Observations from Above the Rim

Wolfpack's Howell must avoid silly fouls

2012-01-30T13:24:00.000-05:00

N.C. State forward Richard Howell had a career-best 18 rebounds against Virginia on Saturday but fouled out for the third straight game.

Howell, a junior, had fouled out in only two career games before N.C. State's trip to Miami on Jan. 22. He fouled out, after playing only 18 minutes against the Canes, after 16 minutes against UNC last Thursday and 28 minutes on Saturday.

Howell, who lost 20 pounds in the offseason, is more fit this season and has been more aggressive on defense, pressuring the ball on the perimeter, going for and getting more steals (23 in 22 games, compared with 25 in 30 games last season). But he's also picking up more reaching fouls 25-feet from the basket, one area coach Mark Gottfried would like to see Howell eliminate.

"Those are the ones that are going to catch up to him," Gottfried said Monday on the weekly conference call. "He has to stay aggressive but at the same time, eliminate the fouls that are inconsequential."

Howell leads the Wolfpack in rebounding and ranks third in the ACC, with 9.4 per game. His scoring average, 11.7, is also up more four points per game game.

-- J.P. Giglio

Blue Devils bad on defense, or just misunderstood?

2012-01-30T12:01:00.000-05:00

Two days after expressing disgust at Duke’s second-half effort against St. John’s, Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski was more sanguine Monday in his assessments about his team.

Krzyzewski was most explicit when discussing Duke’s defense.

“Overall, we’ve had to play pretty (darn) good defense in order to have the record we have against the competition we have,” Krzyzewski said. “I don’t care what stats there are out there.”

The stats that are out there don’t paint a pretty picture.

The Blue Devils’ defense ranks 11th in the ACC in scoring defense and last in field-goal percentage defense. In Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted defense rankings, which take tempo into account, Duke ranks 94th in the NCAA.

“We’re not inherently a defensive team – the mentality of these kids,” Krzyzewski said. “They’re more offensive players. But they’ve shown that they can play really good defense. We just have to get it going for longer periods of time.”

After allowing easy buckets on St. John’s first four possessions Saturday, Duke’s defense was fine for the rest of the first half and the start of the second, allowing the Blue Devils to build a 22-point lead.

Over the final 17 minutes, however, Duke seemed to lose interest, perhaps assuming the game had been won.

“Some of our worst defense has been with the leads,” Krzyzewski said. “But in order to get the leads, you have to play good defense. We’re striving for consistency.”

Part of the issue is that the Blue Devils don’t have a lock-down defender who can play multiple positions, a la Nolan Smith. Tyler Thornton comes closest, as he can match up on point guards and wing players, but there aren’t many players beyond him.

“It’s a different team than we’ve had,” Krzyzewski said. “We’ve know that since China and Dubai. We’re not going to be this juggernaut defensively. We have to keep striving to get better.”

-- Jack Daly

Tar Heels' concentration waned vs. Georgia Tech

2012-01-30T11:35:00.000-05:00

CHAPEL HILL — No. 7 North Carolina defeated Georgia Tech 93-81 at the Smith Center on Sunday night. A look back and the highlights and lowlights:

Why the Tar Heels won: North Carolina dominated the first half so much that Tar Heels coach Roy Williams said he was “pleased about everything” his team did during the first 20 minutes. The Heels excelled offensively, making 8 of their 12 3-pointers, and they dominated on the defensive end, too. UNC led 52-32 at halftime, and the game was basically over by then. Williams criticized UNC’s focus in the second half, when Georgia Tech outscored the Heels 49-41. But UNC’s second-half sluggishness didn’t much matter to the final result, which had already been long decided.

The good: The Heels shot a season-high 62.5 percent from 3-point range. UNC made 10 3’s overall – just one short of a season-high of 11, which the Heels made against Kentucky and Tennessee State. A coach would welcome a good shooting night like tonight any time, but it had be especially welcome to Williams given UNC’s recent shooting woes. The Heels had been shooting 24.6 percent from 3-point range in ACC play before Sunday night. Also good: Harrison Barnes, especially in the second half. He finished with a game-high 23 points and made all three of his 3’s. Tyler Zeller had another solid game, with 17 points – but only three rebounds – and John Henson finished with 13 points and three assists.

The bad: UNC’s focus and intensity waned in the second half, which perhaps wasn’t too surprising given how dominant the Heels were in the first half. Georgia Tech is one of the worst offensive teams in the ACC but you wouldn’t have known it based on how the Yellow Jackets played in the second half. Georgia Tech’s 49 second-half points were tied for the second-most it has scored in any half this season. The Jackets, one of the worst 3-point shooting teams in the conference, also made 7 of their 10 3’s in the second half against UNC. Williams gave credit to the Jackets for playing well, but he was frustrated with UNC’s second half performance, too.

Key stat: The Tar Heels made 10 of their 16 3-pointers – a welcome sight for a team that had been struggling with its perimeter shooting.

Key stat II: UNC forced Georgia Tech into 15 turnovers. It wasn’t an overwhelming number, but the Heels took advantage of the Jackets’ miscues and turned those turnovers into 18 points. UNC outscored Georgia Tech 18-4 in points off of turnovers.

UNC player of the game: Barnes. He finished with 23 points and played one of his better halves in the second half on Sunday night. Coincidentally – or perhaps not coincidentally – Barnes switched shoes at halftime. He traded a pair of pink shoes, which UNC wore as part of a cause to raise awareness for breast cancer, for the regular shoes that he wears. He said he felt much more comfortable in his normal shoes.

Quotable: “We’re good shooters. I mean, we really are. We make a bunch of them in practice all the time. So I’ve said the whole time that I thought that, I believe that – when we started making them it would make things even a lot prettier. And again I believe I said when we started making them. I don’t think I said if.” –UNC coach Roy Williams on his team’s perimeter shooting.

-- Andrew Carter

Young coaches retain UNC pride, but focus on new mission

2012-01-29T18:53:00.000-05:00

Driving west down I-40 somewhere between Hillsborough and Mebane on Thursday night, it felt like I was going the wrong way. It felt like all of the college basketball fans in North Carolina were driving toward Chapel Hill to watch the UNC-N.C. State game, while I was driving to the Greensboro Coliseum to watch UNC Greensboro face Appalachian State.

I was going there to write the column that appears in Sunday's paper about two former Tar Heel players, Wes Miller and Jason Capel, who are now two of the three youngest coaches in Division I basketball.

I'm told that a raucous 21,000 fans showed up at the Smith Center that night, while the crowd at the Greensboro Coliseum was mostly friends and family, sort of like the old 8-9 game at the ACC Tournament.

Both games started at 7 p.m., and naturally I was interested in what was going on in Chapel Hill. I followed it intermittently online while watching my game.

When the two games were over, I felt I had made the right decision.

UNCG and Appalachian State went to overtime partly because of a coach's error you'll have to read the story to believe. No mention of the Tar Heels' game was ever made at the Greensboro Coliseum that night. No announcement of out-of-town scores. No score updates on the video board. Nothing.

Afterward, I was curious about how closely the two UNC alums still followed the Tar Heels.

Capel said that since becoming a head coach, he hasn't had time to follow his alma mater as closely as he once did. He waited until he boarded the team bus for the ride home to Boone to turn on his cell phone and check the UNC score because "I was pretty confident they won."

