University of North Carolina Athletics
Turner's Take: Answers
March 12, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Turner Walston
By Turner Walston
The Tar Heels can't hold a lead and put together a full 40 minutes. The Tar Heels aren't tough. If Marcus Paige doesn't get it together, the Tar Heels are in trouble.
In Friday night's win over Notre Dame in the ACC Tournament semifinal, Carolina managed to answer all three of those criticisms.
The Tar Heels entered Friday's matchup having lost three straight to the Irish. In last year's ACC Tournament final, they'd blown a nine-point second-half lead and lost by eight. In South Bend in February, it was a 15-point margin late in the first half. And the Tar Heels were watching Thursday when the Irish overcame a 16-point deficit with 15 minutes to go to force overtime and triumph over Duke.
So when the Tar Heels' small lineup (Joel Berry II, Marcus Paige, Theo Pinson, Justin Jackson and Isaiah Hicks) ended the first half with an 18-0 run, while there was excitement in the locker room, there was also a sense of unfinished business. “We just kept reminding ourselves that we did the same thing whenever we were in South Bend,” Jackson said. “We were up 15 and ended up letting them come back and win, so at the end of the day it's everybody playing as hard as they possibly can, no matter what, whatever it takes to win. Whether you're scoring, whether you're not scoring, whether you're getting boards, whatever it is, you've got to do it for the team and I think everybody really did that today.”
The Heels kept the foot on the gas when play resumed. Carolina scored the first six points of the second half, pushing the lead to 25, and eventually led by as many as 37 in a game they would win 78-47. Notre Dame went nine minutes and 34 seconds of game time without a point, and 11 minutes and 21 seconds without a field goal.
“Once they saw we weren't going to stop scoring,” Pinson said of the Irish, “I felt like they were like, 'Alright let's just keep playing and not look like we're getting embarrassed.' At the same time, we knew we had to keep playing for the whole 40 minutes. That shows the promise of a great team and we want to be a great team, so we've got to play for all 40 minutes.”
Carolina had gone to that small lineup because Kennedy Meeks and Brice Johnson each had two fouls. With the starting bigs watching the end of the half from the bench, it was up to the Tar Heels on the floor to get tough. “I honestly like playing the small lineup because it makes me feel like I'm big and I'm really strong against those guys,” the 6'6 Pinson said. “Boxing them out, trying to be physical down there gets me going, and then it causes a whole lot of match-up problems.”
The small Tar Heels out-rebounded the Irish 6-3, got two blocks and two steals in the midst of that 18-0 run. “Sometimes it's an advantage for the other team when we go small, so (we were) just putting that extra effort so it won't be a disadvantage for us.”
That extra effort showed up late in the half, when Justin Jackson refused to let go of a tie-up with Notre Dame's Matt Ryan and earned a possession for his team. In two years in Chapel Hill, Jackson has been viewed as a finesse player more than a physical one. He often opts to go with a floater rather than seek contact, and seems to prefer a lay-up to a dunk. But Jackson got tough on Friday. “[Ryan] told me to let go of the ball, so I'm not going to just do what he says,” Jackson said. “I'm not a fighting type of guy, but you're not going to just tell me to do something and me back down, so it was one play it helped us a little bit, got us fired up a little bit.”
Marcus Paige got fired up, too. Thursday, he patiently answered question after question about his game. Where had it gone? Why was he missing shots? Was it all mental? Will it come back? He'd answered those questions in the locker room after the win over Pitt. Friday, he answered them on the floor. Two minutes into the game, Paige fired up a three from Stephen Curry-range. Swish. He missed his next two attempts, but then hit two in quick succession as part of that late first-half run. Paige would finish 4-7 from three-point range and with 16 points on the night, his highest total since scoring 21 in South Bend in early February. After his third three went down, Paige said to himself (and perhaps to his critics), “I'm back.”
Saturday's final represents another big test for the Tar Heels. It's Roy Williams seventh ACC Tournament championship appearances in his 13 years in Chapel Hill. It's the third appearance in four years for the Tar Heel seniors, who have yet to climb the ladder and cut down the ACC nets. Paige said he'd learned from his previous appearances. “I learned that it really hurts when that confetti's falling and it's not you that gets to be up on that podium,” he said. “Especially last year, tasting a chance to win, being up eight or nine in the second half and then having that slip away. Understanding that you don't always get that chance again, so now we're in that position where we have the chance to do something about it again. So hopefully we'll use that as a fuel to our fire for tomorrow.”
Friday night, the Tar Heels answered three questions that had hounded them all season long. But can they be conference tournament champions? Saturday, they'll have the chance to answer one more.
Turner Walston is the editor of CAROLINA digital magazine. Follow Turner on Twitter.
