University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Looking To Rebound
March 15, 2014 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
GREENSBORO--Well, at least everyone got a chance.
After Pittsburgh fifth-year senior Talib Zanna had dominated the Tar Heels to the tune of seven points and 10 rebounds in the first half, Roy Williams had very little patience remaining for his post players.
Kennedy Meeks started the second half. It took Zanna 30 seconds to get his first offensive board of the second half, which sent Meeks to the bench, as he was replaced by Desmond Hubert.
It took two and a half minutes for the next Zanna offensive rebound, and this time he finished with a dunk. Exit Hubert, enter Joel James.
The big sophomore might have done the best job against Zanna--"best" being relative against a player who finished with 19 points and 21 rebounds--but a different miscue sent him to the bench. He was replaced by Brice Johnson, who made it just under three minutes before he was replaced by Jackson Simmons.
In all, it took the Tar Heels less than seven minutes to use five different post players, all of whom had a very difficult time containing Zanna. At one point late in the second half, the big senior had 21 rebounds (the most ever against a Williams-coached UNC team) on his own. At that juncture, Carolina had 25 boards--as an entire team.
For the game, Zanna's efforts helped the Panthers control the rebounding battle, 43-35, on the way to an 80-75 win that was only made that close by a frantic Tar Heel rally in the closing minutes.
"He dominated on the backboards," said Johnson, who finished with 16 points and six rebounds. "He was getting inside of everybody. We didn't box him out, and he got his hands on every rebound and put it right back up."
Zanna's explosion helped make it three of the past four games that Carolina has been outrebounded. That's atypical for a normal Williams team. It's especially problematic for this year's team, which the head coach has consistently said must make rebounding one of the decisive factors in every game. In the last week, it has been decisive--but for the wrong reasons.
Over the last five halves, the Tar Heels have been outscored 44-19 on second chance points. "There are times we're boxing out, but we're not finishing the play," Simmons said. "We've got to start doing that. It's not enough just to box out. We have to finish."
Meeks, to his credit, was frank about his performance. "I let my teammates down," he said. "It was bad box outs, and it's something I have to get better at."
The defeat means Carolina will enter the NCAA Tournament on a two-game losing streak for just the fourth time in school history. Precedent suggests it's not indicative of much of anything. The 1986 team made it to the Sweet 16 before falling to eventual national champion Louisville. In Williams' first year, the Tar Heels defeated Air Force but then lost to a superior Texas squad. And in 2000, with the bandwagon having completely emptied out following a quarterfinal loss to Wake Forest, Carolina went on the most miraculous Final Four run in school history.
With a week until the next game, the losing streak means very little. Ultimately, the NCAA Tournament fortunes will be determined much more by draw and matchups than by anything that happened against Pittsburgh. If you're really desperate for a silver lining, consider that Marcus Paige said he had trouble sprinting and cutting following a second half quad injury; playing one or two more games in Greensboro likely would have been less productive for him--and, therefore, for the Tar Heels, who must have his production--than the rest he'll get over the next 48 hours.
Exactly one week ago, Carolina was one of the hottest teams in the country. This is still that same group. All they've done over the past week is lose two games to two good teams, prove they're not overwhelmingly talented enough to overcome poor play against those same good teams, and remind us that they are, in addition, the same group that started 1-4 in the ACC.
They rebounded from that stretch of poor play. Now they'll have to rebound from this one--which will begin, quite naturally, by rebounding.
Adam Lucas is the editor of CAROLINA.