When he saw that UNC had defeated N.C. State 74-55, he teased his assistant coach, Justin Gainey, a former Wolfpack guard.

"I gave Justin a little hard time," Capel says. "He's a State guy, and I wanted to let him know that his Pack got beat."

Miller also admitted that he doesn't follow the Tar Heels as ardently as he once did, even saying that had his team not been playing opposite the UNC game, he probably would have been watching tape of an upcoming opponent instead.

But like Capel, Miller revealed his Carolina pride when I spoke to him about an hour after his Spartans had beaten Appalachian State, and I asked him if he knew the UNC score.

"No," Miller said. "Did they win?" I told him yes. "Yeah," he said, pumping his fist. "How much did they win by?" I told him it was a comfortable 19-point victory. A proud smile creased Miller's face and he said, "That's the way it should be."

- Tim Crothers

Gottfried has the Wolfpack hustling, but there's more work to do

2012-01-29T13:48:00.002-05:00

Three Points from State's 61-60 loss to the Cavaliers on Saturday.

1) Effort vs. execution

Effort was a problem for N.C. State before coach Mark Gottfried was hired. "Was" as in past tense and Saturday's loss to Virginia is the latest proof of how far a State team, made up of essentially the same players as a year ago, has come on the effort front.

Any of Rich Howell's nine offensive rebounds, or the three jump-ball tie-ups on Virginia's end he caused, qualify as proof, but there's also the matter of State's defensive effort as a team in the second half.

Virginia's a low-scoring team, 243rd in the country, by Tony Bennett's design, but the Cavaliers scored 38 points in the first half, on some incredible shooting (15 of 25), but State responded in the second half by holding the Cavaliers to 4 of 18 and 23 points.

"If they play that hard every night, we're going to win a lot of games this year," Gottfried said. "We have won a lot of games, we're going to win a lot more. The effort, that's your takeaway from tonight's game, there's no question."

It was the kind of "phenomenal" effort, as Gottfried put it, you would expect from a team fighting for a spot in the NCAA tournament (see Point 2) and it was the kind of desperate effort most of Sidney Lowe's five teams either severely lacked or did not have the wherewithal to summon at the appropriate moment.

But effort didn't lose the game on Saturday, poor shooting did. And, yes, Virginia, is one of the most disciplined defenses in the country but the Cavaliers are not particularly talented nor do they have one especially dominant defender, like UNC does in John Henson.

Virginia just makes you earn every shot, like the one on State's last possession, which was a contested 3-pointer at the buzzer that didn't hit the rim.

State finished 2 of 15 from the 3-point line, its worst performance in seven ACC games, and second-worst of the season. The Pack was 1 of 8 in a 60-58 win over Princeton, a game which it didn't have its best 3-point shooter, Scott Wood, for 36 minutes because of an ankle injury.

Wood was 2-8 on Saturday, which means the rest of the team was 0-7. It wasn't a matchup problem for Wood, either, he was mostly being defended by Sammy Zeglinski, a shorter player. UVa, with its team principles, gets some credit for Wood's poor shooting, but not all of it.

"I just didn't make shots," Wood said. "Personally, a lot of its on me. That's why I'm there. I'm not there to be Ben Wallace in the paint and block every shot. I'm there to knock down shots and I didn't do that tonight."

State's real shooting woes were where UVa couldn't defend — the foul line. In a one-point loss, that can't happen. In the first six ACC games, State hit 72.1 percent (80 of 111) of its free throws. Against UVa, it made 57.1 percent (12 of 21), compared to 69.6 percent (16 of 23) by the Hoos.

"We had a night where we had some great looks and we couldn't make a shot," Gottfried said. "We're a terrific foul-shooting team and we couldn't make a foul shot."

2) On the outside looking in

The UNC loss on Thursday was a two-by-four to the skull, but the Virginia loss was a straight shot to the solar plexus.

No one should have expected State to beat the best team in the ACC on the road on Thursday, but Saturday's game — against a team in both its conference and RPI peer group (both teams started the week in the 50s in the RPI) — was a must-win.

Now, State needs to put on its work boots to end a five-year NCAA tournament drought, a position that could have been avoided by winning some/any/all of the winnable games (Indiana, Stanford, Virginia, Vanderbilt), nevermind the the pie-in-the-sky variety wouldas and couldas against UNC or Syracuse.

Despite UVa's national ranking (No. 19 in the AP top 25), it was in the same bubble as State. The Hoos started the week at No. 53 in the RPI, compared to No. 55 for State. Bennett's team picked up a nice nonconference win over Michigan (28 in the RPI) and a decent win at Oregon (62), but it needs more meaningful ACC wins. And now it has one over State and the two teams won't play again in the regular season.

Bennett's third team is in better position to make the NCAA tournament after last night's win than it has been at any point during the season. The opposite is true for State.

Realistically, State could be 18-4, with wins over Indiana, Stanford and Virginia. Instead, the Pack is 15-7 with its best wins out of the league over Texas (70), St. Bonaventure (85) and Princeton (108) and wins in side the league over Miami (67) and Maryland (96). That's not going to get it done on Selection Sunday.

At 4-3 in the ACC, State has nine league games left but really only three that will matter to the selection committee — at Duke, No. 2 in the RPI, on Feb. 16, and at home against No. 23 Florida State (Feb. 18) and No. 13 UNC (Feb. 21).

State also has a pair of land-mine games on the road at Clemson (Feb. 25) and at Virginia Tech (March 4), but neither of those games will qualify as quality wins. Both Clemson and Virginia Tech are hard-working but extremely limited offensive teams. Their seasons will end in the NIT, State has to find one or two wins against Duke-FSU-UNC to avoid the same fate.

3) Big players play big ...

UNC is the only ACC roster with more talented players than State's Lorenzo Brown and C.J. Leslie. Brown and Leslie are All-ACC caliber players with NBA potential. They've each had shining moments in the first 21 games and have played well with State's complementary parts (Scott Wood, C.J. Williams and Rich Howell) but in order for State to beat good teams — and Virginia qualifies as one — those two guys have to be on.

Leslie, with Henson nowhere in a 20-mile radius, was on his game against UVa. He produced a team-best 17 points, with three really good assists, in 33 minutes. It was a nice bounceback effort from Leslie, after predictably struggling with the bigger Henson and UNC on Thursday, and the latest sign of Leslie's progress and maturity as a sophomore.

But Brown, who has been fantastic for most of the season, finished with eight points, four assists and four turnovers in 37 minutes. State needs more from him, and not just on the last possession. (You have to tip your hat to UVa on that play, they just defended Brown well on it).

Brown was being defended by Jontel Evans for most of the game. Evans is a strong point guard, a football player really moonlighting in basketball, but he's only 5-11. Brown, who's a legit 6-4, needed to be more aggressive in shooting over Evans and/or posting him up on the low block. I only counted one possession where Brown posted him up, and he immediately passed it back out to the 3-point line, to Leslie of all people.

Brown finished Saturday's game without a trip to the free-throw line. Gottfried questioned the contact on the last play by Evans but officiating is not the reason Brown didn't attempt a free-throw in the entire game. His unwillingness to take the ball to the basket with a purpose is why.

Bottom line, Brown and Leslie have to be great for State to be great and only half of the equation was there on Saturday.

-- J.P. Giglio

Is this Duke squad wearing out Coach K?

