University of North Carolina Athletics
Long Island Game Guide
March 18, 2011 | Men's Basketball
March 18, 2011
By Lauren Brownlow
The Basics
No. 7 Carolina (26-7) will open up the 2011 NCAA Tournament in Charlotte as the No. 2 seed in the East Region against 15th-seeded Long Island (27-5). The Blackbirds have won 13 in a row and their 13 wins on the road are the most in the nation. They defeated Robert Morris in the Northeast Conference title game in overtime, 85-82. Long Island is making its fourth NCAA Tournament appearance in program history and first since 1997. Carolina has won 14 of its last 16 games and is 17-3 in 2011 (9-4 in 2010); two of the three losses - and the only two in the last 15 games - have been to No. 1 seed Duke. Carolina is 102-39 in the NCAA Tournament all-time and 19-7 as a two-seed. The Tar Heels are 27-1 in the state of North Carolina and have won 23 straight. Roy Williams is 55-18 in the NCAA Tournament as a head coach and 21-4 at Carolina. The Tar Heels have won 10 of their last 11 NCAA Tournament games and 13 of the last 15.
Game Time: North Carolina vs. Long Island, 7:15 PM, CBS
Last Time: This is the first meeting between the two schools.
Radio Coverage: Tar Heel Sports Network coverage will begin at 6:15 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.
CBS coverage: The game will be available on CBS. Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg and Tracy Wolfson will have the call.
Storylines
Defense: There has been a lot of talk about Carolina needing to play well in its opening-round game to shake the cobwebs that seemingly set in before the ACC Tournament and regain the confidence it had before last weekend. That is certainly true, but the issues that many have pointed to - turnovers and a general lack of offense - are only a part of what led to those slow starts. An underreported storyline is how much Carolina's defense appeared to drop off as the Tournament went on. In Carolina's last five games, it has surrendered three of its worst six points per possession totals by opponents this year; the 0.97 posted by Clemson was second-worst all year while the 0.94 by Duke last Sunday was the fourth-worst. Some of that could be attributed to tired legs, but it is a disturbing trend entering postseason play against a surprisingly dangerous Long Island offense. "I think last weekend we kind of got away from what we were doing very well.
"Defensively, we kind of lacked a little bit until the end of the game and were able to come back. It's more of just recognizing the mistakes we made and now we just have to correct it and hopefully fix it," Tyler Zeller said. And so it's not necessarily good news that in the next two games, Carolina could potentially (if they advance and Washington advances) face two of the top four teams nationally in scoring offense. Long Island is one spot below Washington at 82.6 points per game. The Tar Heels are 22nd, a respectable figure for most teams, but not as high as the Tar Heels are used to at 76.7 points per game. Long Island is also 37th in field goal percentage (46.6%) and 41st in assists per game (15.1). Carolina has only played four teams ranked above Long Island in field-goal percentage and has a 3-3 record in those games (three were against Duke). But two of those teams shot over 50% against Carolina (Duke, for the first time in seven years, and Illinois).
Long Island is also a team that is not shy about running, ranking 4th in Ken Pomeroy's tempo rating (Carolina is 21st). The Blackbirds are 19-1 when keeping the pace at 73 possessions or more (per Pomeroy, traditionally-counted possessions) and 8-4 when the number drops below that. Pace doesn't seem to mean much to them in terms of offensive efficiency overall, but it's clear that's how the Blackbirds want to play. "We're very good at flying up and down the court. (Carolina) invented it is what it seems like. That's the way they play," Long Island head coach Jim Ferry said. "We're going to have to make some adjustments to what we do. We've really got to focus on trying to slow them down, which is not an easy thing to do. But at the same rate, we can't come in here and suddenly become Princeton. That's not who we are. We can't slow it down and take the air out of the basketball. We have a bunch of guys that believe in what we do and we've been pretty successful at doing it. We maybe have to be a little smarter and more disciplined with it."
Carolina is 12-1 in games that have stayed low in terms of possessions counted the Pomeroy way (71 or fewer) and 14-6 in faster-paced games (though the only slower-paced game Carolina lost since 2011 began was last Sunday). And Carolina certainly struggled early this season with a Long Beach State team that was fine pushing tempo, and pushed it right at the Tar Heels - the 91 points were the most scored by a Carolina opponent all year, as were the 50 points in the paint. The 90 possessions were on the high side a Carolina opponent has had all year as well. That game was the second-fastest all year for Long Beach State but the 49ers made Carolina's defense look silly. The 49ers scored all those points while shooting just 13 foul shots. The 73 shots were tied for the most attempted against Carolina all year and Long Beach State got just 12 offensive rebounds (the 37 field goals are still the most scored against Carolina all year). The moral of the story is that while Carolina's players might be salivating at the chance to run up and down, they have to stay with the concept that has made them good all year - defense.
