baskets in the last two games and has 92 points, which would be 46.6 per game. In the first meeting with NC State, Zeller was relatively quiet with 14 points but got them very efficiently on just eight shots. He added five rebounds, a block and a steal in just 25 minutes, but he helped play some very nice position defense on Tracy Smith, who had 12 points on 5-of-12 shooting and fouled out. NC State's Richard Howell will miss this game with a head injury and his contribution to the post rotation will be significantly missed. As long as Zeller, Henson and company are able to contain Smith on the defensive end, there's no reason to think that they can't be as aggressive as possible in trying to go at Smith and get him in foul trouble. And Zeller admitted during Tuesday's press conference that both he and Henson need to take that mindset more often. "Some of it, I haven't been quite as aggressive as I need to be at times. Some of it, the opportunity just hasn't been there," Zeller said. "Sometimes, their scheme is to keep it away from John (Henson) and I and let our shooters shoot. Sometimes, John and I need to be more aggressive than we are."
C.J. Leslie: Tracy Smith is as steady as it gets, which says a lot about the senior forward, but a guy like freshman C.J. Leslie is one of the real wild cards for the Wolfpack. His numbers weren't bad before Sidney Lowe sat him down for the Duke game at Duke - he had averaged 16 points in the last two games against North Carolina and Virginia on 13-of-23 shooting - but he didn't always seem to be making the smartest decisions. Now, he is averaging 18.3 points in the last three games on 21-of-40 shooting (3-of-6 from three), adding 10-of-16 free throws and averaging 8.7 rebounds in that same span. He also has two assists, three blocks, six fouls and just one turnover in the last three games. His three three-pointers in this three-game stretch are half of his season total (he hit 3-of-15 in the previous 22 games) and he had averaged 2.0 turnovers in the previous 22 games. He is averaging 9.4 points on 39.6% shooting (40.6% from two-point range) in State's 12 losses compared to 12.6 points on 55.1% shooting (58% from two-point range) in State's 14 wins. John Henson has been a great protector of the basket, and a lot of Leslie's five misses from two-point range in the first meeting with Carolina came when he tried to go at Henson. But Leslie has improved his decision-making and stepped up his game; he won't be easy for the Tar Heels to contain and Carolina will have to be very aware of him both on the drive and on both the offensive and defensive glass.
Lorenzo Brown: Almost every NC State player struggled in Chapel Hill in the first meeting between the two teams except for Lorenzo Brown. The shooting guard had 20 points on 8-of-16 shooting (still the most shots he has taken all year) and added 1-of-2 three's (he has made 12-of-44 in all other games), four rebounds, seven assists, two steals and two turnovers. The only thing that held Brown did perhaps a bit was his four fouls. That was one of his ten double-figure scoring games this season, but he has saved them for some big games, including three in ACC play (Carolina, Duke and Miami), and two more big ones out of conference against Arizona and Georgetown. While he has struggled shooting the ball in recent games since Carolina (32.6% from the floor and just 1-of-11 from three) he has 27 assists to just nine turnovers in that span and has still averaged 8.2 points because of his increased aggression. He is getting to the line an average of 3.8 times per game in the last five and in the last eight, he has increased his average attempts to 3.6 up from 2.2 in the first 18 games. Against Maryland, he had his best shooting outing (3-of-5, 60%) since January 25th. He made all of the two-pointers he attempted (3-of-3) and missed both two's, but he got the basket very well for stretches of the game and had eight assists to three turnovers. He got to the basket seemingly at will against the Tar Heels in the first meeting and Carolina will have to play much better defense, particularly with Javier Gonzalez playing well again and Ryan Harrow back in the lineup after missing the first meeting with an illness.
Lauren Brownlow is the executive editor of Tar Heel Monthly.
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