2012-01-29T13:44:00.002-05:00

DURHAM -- Based on the tenor of Mike Krzyzewski’s press conference after Duke’s uninspiring 83-76 win over St. John’s on Saturday, it seems a safe bet the Blue Devils will feel the reverberations of their lackluster second half for days to come.

While putting this game in perspective, it’s worth remembering this game could have lasting effects for the upcoming weeks. Here are three final thoughts:

1. Is this year’s Duke team wearing Coach K out?

There are a lot of words one could use to describe Krzyzewski’s mood when he talked about Saturday’s game, but the most apt one might be “fatigued.” Krzyzewski almost seemed to be at the end of his rope, saying that he’s tried all the things he can think of to improve the team’s defense and intensity to no avail.

“It’s not resonating with our team,” Krzyzewski said.

It will be interesting to hear how the coaching staff tries to correct the issues.

After a disappointing effort at Temple in early January, Duke had two intense days of practice to try to address their problems. In the midst of Saturday’s dreary second half, Krzyzewski called two timeouts to challenge his players to improve their play.

Even with those and other exhortations from the coaches, Duke hasn’t conquered its self-defeating habits.

Will Saturday’s effort finally be the catalyst? Krzyzewski will hope so. Because he was not a happy man in the game's aftermath.

“I am not pleased with today,” Krzyzewski said. “I am not pleased with today one bit. One bit.”

2. Austin Rivers had a solid game distributing the ball

Austin Rivers is a bit of a polarizing figure, especially when it comes to his ability to distribute the ball – there's little question the Duke freshman sometimes looks for his shot to the detriment of the Blue Devils’ overall offense.

Against St. John’s, Duke had Rivers play at the point in the half-court for prolonged stretches of the second half. During that time, Rivers got to the basket twice for nice driving layups. He also penetrated and kicked the ball out to Seth Curry and Andre Dawkins for wide-open 3-pointers on three other possessions. Curry and Dawkins missed, but Rivers’ decisions were still sound.

There were other times when Rivers didn’t get the ball where it needed to be – apparently, this reporter missed a time where he neglected to find a wide-open Dawkins – but overall, Rivers did good things. His five assists were the most since his second game in college and three more than any other Duke player had against St. John’s.

3. Can Quinn Cook get back to his late December/early January form?

No matter what Rivers does or does not do when he plays the point, Duke will be a stronger team if freshman Quinn Cook can recapture his strong form of three weeks ago.

Knee trouble and an illness have knocked Cook back, but at least Cook played eight minutes against St. John’s after missing Wednesday’s win over Maryland. Cook didn't do a whole lot in those eight minutes, and the last game Cook was really noticeable when he was out on the court was probably when he started against Georgia Tech on Jan. 7.

While Cook isn’t irreplaceable to this Duke team, he is the Blue Devils’ most capable point guard. If can get back up to speed, Duke will be better positioned for the stretch drive.

-- Jack Daly

N.C. State will see Zellers in its sleep

2012-01-27T15:00:00.003-05:00

UNC's Tyler Zeller. Ethan Hyman photo.

N.C. State is 0-2 against the Zeller brothers, and North Carolina senior forward Tyler Zeller was the best player on the court Thursday night in the Tar Heels' 74-55 victory.

Zeller was dominant last night, with 21 points, 17 rebounds, a block and two steals in 27 minutes. He would have had more rebounds if Roy Williams had not been experimenting with freshman Desmond Hubert, who played 13 minutes. Zeller had as many offensive rebounds (six), as N.C. State's entire roster.

Zeller domination was not a new concept to the Wolfpack. Zeller's younger brother, Cody, a freshman at Indiana, had 19 points, seven rebounds, two blocks and a steal in the Hoosiers' 86-75 win in Raleigh on Nov. 30.

The good news for N.C. State, there aren't any other Zeller brothers in college basketball. The bad news, they have to face Tyler, and the Heels, again (Feb. 21 in Raleigh).

-- J.P. Giglio

Life without Strickland OK for Heels so far

2012-01-27T14:00:00.002-05:00

UNC's Stilman White. Ethan Hyman photo.

The Tar Heels look like they’ll be OK without Dexter Strickland. One game isn’t exactly a large sample size, but if you’re a UNC fan you have to like how the team compensated for the loss of Strickland in Thursday's win over N.C. State. His immediate replacement, Reggie Bullock, stepped in and played well.

Outside of a few errant shots, Bullock’s transition into the starting lineup was a smooth one. He finished with 11 points, five rebounds and three assists. In a somewhat surprising move, Williams used his bench on Thursday night as much as he had in any game this season.

Five reserves played at least five minutes, and Desmond Hubert played 13 minutes. It’s concerning that P.J. Hairston continues to struggle with his shot – he was 0-for-5 from 3-point range against N.C. State – but UNC still appeared to be surprisingly deep on Thursday night.

Freshman point guard Stilman White played just five minutes, but they allowed Kendall Marshall some valuable time to rest. Marshall played 34 minutes.

-- Andrew Carter

Gottfried showed Wolfpack love after loss

2012-01-27T13:00:00.003-05:00

N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried. Ethan Hyman photo

Mark Gottfried has been quick to point out that N.C. State has a "long way to go" even after Sunday's win at Miami gave State a 4-1 record in the ACC, and a share of first place.

This is both Gottfried's way of lowering expectations for a program that has been to the NCAA tournament five times in the past 20 years and his understanding of how to build a program.

After five years under Sidney Lowe, N.C. State needed a complete overhaul in work ethic, that includes both on game day and in the preparation for game day, particularly in the weight room and off-season.

The ACC is bad, and Gottfried understands that, so beating bad teams to get to 4-1 was never the point (or much of an accomplishment). It's how you prepare and how you play that matters, not what the other team does.

N.C. State got a 3-iron to the ear last night, instead of reminding his players that they have a "long way to go," Gottfried wisely instead chose to encourage his team.

(That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from a football coach. When ECU hired Ruffin McNeill, he said he was going to "hug 'em up and love 'em up and coach 'em up." This was Gottfried's version of the "hug 'em up.")

"I like my team," Gottfried said. "We have battled from Day One and I believe we will keep battling. Tonight's disappointing, we all agree, but we're a better basketball team than we were tonight."

No reason dwelling on the loss, as Gottfried pointed out, it was N.C. State's worst perofmance in 21 games (and UNC had a large part in that). With Virginia on deck (Saturday, 8 p.m.), State can't afford to let one loss turn into two.

-- J.P. Giglio

Tar Heels learning to play with an edge

2012-01-27T12:30:00.002-05:00

Harrison Barnes reacts to his dunk. Ethan Hyman photo

North Carolina can be very good when it wants.

We saw the “good” Tar Heels on Thursday night, in a 74-55 victory over N.C. State. They came out focused and energized and avoided mental lapses that have plagued them at times this season. If it looked as if the Tar Heels were trying to send N.C. State a message, that’s because they were.

Said Harrison Barnes: “Well, it’s not Carolina-Duke, but we definitely wanted to go out there and show them that this is our court and this is what we do.”

Barnes often plays with a calm, stoic demeanor, but we’ve seen him let loose his emotion at times in the past couple of games. He showed some emotion after that one-handed follow dunk in the first half, and not only did that energize the crowd, but it also seemed to have the same effect on his teammates.

