University of North Carolina Athletics
Brownlow: A Step Forward
March 1, 2012 | Women's Basketball
March 1, 2012
By Lauren Brownlow
The Tar Heels have had trouble building on those competitive-for-a-half performances this year. They lost to a top-ten Maryland team in overtime and followed that up with a home loss to Clemson.
After an ugly loss at Connecticut, the Tar Heels won five in a row (all three by double digits) before losing by 40 at Duke. Wins over Florida State and NC State were followed by a 20-point loss at Maryland and the season-ending loss to Duke.
Every step forward seemed like it was followed by a step back. And after most of the step-forward games, head coach Sylvia Hatchell has continued to insist her team would get better, that it already had gotten better. Then the step back would happen, leaving everyone scratching their heads.
The Tar Heels have improved as their team has come together and gotten healthier. But they had little to show for it in the last two months: until today.
Against Clemson - a team that beat Carolina in Chapel Hill - the Tar Heels took a gigantic step forward, pounding the Tigers 90-51. At halftime, Carolina had 44 points - just three fewer than they scored in an entire 40-minute game against Clemson last time.
"We were just trying to erase the way we played against them - it wasn't really a revenge factor, but the fact that we're a much better team than when we played them last time," Hatchell said of the comparisons between those two games.
Everyone was better: Freshman Danielle Butts saw just six minutes; this time, she had 14 points in 17 minutes and hustled relentlessly after every loose ball. Chay Shegog had one assist and four turnovers as Clemson doubled her at every opportunity, but she reversed those today.
Freshman Brittany Rountree missed all five shots she took in the January 12th matchup. This time, she was a one-woman zone-buster, hitting 7-of-10 three's on her way to a career-high 21 points. She giggled uncontrollably in the postgame press conference, modestly saying she'd been working on her shot (she has made 12-of-17 in the last two games) and adding that making a lot of three-pointers in a row is "fun".
Tierra Ruffin-Pratt, who had 14 points, six assists and no turnovers, literally carried the freshman on her back out of the press room afterwards and she carried the team in a lot of ways today. She busted the zone with her penetration, finding Rountree for four of her three-pointers.
Ruffin-Pratt is one of many Tar Heels who was seeking redemption after a close-but-not-quite effort against Duke. She was 0-of-7 in that game and while she tied the team high with five assists, she also had five turnovers.
"I think this might have been one of our best games this season. Coming into this game, we had a winning mentality," Ruffin-Pratt said. "Coming off the Duke game, we played very well in the second half, so we just kept it going into the (ACC) Tournament. We know we have to have a big tournament to show everybody how good we really are."
This team can be as good as Hatchell has said all along. And it is showing that now. But like Clemson head coach Itoro Coleman said of her freshman-laden team, this is what Carolina has to do now: "I tell them all the time that I'm from Missouri, and Missouri is the Show Me State."
