University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Rapid Reactions
March 4, 2014 | Men's Basketball
1. Marcus Paige did not have one of his typical nights (2-for-8 from the field, 1-for-5 from three and was harassed for part of the night in Notre Dame's diamond-and-one defense) but he did manage to knock down two out of four free throws in the final minute. More importantly, though, he came up with the key blocked shot on what looked for just a second like it might be a game-tying drive to the hoop in the final seconds.
2. On a night when offense was hard to come by, another blocked shot was also a key play, as James Michael McAdoo came from the far side in Carolina's 1-3-1 zone and blocked a dead layup by Zach Auguste at the 12-minute mark that would've given Notre Dame a five-point lead that would've felt pretty big at that point in the game.
3. Good first-half minutes from Joel James against the Irish. Notre Dame was without top inside presence Garrick Sherman (finger injury), and James took advantage of their depleted paint depth by grabbing a couple of offensive rebounds and turning those boards into five points. That's exactly the role James can play if he wants to be effective this season--take advantage of those types of opportunities and score when it's available.
4. Good move by the administration to allow students and other fans to move down and occupy unused seats on an icy night in the Triangle. Even more impressively, the students handled it well, without the crawling-on-chairs pandemonium of the Maryland snow game in January of 2000. This atmosphere wasn't as electric as that one, but this game also wasn't as electric as that one.
5. Carolina's multiple defenses paid dividends again when Roy Williams switched to zone coming out of a timeout with a minute left. The defense seemed to perplex the Irish offensively...but then the down side of the zone reared its head, and the Tar Heels gave up an offensive rebound.
6. Nice job by Blue Show, as the senior walk-on trio of James Manor, Denzel Robinson and Wade Moody played 2:31 at the start of the game and left with an 8-4 lead. The senior speeches also made a return this year after a brief hiatus, and all four players did a solid job addressing the crowd in their final home game.
7. It's fair to say that Carolina needs to play better than they have in the last two games. The Tar Heels that played at Virginia Tech and against Notre Dame looked more like the club you expected following the four-games-in-eight-days gauntlet. It looks like the long week off prior to the trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium is coming at a good time.
Adam Lucas is the editor of CAROLINA.