As Roy Williams said earlier this season, these Tar Heels aren’t a naturally intense bunch. But he also said it’s possible for a team to learn how to play with an edge as a season progresses. Maybe what we saw in the second half against Virginia Tech, and last night, was UNC learning how to play with such an edge.

-- Andrew Carter

Has gap between Heels, Pack shrunk at all?

2012-01-27T12:00:00.002-05:00

UNC fans didn't go home disappointed Thursday. Ethan Hyman photo.

The gap between North Carolina and N.C. State longtime rivals is still significant. After the disastrous Sidney Lowe era and the promising start under first-year coach Mark Gottfried, it appeared that maybe, possibly, the Wolfpack had closed some of the distance. And yes, last night's 74-55 Tar Heels win was but one game.

Still, it showed that UNC is still far ahead. For the Tar Heels, that’s both good and bad. The good is obvious enough. The bad, though, is that competition breeds success. Years and years – and years – ago, part of the reason why North Carolina became a national power was because Everett Case’s dominant N.C. State teams in the early years of the ACC forced the Tar Heels to raise their game. And the rivalry went back and forth through the 1950s, '60s, '70s and '80s.

Since, of course, it has grown significantly one-sided.

No, the gap between UNC and N.C. State isn’t as wide as it was during the Les Robinson years, or when Javi Gonzalez struggled to bring the ball up the court against Ty Lawson just a few years ago. But it’s still wide and doesn’t appear to be shrinking any time soon.

-- Andrew Carter

To beat Tar Heels, Wolfpack needed 3s

2012-01-27T11:29:00.001-05:00

Feeding C.J. Leslie and others inside proved futile for N.C. State against the interior defense of Tyler Zeller (left) and John Henson. Ethan Hyman photo

Three Points from N.C. State's 74-55 road loss to UNC on Thursday:

1) Outside in, not inside out

There's no shame in losing to the best team in the country on their home floor, but there is in the way N.C. State lost to UNC on Thursday.

The Wolfpack (15-6, 4-2 ACC) kept making the same mistakes -- at least while the game was still close in the first half -- over and over and over. And they were the same mistakes they made in last year's losses to the same UNC team.

(<soapbox>And that's why Mark Gottfried should have looked at the film of last year's Carolina games. </soapbox>).

UNC forward John Henson, who's 6-11 and has an 88-inch wingspan, didn't shrink, and his arms didn't get any shorter. And, oddly, none of N.C. State's forwards got any taller. So why go inside?

Almost every set in the first half was designed to go inside to C.J. Leslie, who finished with nine points and eight rebounds but was tormented by Henson (five blocks), or to Richard Howell, who was demoralized by Tyler Zeller (21 points, 17 rebounds).

The only way to beat UNC -- for any team other than Kentucky, which has the NBA talent to go toe-for-toe with the Tar Heels -- is to get hot from the outside and trade 3s for 2s. This a proven formula and one State did not embrace.

Scott Wood, the best 3-point shooter in the ACC, attempted one shot in the first 16 minutes of the game. C.J. Williams, State's second-best 3-point shooter, connected on his only 3-point attempt of the game, but he took only six shots in 30 minutes. Leslie (12 shots) and Howell (nine) combined for 21 shots.

Wood got off nine 3s for the game, making three, but only his first 3 -- on the first possession of the second half -- mattered. That cut UNC's lead to 37-26, and Carolina then quickly went on a 25-5 run.

By the time Kendall Marshall and Stilman White hit consecutive 3s, State could have brought back the entire 1974 lineup (in its prime) and not been able to dig out of the 31-point hole.

State needed to attack Marshall, who for all intents and purposes is Carolina's only point guard, and either A) try to get him in foul trouble or B) force him to play matador defense because he can't afford to get in foul trouble.

State's point guard Lorenzo Brown needed to drive and kick, to either Wood or Williams. Instead, it was dump and chase -- the errant blocked shots.

"We didn't screen very well, we didn't cut very well," Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried said. "We were not very sharp offensively."

That's an understatement. State finished with a season-low 55 points. Even Ken Pomeroy is trying to figure out how State can score 60 points against Princeton, the slowest of the slow-pace teams, and 55 against the Tar Heels, the fastest of the fast-pace teams.

2) Staying positive

Mark Gottfried has been quick to point out that State has a "long way to go" even after Sunday's win at Miami gave State a 4-1 record in the ACC, and a share of first place.

This is both Gottfried's way of lowering expectations, for a program that has been to the NCAA tournament five times in the past 20 years, but also his understanding of how to build a program.

After five years under Sidney Lowe, State needed a complete overhaul in work ethic, and that includes both on game day and in the preparation for game day, particularly in the weight room and offseason.

The ACC is bad; Gottfried understands that; so beating bad teams to get to 4-1 was never the point (or much of an accomplishment). It's how you prepare and how you play that matters, not what the other team does.

N.C. State got a 3-iron to the ear last night. Instead of reminding his players that they have a "long way to go," Gottfried wisely chose to encourage his team.

(Which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from a football coach. When ECU hired Ruffin McNeill, he said he was going to "hug 'em up and love 'em up and coach 'em up." This was Gottfried's version of the "hug 'em up.")

"I like my team," Gottfried said. "We have battled from Day One, and I believe we will keep battling. Tonight's disappointing, we all agree, but we're a better basketball team than we were tonight."

No reason dwelling on the loss, as Gottfried pointed out; it was State's worst performance in 21 games (and UNC had a large part in that). With Virginia on deck (Saturday, 8 p.m.), State can't afford to let one loss turn into two.

3) Double Zeller trouble

State's 0-2 against the Zeller brothers, and UNC senior forward Tyler Zeller was the best player on the court last night.

Zeller was dominant last night, with 21 points, 17 rebounds, a block and two steals in 27 minutes. He would have had more rebounds if Roy Williams had not been experimenting with freshman Desmond Hubert, who played 13 minutes. Zeller had as many offensive rebounds (six) as State's entire roster.

Zeller domination was not a new concept to the Wolfpack. Zeller's younger brother, Cody, a freshman at Indiana, had 19 points, seven rebounds, two blocks and a steal in the Hoosiers' 86-75 win in Raleigh on Nov. 30.

The good news for State: There aren't any other Zeller brothers in college basketball. The bad news: They have to face Tyler, and the Heels, again (Feb. 21 in Raleigh).
-- J.P. Gigli

Could Tar Heels' backup point guard be no one?

2012-01-25T13:00:00.001-05:00

CHAPEL HILL -- North Carolina coach Roy Williams said something interesting on Monday that you might have missed. He said the Tar Heels would experiment with a kind of offense that doesn’t necessarily require a point guard. This offense, Williams said, would be more rooted in a team passing game – which implies a lot of ball movement.

Of course, Strickland served as the backup point guard to Marshall. And without Strickland, White is really the only other point guard on the roster. And he is young and unproven to this point. So it makes sense that Williams might want to experiment with an offense that doesn’t require a point guard.

As of Tuesday afternoon, though, P.J. Hairston hadn’t yet seen what that offense would look like. He presumed the Tar Heels would practice it later on Tuesday.

“I’m looking forward to it, just to see how it works,” Hairston said.

By the way, Hairston said Strickland has been in good spirits since suffering his injury. Hairston said that in the locker room the other day, Strickland told Reggie Bullock that he’d have to learn how to be a backup point guard now that Bullock is assuming Strickland’s role as the starting shooting guard.

