University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Tallahassee Has Been Telling
January 13, 2012 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Jan. 13, 2012
By Adam Lucas
In the realigned Atlantic Coast Conference, Carolina no longer makes yearly trips to Tallahassee to face Florida State. But dating back to some of the earliest Tar Heel visits to FSU, the road trips have often been indicative of the type of season that's looming.
The most overlooked--but one of the most telling--visits to the Leon County Civic Center came in the Seminoles' second year in the conference, when head coach Pat Kennedy had assembled a high-flying 1993 team that was challenging for the regular season title. In a battle of two of the Associated Press's top six teams in the country, Dean Smith's Tar Heels prevailed, 86-79, showing the type of moxie that would eventually carry them to the national title.
The teams will meet in a very different phase of the regular season this year, but it's likely to be a similarly hostile environment. Florida State's student tickets sold out in a little over an hour earlier this week and regular admission tickets are also sold out in a building where the largest crowd (in a 13,800-seat venue) this year has been 7,822.
It's enough to have to face a Florida State team Roy Williams says "gives everybody the dickens." It's quite another to have to play that opponent in a game the FSU athletic department's official website is calling "one of the biggest on-campus men's basketball days in program history."
That's the kind of environment veteran Carolina teams have thrived on defusing. Coming off a nine-game homestand during which the Tar Heels were infrequently challenged, Williams plans to return to the more typical style he prefers in road games. There will be fewer double-teams and less consistent trapping defense, a philosophy he learned from Dean Smith.
In the Leonard Hamilton era for Florida State, this matchup has often been a contrast in styles between the high-octane Tar Heels and the defensive-minded Seminoles. Harrison Barnes, who broke FSU hearts with a game-winning three-pointer last season, praised the Seminole defense. "They have extremely good rotations," he said. "They put a lot of pressure on you defensively. They have really good principles."
Even against that stout defense, Carolina would still like to run, although Williams said the high-motor Dexter Strickland did not practice yesterday and his status is unknown for Saturday. Look beyond the tempo, however, and there are some similarities between the two teams this year.
They rank as the top two teams in the ACC in field goal percentage defense (FSU leads, allowing opponents to hit just 36.0% from the field), two of the top four in three-point field goal defense, two of the top three in offensive rebounding percentage (Carolina leads, grabbing 41.0% of its errant shots) and the top two in the conference in blocks (the Seminoles blocked over a quarter of Virginia Tech's shots in a win in Blacksburg this week).
This weekend's game carries bigger implications because it is the only regular season meeting between the two teams, which means it could be important for end-of-season ACC tiebreakers. Each team would like to hold the tiebreaker edge against an opponent that figures to finish in the top half of the league.
A look at some of the past Tallahassee matchups that have served as benchmarks in several Tar Heel seasons:
Feb. 27, 1993: Brian Reese scored 25 points, Derrick Phelps handed out 10 assists and George Lynch grabbed 10 rebounds in the type of team-wide effort that typified the eventual national champs. Carolina's 86-79 win over the sixth-ranked `Noles was the first peg in a 3-0 close to the regular season that also included wins over Wake Forest and Duke.
Feb. 25, 1995: Against a still-talented FSU roster, Jeff McInnis scored 19 points, draining the eventual game-winning jumper with 1:19 left and then stealing a pass in the final seconds to seal the 80-78 win.
Jan. 22, 2004: A telling moment of a different kind, as the game summed up the occasional struggles of Roy Williams's first team. The seventh-ranked Tar Heels built a 42-18 first-half lead, then watched Todd Galloway's three-pointer tie the game with 7.2 seconds remaining. Carolina never recovered from the stunning play, as FSU scored the first 11 points of overtime on the way to an 90-81 win.
Jan. 22, 2006: Coming off a disappointing loss at Virginia, Williams moved Wes Miller into the starting lineup, and the junior responded with a career-high 18 points. Reyshawn Terry's two free throws with 23 seconds left capped the 81-80 win and provided a nice glimpse into the mental toughness of one of Carolina's most endearing teams.
Jan. 28, 2009: The Ty Lawson game. The junior point guard finished with 21 points, including taking an inbounds pass with 3.2 seconds left and sprinting into the frontcourt to deliver the game-winning three-pointer. The celebration of the 80-77 win, which included a wildly celebrating Tyler Hansbrough, showed just how much the Tar Heels had evolved from a Hansbrough-centric team to a squad of equals among stars.
March 2, 2011: The play didn't go exactly like Roy Williams had diagrammed it--or anything like Roy Williams had diagrammed it. But the result worked just fine, as Barnes hit a three-pointer from the top of the key with three seconds left that provided a 72-70 win. "In hindsight," Barnes said Friday, "the magnitude of that shot carried a long way and helped my confidence."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of six books on Carolina basketball, including the official chronicle of the first 100 years of Tar Heel hoops, A Century of Excellence, which is available now. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter and Facebook.
