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University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: Maggie Hobson
Lucas: March 22 Basketball Notebook
March 22, 2024 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
The Tar Heels and Spartans prepared for Saturday's matchup.
By Adam Lucas
CHARLOTTE—Any time Carolina and Michigan State get together, it's yet another reminder that the Spartans are perhaps most similar to the Tar Heels—especially under Roy Williams—in terms of how they approach games like this and how their head coach relates to the media.
Michigan State, to put it simply, is very likeable, and they almost always are in settings like Friday's media availability in advance of Saturday's second round NCAA Tournament game. The Spartan players—Malik Hall, Tyson Walker, and A.J. Hoggard—were confident without coming across as cocky, entertaining without being wacky, and intelligent without appearing haughty.
And Izzo, of course, is Izzo. Close your eyes and you very easily could be listening to Williams in the sense that it's a coach who has been successful for a very long time and no longer has any reason for pretense. He poked fun at himself for losing handily to Carolina in the 2009 championship game but also—despite being reminded multiple times by the media that he had never defeated the Tar Heels in the postseason—had a quiet confidence regarding tomorrow's matchup.
Saturday's 5:30 p.m. tip-off has a regional final feel instead of round of 32.
Notes: The headline individual matchup involves RJ Davis facing off with Tyson Walker, a graduate student in his third year with Michigan State. That name should sound vaguely familiar—he was on the Northeastern team that was a late addition to Carolina's schedule in February of 2021. Walker came into the Smith Center and shot 8-for-15 from the field while hitting four of his seven three-pointers in an 82-62 Tar Heel win on his way to 27 points. Asked to describe Walker's game, teammate Hall just chuckled. "He can score that…" And then he said, uh, something roughly equivalent to "basketball." "You name it, he does everything we could ask someone to do," he added. And Izzo had high praise for Davis. "He is maybe the best guard in whole country if you look at everything he does," the Michigan State head coach said. "He takes tough shots but not crazy shots."…
With all the connections between the programs, it's only fitting that Doug Wojcik has the scout on the Tar Heels for Michigan State. Wojcik, of course, was an assistant coach for the Tar Heels under Matt Doherty and his son, Paxson, is a Carolina reserve. Doug and Paxson faced this same situation last year, when Paxson's Brown team lost, 68-50, in East Lansing. Paxson had 10 points, 13 rebounds and four assists in that game. "On the good side," Izzo said, "Doug is going to Los Angeles either way. He's either going with Pax or he's going with me."…Hubert Davis spoke briefly Friday about his father's basketball career at Johnson C. Smith, where the Tar Heels practiced on Wednesday. The elder Davis, who grew up in Pineville, is in Charlotte this weekend to watch his son…
Another player who has been in a similar matchup is Cormac Ryan, who shot 8-for-11 from the field (including 6-for-7 from three) in scoring 23 points against Michigan State last season when he played for Notre Dame. "They're a physical team," Ryan said. "They're good defensively, and really good in half court defense. They like to push the pace in transition."…That transition game might be a key on Saturday. In two games in the Big Ten Tournament, one a narrow loss to Purdue, the Spartans had a 37-6 edge in fast break points. Slow-paced Wagner did a good job controlling tempo in the first half Thursday, but Carolina put up 14 fast break points in the second half. The Tar Heels have been outscored in transition just three times all year, but none in the past 15 games...
Interesting point from Izzo: "(Harrison) Ingram and Hall will be a big matchup in this thing," he said. "It's not always the first (matchup) you look at." Hall is MSU's leading rebounder at 5.6 boards per game. Ingram, meanwhile, showed a more diverse offensive game in the win over Wagner—five of his seven field goal attempts were from two-point range after being overly reliant on the three in recent contests...Isaiah Hicks, a member of the 2017 national champions, was the guest on this week's Carolina Insider podcast. Hicks, who was fairly quiet during his Tar Heel career, gave a great interview. In addition to the linked audio of the podcast, the video of the interview is available here.
CHARLOTTE—Any time Carolina and Michigan State get together, it's yet another reminder that the Spartans are perhaps most similar to the Tar Heels—especially under Roy Williams—in terms of how they approach games like this and how their head coach relates to the media.
Michigan State, to put it simply, is very likeable, and they almost always are in settings like Friday's media availability in advance of Saturday's second round NCAA Tournament game. The Spartan players—Malik Hall, Tyson Walker, and A.J. Hoggard—were confident without coming across as cocky, entertaining without being wacky, and intelligent without appearing haughty.
And Izzo, of course, is Izzo. Close your eyes and you very easily could be listening to Williams in the sense that it's a coach who has been successful for a very long time and no longer has any reason for pretense. He poked fun at himself for losing handily to Carolina in the 2009 championship game but also—despite being reminded multiple times by the media that he had never defeated the Tar Heels in the postseason—had a quiet confidence regarding tomorrow's matchup.
Saturday's 5:30 p.m. tip-off has a regional final feel instead of round of 32.
Notes: The headline individual matchup involves RJ Davis facing off with Tyson Walker, a graduate student in his third year with Michigan State. That name should sound vaguely familiar—he was on the Northeastern team that was a late addition to Carolina's schedule in February of 2021. Walker came into the Smith Center and shot 8-for-15 from the field while hitting four of his seven three-pointers in an 82-62 Tar Heel win on his way to 27 points. Asked to describe Walker's game, teammate Hall just chuckled. "He can score that…" And then he said, uh, something roughly equivalent to "basketball." "You name it, he does everything we could ask someone to do," he added. And Izzo had high praise for Davis. "He is maybe the best guard in whole country if you look at everything he does," the Michigan State head coach said. "He takes tough shots but not crazy shots."…
With all the connections between the programs, it's only fitting that Doug Wojcik has the scout on the Tar Heels for Michigan State. Wojcik, of course, was an assistant coach for the Tar Heels under Matt Doherty and his son, Paxson, is a Carolina reserve. Doug and Paxson faced this same situation last year, when Paxson's Brown team lost, 68-50, in East Lansing. Paxson had 10 points, 13 rebounds and four assists in that game. "On the good side," Izzo said, "Doug is going to Los Angeles either way. He's either going with Pax or he's going with me."…Hubert Davis spoke briefly Friday about his father's basketball career at Johnson C. Smith, where the Tar Heels practiced on Wednesday. The elder Davis, who grew up in Pineville, is in Charlotte this weekend to watch his son…
Another player who has been in a similar matchup is Cormac Ryan, who shot 8-for-11 from the field (including 6-for-7 from three) in scoring 23 points against Michigan State last season when he played for Notre Dame. "They're a physical team," Ryan said. "They're good defensively, and really good in half court defense. They like to push the pace in transition."…That transition game might be a key on Saturday. In two games in the Big Ten Tournament, one a narrow loss to Purdue, the Spartans had a 37-6 edge in fast break points. Slow-paced Wagner did a good job controlling tempo in the first half Thursday, but Carolina put up 14 fast break points in the second half. The Tar Heels have been outscored in transition just three times all year, but none in the past 15 games...
Interesting point from Izzo: "(Harrison) Ingram and Hall will be a big matchup in this thing," he said. "It's not always the first (matchup) you look at." Hall is MSU's leading rebounder at 5.6 boards per game. Ingram, meanwhile, showed a more diverse offensive game in the win over Wagner—five of his seven field goal attempts were from two-point range after being overly reliant on the three in recent contests...Isaiah Hicks, a member of the 2017 national champions, was the guest on this week's Carolina Insider podcast. Hicks, who was fairly quiet during his Tar Heel career, gave a great interview. In addition to the linked audio of the podcast, the video of the interview is available here.
Players Mentioned
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