“I think Reggie was standing in the locker room and dribbling a basketball saying, 'I’ve got to get ready,' ” Hairston said. “It’s kind of like a joke.”

-- Andrew Carter

Tar Heels' Stilman White just wants to scrap

2012-01-25T11:27:00.000-05:00

CHAPEL HILL -- A few other reporters and I had a chance to spend some time on Tuesday with Stilman White, the North Carolina freshman guard who’s likely to see an expanded role given that Dexter Strickland has been lost for the season with a knee injury.

I wrote a story about White that you can read right here.

Though he spent about half of his childhood growing up in North Carolina, in Wilmington, White never dreamed he’d play at a school like UNC. The Tar Heels began recruiting him after Larry Drew III abruptly left school about a year ago.

So here White is. He has played only about four minutes per game, and it’s not all that likely he plays a lot more than that. But still, his contributions could be valuable, as he’ll be asked to give starting point guard Kendall Marshall some time to rest here and there.

Said White: “I’ve got to make sure I come in and I stay on edge, and play with some edge and play hard and just kind of be a scrappy kid and just see what happens out there.”

-- Andrew Carter

UNC guard Dexter Strickland lost for season: analysis

2012-01-20T21:47:00.000-05:00

CHAPEL HILL -- North Carolina junior guard Dexter Strickland suffered a torn ACL on Thursday night in the second half of the Tar Heels' 82-68 victory at Virginia Tech. What does the injury mean to UNC going forward?

Some thoughts and analysis:

--First the good news: There's no good time for a team to suffer a personnel loss like this - or any loss, for that matter - but UNC does have some time to figure things out. The Tar Heels don't play a game this weekend and they don't play Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, either. UNC is off until it hosts N.C. State at the Smith Center next Thursday night. Thanks a scheduling quirk, the Tar Heels literally couldn't have more time than they do right now to figure out how best to fill Strickland's void.

--Speaking of which. Strickland started all 19 of UNC's games this season. It's no secret who the options to replace him will be. Sophomore Reggie Bullock is the team's fourth-leading scorer, with 8.4 points per game. Freshman P.J. Hairston, meanwhile, has averaged 7.5 points per game. Hairston is the more potent scoring option. His 7.5 points per game have come in an average of 13.2 minutes per game. Bullock, meanwhile, is averaging 8.4 points per game in 18.8 minutes per game.

--But, of course, UNC won't miss Strickland necessarily because of the offense he provided. Strickland was averaging 7.5 points per game. But he was tied for the team lead in steals, with 25. Strickland has been UNC's best perimeter defender this season and, because of that, his replacement in the starting lineup will likely have to be a strong defender. Which gives Bullock a significant advantage over Hairston, who's still developing defensively. After the victory at Virginia Tech on Thursday night, UNC coach Roy Williams raved about Bullock's defense.

--For UNC, the worst part about losing Strickland might be this: Now the Tar Heels don't really have a backup point guard. Strickland had been filling in at the point at times for Kendall Marshall. When Marshall needed a short rest, Strickland was capable of running the offense. Without Strickland, though, who is even available to provide Marshall with the occasional rest? Freshman Stilman White has played a minute or two here and there but he hasn't been asked to produce amid pressure. White is averaging 4.3 minutes of playing time per game. Justin Watts, a senior guard, has averaged 5.6 minutes per game but he's likely to see his playing time increase.

--It's natural to wonder whether Strickland's injury will have any effect on the decision to redshirt Leslie McDonald, who suffered a knee injury of his own during the summer. Still, it appears unlikely that McDonald would be rushed back because of Strickland's injury. For one, McDonald and Strickland are different players. While McDonald would add depth to the backcourt, he wouldn't fill the defensive void left by Strickland, nor would McDonald be able to assist Marshall at point guard. Plus, with 12 regular-season games left to play, would it really be worth it for McDonald to rush back? And would McDonald even be ready to contribute if he were to come back?

--Bottom line: The loss of Strickland is a difficult blow for the Tar Heels. They now basically have a seven-man rotation, unless Watts or White takes on a larger role. And among UNC's top seven players, freshman James Michael McAdoo is still very much finding his way. The loss of Strickland hurts UNC's defense, and also makes Marshall more valuable than ever, given that he's now without a backup.

-- Andrew Carter

Was loss to Georgia Tech good for Wolfpack?

2012-01-20T15:00:00.001-05:00

When you looked at N.C. State's schedule, specifically the Maryland-Georgia Tech-Wake Forest-Boston College stretch, you figured the Wolfpack probably should get off to a 4-0 start. But with N.C. State being N.C. State, you also figured it would find a way to drop one of the games.

True to form, N.C. State is 3-1 as it enters the "it could lose the next four" portion of its conference schedule (at Miami, at UNC, Virginia and at BC). Except, the loss — 82-71 to Georgia Tech, which lost at home to Virginia by 32 points Thursday night — might have actually been a good thing for this N.C. State team.

"The last time we were in this building, we kind of let the fans down and played really bad," Scott Wood said after Thursday's 76-62 win over Boston College. "I think that's the best way to say it."

Since the inexplicable loss to the Jackets, who have scored 50 and 38 points in their ACC games since, N.C. State has used it as motivation. The Pack throttled Wake 76-40 last Saturday and really beat BC worse than the final score indicated.

Of course, motivational lessons only go so far, and tend to look a lot more effective against teams the caliber of Wake and BC. But N.C. State took care of the business it was supposed to take care of in the past two games, and that's a good sign.

-- J.P. Giglio

Duke assistant James peps up Austin Rivers

2012-01-20T14:00:00.000-05:00

Duke assistant coach Nate James did a nice job of motivating freshman guard Austin Rivers before Thursday's victory over Wake Forest.

After Wake Forest’s starting lineup was announced Thursday, Duke’s reserves lined up on the Cameron Indoor Stadium court and waited for the starters to be introduced.

For the first time in his Duke career, Rivers wasn’t one of the five on the bench. Rivers said afterward it was the first time he hadn’t started since third grade.

Duke assistant coach Nate James walked up behind Rivers as the starters were being announced and starting talking to the Blue Devils’ freshman. What did he say?

“I was trying to get him to understand that it’s kind of different coming off the bench,” James said. “If you don’t have the right mindset and you just sit on the bench thinking about, ‘Why am I not starting?’ then that’s going to mess you up for the entire game.

“I was telling him to observe the game and not get caught up in you. He was ready – obviously he did a great job. He showed a lot of maturity to not let not starting knock him back. He did a terrific job.”

Rivers finished with 20 points and played a team-high 32 minutes.

-- Jack Daly

'Benching' Rivers? Mike Krzyzewski begs to differ

2012-01-20T12:30:00.000-05:00

It’s probably prudent not to make too much of Duke's starting lineups. Austin Rivers definitely took note of the fact he wasn’t startingin Thursday's 91-73 win over Wake Forest, saying he was angry.

But Mike Krzyzewski doesn’t see what the big deal is.

Duke’s coach takes issue with the phrase “benching,” in particular.

“I don’t like the word ‘bench,’ ” Krzyzewski said. “I don’t know where that word comes from. Bench means that he sat on the bench. To me, (Rivers) scored 20 points and played 32 minutes. Everybody should be benched like that. It’s our look at trying to look at different lineups, different ways of doing this team.”