But an underrated part of what makes Long Island dangerous is that all five starters average 9.3 points or more and four average between 10.8 and 12.9 points. "If somebody is averaging 20 points, you can focus on that one player. You can always pay attention to where they're at, support on drives," Zeller said. "But with a team like them, you've got to be aware of everybody. Everybody has got to be able to handle their own man and you've got to be able to help." Carolina was not able to do that in really any of their three games consistently last weekend, but particularly against Duke and Clemson when dribble penetration really hurt the Tar Heels. Long Island is going to be aggressive and attack the basket, hoping to get fouls called. The Blackbirds lead Ken Pomeroy's free throw rate (free throws attempted divided by field goals attempted) at 50.1 percent. "We're a very aggressive team. Part of our philosophy is winning free throws, winning turnovers and winning rebounds. ... What I'm really proud about is the statistics in regards to the made free throws compared to our opponents' attempts," Ferry said. "If we continue to play the right way (Friday), we play so unselfishly as a group that we can attack it from different angles. ... If we can get to the foul line at the rate we normally do, we'll give ourselves a chance."
The Tar Heels are 3-3 against the other six top-100 teams in free-throw rate they have faced this year but haven't played one since 2010 (the loss to Texas). Carolina has only given up five free throw rates higher than 33.3 all season and the Tar Heels are 2-3 in those games. Duke twice had a rate higher than that; once was in the loss in Durham and the second time was in Chapel Hill, making that game perhaps closer than it needed to be. The other two losses were in the two highest free throw rates Carolina surrendered all year, 56.4 (to Minnesota) and 57.5 (to Vanderbilt), both losses in Puerto Rico. Kentucky had a 33.9 rate in Chapel Hill in a narrow Carolina win. Carolina is 11-2 when holding opponents below a 20 free throw rate and 16-5 when allowing a higher rate. And almost all of those games have been close - seven of the 16 wins were by single digits (as were four of the five losses). Long Island has been held below a 20 free throw rate just twice and below 50 just 15 times. Nearly 24% of Long Island's points have come from the foul line and they have made 628 attempts, 103 more than opponents have attempted (525). The Blackbirds average a staggering 30.4 free-throw attempts per game (29.2 in conference play only) compared to 16.4 by opponents (15.7 in conference play). If there is good news, it's that Long Island doesn't make a high percentage (64.5%, 295th in the country - below even Carolina, at 258th).
Names To Know
Justin Knox: The graduate student transfer from Alabama may be the oldest person on the team, but he is just as inexperienced in the postseason as his teammates, if not more so. In fact, in his time at Alabama, the Tide never played in any type of postseason, much less the NCAA Tournament. Yet Knox has adapted to his role in this system seamlessly from Day 1. Knox was Carolina's Defensive Player of the Game against Duke in the regular-season finale between the two teams and two of his three awards have come in ACC play. He's become a key part of what is a depleted Carolina bench and he has stepped up his play accordingly as of late. He played some nice minutes against Duke (almost the only Tar Heel to do so) on Sunday and in just six second-half minutes, he had two points, three rebounds and just one foul. Foul trouble has been an issue for him at times; he has been brought in to spell Tyler Zeller and John Henson, but he is also in there sometimes due to one or both of their foul trouble. In his first 16 games as a Tar Heel, he averaged 2.3 fouls per game in his limited action and fouled out once, in Carolina's loss to Minnesota. In the last 17 games, he has averaged just 1.5 fouls. He also went from averaging 1.6 turnovers in the first 20 games to averaging 0.5 in the last 13 games. He doesn't have to score a lot to be effective, but in Carolina's largest-margin wins this year, he has had nice games - 92 of his 164 points have come in 12 such games (7.7 per game) compared to 72 in the other 21 games (3.4). He's getting more time in those games, but when he plays well for Carolina, it's the kind of added bonus that the Tar Heels could really use this time of year.