Eight different Blue Devils have started for the team this season, including seven since conference play began. Given the fact there isn’t much separation among Duke’s top eight players, it stands to reason that the starting lineup will continue to fluctuate.

Quinn Cook has struggled in recent games, and one would have to imagine there’s a chance he may go back to coming off the bench in the next week or so.

Cook only played 14 minutes against the Deacons, although Krzyzewski said that was because Cook tweaked his knee after the win over Clemson.

-- Jack Daly

Wolfpack hopeful about C.J. Williams' shoulder

2012-01-20T11:41:00.001-05:00

N.C. State guard C.J. Williams did not practice Friday but Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried is hopeful Williams will play at Miami on Sunday.

Williams, a senior, injured his right shoulder in the second half of N.C. State's 76-62 win over Boston College on Thursday night. Williams watched the final 9 minutes and 16 seconds from the bench with his shoulder wrapped and iced.

"We're going to watch him for 24 hours and see how he responds," Gottfried said Friday. "Right now, it's doubtful, but we're hoping that he will be able to play."

Gottfried said Williams told him he felt a "pop" in his shoulder while defending on the possession before he left the court.

Williams has been one of State's most improved players in his senior season. His scoring average (12.1 points per game) has jumped almost eight points per game and he has emerged as the team's best defender and leader.

Williams has started every game and also averages 4.1 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game.

Gottfried has been using a seven-man rotation, with senior Alex Johnson as the only guard off the bench. Gottfried said Johnson would likely start against the Hurricanes on Sunday if Williams can't play.

Freshman wing Tyler Harris would also get more playing time, Gottfried said.

"We're a team that can't afford injuries but if he can't play, we have to respond and find another avenue," Gottfried said.

Duke faces 'men' of Florida State on Saturday

2012-01-20T11:30:00.000-05:00

Duke faces a quick turnaround for Saturday’s significant game against Florida State.

The Seminoles have won their past two games by a combined 47 points, including the well-publicized 33-point win over North Carolina last Saturday.

Duke beat Wake Forest 91-73 Thursday night. Florida State has also been off since Tuesday’s win over Maryland.

“They're real good and they're real long," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "They're an old team. ... We’re playing men on Saturday afternoon – there’s no question about it. Hopefully, we’re men.”

-- Jack Daly

Wolfpack's Richard Howell making big strides

2012-01-20T10:27:00.000-05:00

N.C. State junior forward Richard Howell lost 25 pounds in the offseason and found his game. Howell always played with a high basketball IQ but didn't always have the physical means, or stamina, to maximize his potential.

Howell is still undersized — he's listed at 6-8 but is really about three inches shorter — but he's made up for his lack of height with effort. He was all over the court on Thursday in the Wolfpack's 76-62 victory over Boston College, finishing with 11 points, 16 rebounds and three steals. (I actually think he was short-changed by the official scorer in the latter category as State produced a season-best 16 steals.)

"He set the tone for us with his defense," Scott Wood said.

Howell was key in the game-turning 15-0 run after BC tied the score at 21 with 8:44 left in the first half. BC coach Steve Donahue applauded Howell's efforts after the game.

"He's a big, strong kid," Donahue said. "He's a load. He's a tough kid. He's a hard matchup for anyone, particularly us."

-- J.P. Giglio

Look back: Tar Heels run past Virginia Tech

2012-01-20T08:55:00.000-05:00

BLACKSBURG, Va. — No. 8 North Carolina defeated Virginia Tech 82-68 at Cassell Coliseum on Thursday night. A look back at the Tar Heels’ much-needed victory:

Why the Tar Heels won: UNC faced a lot of questions following its 90-57 loss at Florida State on Saturday. Questions about its toughness. Questions about its intensity. Questions about its mental makeup. Down 8 at Virginia Tech on Thursday night, with Cassell Coliseum rocking, the Tar Heels were in the same kind of place they found themselves in early in the second half at Florida State. But this time, UNC fought through. Harrison Barnes began what became a 19-0 run with a pair of free throws, the Heels increased the defensive pressure and UNC played like a team worthy of the high expectations that surrounded it at the start of the season. Was this a season-saver? I think that’d be too dramatic a description. But it was a crucial, much-needed victory. The Heels faced a gut check near the start of the second half and they responded with a confidence-building performance. UNC coach Roy Williams said the second half was “probably” the best his team had played all season.

The good: The Heels played with a fire and an energy during the second half that we’ve rarely seen this season. That must continue for this team to reach its potential. Barnes was sensational in the second half, when he scored 21 of his 27 points. John Henson added 16 points and 16 rebounds and Tyler Zeller added 14 and 11. UNC played well defensively during the second half, too. Virginia Tech guard Dorenzo Hudson scored 16 points and made four 3’s in the first half. In the second half? He had zero points in 10 minutes.
The bad: Hudson’s first half performance brought back the not-too-distant memories of The Deividas Dulkys Show. Dulkys, of course, made eight 3’s and scored a career-high 32 points against UNC on Saturday. UNC allowed Virginia Tech eight made 3’s in the first half, but Williams seemed less disappointed in his team’s defense and more impressed by the Hokies ability to make difficult shots. And, of course, the worst thing of all for UNC: Dexter Strickland suffered a right knee injury and left the game with 16:44 to play. He will undergo an MRI on Friday.

Key stat: The Tar Heels played about as well as they have this season during that decisive 19-0 run. The offense looked good during that stretch but what pleased Williams the most was how his team defended during that run. During that run, the Hokies were 0-for-8 from the field and committed two turnovers.
Key stat II: UNC dominated in two key facets of the game – second-chance points and points in the paint. Combined, the Heels outscored the Hokies 59-21 in those two statistical categories.

UNC player of the game: Barnes. No debate here. Barnes tonight showed why he was a preseason first-team All-American and a candidate to win national player of the year honors. He simply took over the game early in the second half, and did so when UNC most needed him – or somebody – to do so. In addition to the 27 points, Barnes had 3 steals and 6 rebounds.

Quotable: “That was my whole thing at halftime. I challenged them. I said don’t be giving me and woe-be’s, don’t be giving me any feel sorry for yourselves. Let’s play. I wasn’t going to feel sorry for us at all. And that’s the biggest thing I pushed at halftime but it was the kids deciding to go after it themselves in the second half.” –UNC coach Roy Williams, on what he told the team at halftime when Virginia Tech led 39-34.

-- Andrew Carter

Kendall Marshall took loss to FSU hardest

2012-01-19T15:00:00.002-05:00

Kendall Marshall had a career-worst seven turnovers against Florida State last Saturday, and took the Tar Heels' 33-point loss to the Seminoles hard. Robert Willett photo

Kendall Marshall, North Carolina's sophomore point guard, is in the midst of a brilliant season, and he is compiling assists at a faster rate than any player in school history. That said, Marshall suffered through perhaps the worst game of his collegiate career on Saturday at Florida State, where he committed a career-high seven turnovers.

You saw what happened to UNC’s offense when a defense successfully frustrated Marshall. Now we’ll see how Marshall responds. Harrison Barnes, John Henson and Tyler Zeller need to be productive for the Tar Heels to be at their best, but no player is as important to their success as Marshall.

I’m interested to see how he responds especially because he seemed to be the most disappointed out of all of his teammates in the locker room on Saturday. Marshall seemed to take it the toughest.

-- Andrew Carter

Can Virginia Tech go Dulkys on Tar Heels?

2012-01-19T13:00:00.001-05:00

North Carolina coach Roy Williams has mostly been pleased with how his team has guarded the perimeter this season. And it seemed like UNC had made some major strides in its perimeter defense leading into the 33-point loss at Florida State.

But then the Seminoles’ senior guard Deividas Dulkys made 8 3-pointers – many of them coming on wide open shots. Sometimes a player gets hot from the outside and there’s not much a defense can do. That was part of the issue against Dulkys. The other part was that UNC allowed him open looks.

Virginia Tech’s backcourt of Dorenzo Hudson and Erick Green will pose another challenge for the Heels’ perimeter defense. Neither Hudson nor Green is necessarily known for his outside shooting. Hudson hasn’t made a 3 in the Hokies past three games, and Green has four 3’s in the Hokies’ past seven games. But keep in mind that Dulkys hadn’t been shooting all that well, either.

Green, by the way, will be a gametime decision after suffering a knee injury last week. He sat out the Hokies’ loss against Boston College last weekend.

-- Andrew Carter

Tar Heels must avoid flat start vs. Virginia Tech

2012-01-19T11:47:00.000-05:00

CHAPEL HILL — No. 8 North Carolina plays at Virginia Tech tonight in Blacksburg, Va. (9 p.m., ESPN), and it will be important to watch how UNC starts the game. The Tar Heels admitted they were flat at the start of their most recent game, a 90-57 defeat at Florida State. The Seminoles put UNC in an early hole and the Heels never climbed their way out.

What happened in Tallahassee, Fla., was as shocking as anything we’ve seen in an ACC game in recent seasons. But if it could happen there, it could happen against in Virginia Tech’s Cassell Coliseum, where UNC has lost two of its past three.

A fast start is a must for the Tar Heels, who need one both to build confidence and to move on, mentally, from what they endured at FSU.

--Andrew Carter

Boston College finding stride in ACC

2012-01-18T16:33:00.002-05:00

With 11 new players on the roster, including nine freshmen, Boston College knew it was in for a transition season.

But since a 5-9 start in nonconference play, and a 23-point loss at North Carolina, the Eagles have won two straight ACC games.

That means Boston College heads into Thursday night’s game at N.C. State with the same conference record as the Wolfpack (2-1).

“They’re a much different team now than they were early,” Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried said.

Gottfried suggested “throwing out” BC’s early games as a barometer for where the team is now. Second-year Eagles coach Steve Donahue also would probably like to scrap the 2-7 start, which included a pair of losses to the lesser in-state programs of Holy Cross and Boston University.

The Eagles (7-10) have won five of eight since the slow start, though, with home league wins over Clemson and Virginia Tech.

With an 0-3 record against the Atlantic 10 and a 2-1 mark against the Atlantic Coast, the Eagles are No. 216 in this week’s Rating Percentage Index. That hasn’t helped the league’s RPI but doesn’t diminish Donahue’s reputation among his peers.

“He does a spectacular job,” Gottfried said. “They’re a young team but extremely dangerous because they have bought into everything that Steve is doing.”

Donahue won three Ivy League titles at Cornell and made the round of 16 in the 2010 NCAA tournamen before taking over for Al Skinner at BC in April 2010.

Donahue led last year’s group, carried by All-ACC guard Reggie Jackson, to nine league wins. However, he has paid the price for the program’s attrition this season. Skinner’s final two recruiting classes netted zero players currently on the roster.

In an offense dependent on the 3-point shot, Donahue has turned to a combination of freshmen wing scorers (Lonnie Jackson, Ryan Anderson and Jordan Daniels), an Oregon transfer (Ryan Humphrey) and a developing big man (Dennis Clifford).

Clifford, a 7-footer from Bridgewater, Mass., had 15 points and seven rebounds in BC’s 59-57 win over Clemson on Jan. 12 and 15 points in a 61-59 win over Virginia Tech on Jan. 14.

While improved, and on a winning streak, the young Eagles still have issues. They rank No. 318, out of 338 Division I teams, in rebounding margin (minus-5.8) and No. 303 in turnover margin (minus-2.8).

They haven’t exactly been scoring at a record clip either. Their 61.5 points-per-game average is last in the ACC, 296th nationally.

Still, their 7.4 3-pointers per game ranks third in the ACC, and guarding the 3 has been a problem for N.C. State’s defense.

-- J.P. Giglio

Eric Montross: A lesson from UNC history

2012-01-18T16:30:00.000-05:00

Eric Montross was a senior on North Carolina's 1993 national title team, which suffered a 26-point loss at Wake Forest in late January. A couple of months later, the Tar Heels defeated Michigan in the national championship game.

“The thing that I remember about our team,” Montross said, “was that there was just an absolute commitment to do what we needed to do in order to win. And we got it handed to us that game and it was just a mindset that we were going to work hard enough to overcome that. And that we weren’t going to make similar mistakes again.”

Montross, now the analyst for the Tar Heels’ radio broadcasts, said he believes this UNC team has it in it to respond the same way after Saturday's 33-point loss to Florida State. And one of the main reasons why Montross believes this is because of the presence of Tyler Zeller.

“This is certainly a really bad game,” Montross said. “But if you look at the silver lining, Zeller played a really good game. … And he’s a senior. If Tyler had gone lifeless midway through the first half [I’d be concerned]. … But they’ve got a guy who is absolutely committed to this as a senior.”

-- Andrew Carter

Are Tar Heels too laid back to be champs?

2012-01-18T15:45:00.003-05:00

If you’ve followed North Carolina closely at all this season, you know that intensity has been an issue throughout. At times, the Heels seem content to go through the motions. That was the case on Saturday at Florida State, which was by far the more intense and aggressive team.

UNC never responded.

I asked Zeller yesterday if it’d be fair to say that the Tar Heels are an angry group right now. He said:
“Usually we’re very [laidback] – we’re laughing, having a good time. But nobody really said anything [after the Florida State loss]. Everybody was very quiet. And I think it was something was impactful to all of us. And hopefully we use it to drive us in the right direction.”

You’d hope. Sometimes, a team that’s not natural intense – and this team isn’t – needs a jolt to play with inspiration. Maybe what happened at FSU provides that jolt.

-- Andrew Carter

Tar Heels' exit diverts attention from 33-point loss

2012-01-18T14:59:00.000-05:00

North Carolina players – or, really, anyone associated with the UNC basketball program – won’t soon forget the significance of “33.” Roy Williams wrote the number on a board inside the Tar Heels’ locker room to remind his players of the margin of defeat in their 90-57 loss at Florida State on Saturday.

What’s interesting to me, though, is that no one outside the team has spent too much time this week reflecting on that 33-point blowout. The topic of the week has been the final 14.2 seconds of the game, when Williams and most of his players and staff walked off the court to avoid the wild postgame celebratory scene in Tallahassee, Fla. Of course, five players – including three walk-ons – remained on the court for those final 14.2 seconds.

Williams spent nearly 12 minutes of his radio show on Monday night explaining how he could have left those players on the floor. I’ve written stories about it. It has been a popular topic on the local sports radio shows, and on Internet message boards. But you know what hasn’t been all that popular a topic? The actual blowout itself.

Here’s what Tyler Zeller had to say about walking off the court:

“That was the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done in my life. Because it was to the point that I never thought I’d leave a game early because we’d lost by that much and they were going to storm the floor. It was something that I hope to never experience again.”