Leslie McDonald: With the news about Dexter Strickland's knee injury coming out, the importance of McDonald's role on this team seems magnified. Roy Williams said Strickland suffered his injury against FSU on February 6th and so it makes more sense that in the 11 games since, McDonald has played 10 or more second-half minutes in seven of the last 11 games. In his first 21 games this season, he played 10 or more minutes just four times. When Strickland got in early foul trouble against Duke last Sunday, the sophomore played 18 first-half minutes, by far his most this season (previous was 11 at Clemson). He had a hard time guarding Nolan Smith (who doesn't?) and picked up two fouls of his own but still chipped in six points, two rebounds, one assist, two steals and no turnovers. Even before Strickland's injury and Larry Drew II's departure, McDonald's good games have been huge for the Tar Heels while he has struggled in Carolina's losses. He has averaged 4.9 points on 24.4% shooting (21.7% from three) in Carolina's losses in about 16 minutes per game. In wins, he is shooting 44.9% from the floor and from three, adding 8.2 points in 15.1 minutes per game. Anyway you look at it, though, he has improved his game in all areas, averaging over three rebounds in the last 11 games after averaging 1.5 in his first 21; he has 12 offensive boards in the last 11 after pulling down 11 in the first 21 games. He also has 12 steals in the last 11 games (1.1 per game) after getting just 7 in he first 21 (0.3). Part of that is an increase in his minutes, which have gone from 14.1 to 17.6 in the last 11 - but part of it is just McDonald's improvement as a player and him stepping up. "He's gotten better particularly on the defensive end of the floor and particularly with the idea that shooting the basketball is not the only thing he can do and he can help us in other ways," Williams said. "There's one game he had five offensive rebounds down the stretch for us and shooters usually can help you a lot more than they believe. You have to convince them that they can add some things to the game other than just shooting the ball in the basket, and I think Leslie has been big on that part."
Julian Boyd: The 6-7 sophomore forward is the kind of player that teammates rally around. Boyd is not only the Blackbirds' leading scorer at 12.9 points per game, but he is also coming off of a season that he had to sit out in 2010 due to a heart condition. His teammates spoke of how much he inspires them and how his energy is infectious on the court. He has spoken on numerous occasions about how much he has embraced his new lease on life, and he is playing every basketball game like it's the last one he will play. But he's far from just a symbol - named to First Team NABC All-District, he is averaging 8.8 rebounds (3.2 offensive) to go with his 12.9 points on 52.1% shooting. He has also attempted 165 foul shots (second most on the team) and averaged 25.9 minutes (also second most). In the NEC Tournament, it was his fellow post man Jamal Olasewere who went crazy scoring (averaging over 21 points in those three games) but Boyd has still averaged 14 points in the last five games on 52.1% shooting, adding 23-of-30 from the foul line (nearly 77%, much better than his 63% on the season) and 8.6 rebounds (4.0 offensive). He has also added 12 assists and six turnovers, a very good ratio for a big man, plus six blocks and nine steals in that five-game span. He is just so important to this team in a lot of ways and the Blackbirds are 0-3 in the three games he has fouled out of this year. He spent much of the NEC Title game in foul trouble as well. Carolina has tended to get opposing big men in foul trouble on one end and make things difficult for them on the other, but opposing big men with the heart and determination of someone like Boyd have been able to make things difficult on Carolina on the glass (see: BC's Joe Trapani) and Boyd is capable of dragging the Carolina big men to the perimeter as well.
Jason Brickman: Just like Carolina, Long Island has seen it offense surge as a freshman point guard has seen more and more playing time. "How I get at least ten of my points every game is him," Julian Boyd said. "He makes passes that no one else on the court sees. The things he does on the court and the things he is able to see is just extraordinary." Sound familiar? Well, the freshmen campaigns of the 5-10 point guard Jason Brickman and Carolina's Kendall Marshall are eerily similar, except for the minutes of both (Brickman averages 22.8 minutes per game and still comes off the bench while Marshall's minutes have obviously gone way up). Brickman has 172 assists (5.4 per game) to just 61 turnovers (1.9 per game); his 2.8 assist-turnover ratio is 11th in the nation and his 5.4 assists are 32nd. Marshall is averaging 5.8 assists but his assist-turnover ratio is 2.4. Still, both Brickman and Marshall's teammates have had very positive things to say about the way they get them the ball in positions to score. And Brickman can score a bit himself - he has averaged 6.3 points on 44.3% shooting (40% from three). He is also shooting 23-of-26 from the foul line in the last five minutes or overtime of games, best on the team. He has 21 games with five assists or more this year and two of ten or more. Like with Marshall, what he brings to the Blackbirds is difficult to quantify. But like Marshall, both make their respective teams go offensively and are difference-makers with their court vision. The two freshmen going against each other in two fast-tempo offenses could make for an intriguing matchup for viewers, but a dangerous one for Carolina.
Lauren Brownlow is the executive editor of Tar Heel Monthly.
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