-- Andrew Carter

Transcript: Roy Williams explains leaving walkons behind

2012-01-17T10:21:00.003-05:00

North Carolina's players left the court with 14 seconds to play Saturday against Florida State because coach Roy Williams feared the Tar Heels would be trapped by the crowd. Five walkons stayed behind to run out the clock, but Williams said he didn't realize they had until he watched the tape. Robert Willett photo.

CHAPEL HILL — In case you missed Roy Williams’ radio show last night, he explained how he left five players on the court during the final 14 seconds of North Carolina’s 90-57 loss at Florida State on Saturday.
Here’s Roy:

“You know, it’s strange because after the game, I always usually say a couple of things to the team. Sometimes a little longer. One of our wins this year, I kept them in a locker room a little longer. I think the media made a statement about that because I was concerned with how we were playing.

“I had a friend of mine and he said, ‘Roy, you’ve been so frustrated. But you’ve been winning – you win by 20.’ I said, ‘I’m concerned about how we’re playing. We’re not trying to prepare to win one game in the regular season. I’m trying to get us to be the best team.’ But usually I say a couple of quick things, get them together, I say a little prayer. They don’t have to pray, they just have to put their hands and do whatever they have to do. And then we go on and I go to the press conference.

“Coach Smith always would come in and not even do that. We would just get up, put our hands together, say a little quick prayer. I’d say, Coach, I’ve got to blast them sometimes. And this was when I became head coach.

“He always said, you should wait until you see the tape and you know exactly what you’re saying and you know if you’re exactly right or wrong. Because sometimes, you know, coaches could mess it up, too. Something that they thought they saw. So I basically have adhered to that. But I say a few things.

“Well, after the game Saturday, our players got in the locker room, I walked in and I said one sentence. I said, ‘Everybody up.’ So we came together, we put our hands together. I said a little prayer. I walked out. Because I did not want to talk to my team at that point.

“We got on the bus. We went to the airport. Got on the airplane. Came home. The bus pulled up down in the ramp at the Smith Center. Everybody, what we call ‘AYOs’ – all you others – get off the bus. And I walked to the back of the bus and this time I gave them the schedule. I said, ‘We have Special Olympics tomorrow [on Sunday]. Everybody be there at 12:45.’ And then I got off the bus and still didn’t say one thing about the game. Because I still wasn’t mature enough to say anything.

“My kids had the Special Olympics things on Sunday. And we met at 12:45. I walked in the room. I sat down in front of the room. Jerod Haase, I pointed to Jerod … Jerod said, ‘This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to split up in these groups. You’re going to work with this and you’re going to work with that. And here’s the diagram, make sure you know where you know where you’re needed.’ And I said, ‘Guys – I don’t think I need to say that we need to do a great job today.’ That’s all I said. Because I still wasn’t mature enough to say anything to them.

“We did the Special Olympics clinic. At the end of the clinic, we got in there. I told everybody, I said, ‘Guys, you did a great job. I appreciate that.’ And I walked out. I still hadn’t focused my [thoughts]. So that’s 24 hours, I still hadn’t spoken to my team.

“Today [on Monday] we met. We had a film session. They did weights. We had another little film session. We went out on the court. Went back in the locker room, finished watching the tape. And I apologized, to five guys, because I did not even know until I watched the game tape that my five walk-ons stayed out there on the court. Did not know that.

“Regardless of how, in my opinion, unfair the people treated [UNC spokesman] Steve Kirschner when he tried to give them a response, that’s the exact truth. There’s nothing else. That’s the exact truth. Because if you watch the tape, Joe Holladay at first and I are talking.

“Joe said, ‘We’re going to have a problem getting off this court again. Because they’re already in the aisles.’ He said, ‘We’re going to have a problem.’ I think, understand the word ‘think’ – [referee] Jamie Luckie was in front of my bench. And I’m whispering and talking into his ear, the game’s going, I said, ‘Jamie. We’re going to have a problem getting off the court. Do you have any suggestions?’ He said, ‘I don’t know what to tell you.’

“And then all of a sudden there’s a loose ball and a dead ball and a timeout. And I start walking – you can see it on TV – I start walking and I motion for Leonard Hamilton to come. Leonard comes up there and I said, ‘Leonard – I’m worried about getting our guys off the court. Would it offend you if I were to leave? If we were to leave?’ He said, ‘No – I think that’s what you should do.’

“Which I thought was great on Leonard … I’ve known him for 100 years. He’s always sensible in things like that and when he said that, I told him, I said, ‘Leonard, I appreciate it. Please understand this is not intended to be an indictment on your security. We just need to get [out safely]. He said, ‘No – go ahead.’

“I turned to Joe Holladay and I motioned. I said, ‘Come on.’ Like that. And I took about three steps and you can see it on TV – regardless of what those people are saying to Steve Kirschner. Leonard says something, he says, ‘Roy, your players.’ And I turned around and said, ‘Come on!’ And you can see me motion on again.

“I take off and I stop and try to congratulate as many [Florida State] players as I can. I even got Luke [Loucks] and [Deividas] Dulkys mixed up … and then I found the real Dulkys at the end. I said to every player, ‘Congratulations on a great win.’ I said to the assistant coaches, ‘Please don’t be offended by this.’ And everybody said, ‘Coach, we understand.’

“I go to the locker room. And it is a long way down the side of the court. It’s all the way back there. And I get back there and I’m standing outside of our locker room, waiting for every player to get in. And I said, ‘Is that everybody?’ And they said, ‘No.’ And so I’m standing there and all of a sudden, here comes Joe Holladay and [Patrick] Crouch. And I said, ‘What took Patty so long?’He said, ‘He got caught up in the crowd.’

“And I didn’t think of what the [heck] he was talking about … I am watching the tape of the game and it’s the first time I realized that five guys, [the] Blue Steel guys stayed out there on the court. Every prospect, every walk-on I’ve ever had – I say one thing: If I ask the biggest guy or star on our team to run a sprint, you’re going to have to run a sprint. If I eat steak, you’re going to have to eat steak. Whatever happens to every scholarship player, you have to do.

“I would never leave five kids out there. And if I’m going to do that – why wouldn’t I stay out there? I saw it happened one time on TV when … I [said], ‘Why would they leave those kids out there?’ … And in the press conference, I said, ‘Please don’t make this issue a bigger issue. Because the issue should be what a great win that Florida State had.

“We had a terrible incident at UNLV. One of our female managers went down to the ground. And I said, I didn’t want that. I said, ‘Please don’t let that be a big issue. It’s not a big deal. I just appreciate the way coach Leonard Hamilton handled it …’ That’s what I said. Go and check all the tapes.

“Steve comes to see me today [on Monday] and I said, ‘Are we getting drilled because of [this]?’ Because I never read Sunday’s paper until today. And I said, ‘Are we getting drilled?’ He said, ‘You’re just getting drilled because of leaving those five guys out there.’ I said, ‘It’s funny you say that because I just apologized to my team.’ … Because I said, ‘Guys, there was miscommunication between me and Coach Holladay. I did not even know that you guys stayed out to play the game.’

“Stilman [White]comes up and says, ‘Well, Coach – I came up to you, but you were talking to Coach Hamilton. I didn’t know if you wanted me just to stand there and dribble the ball.’ And I said, ‘Stilman – I would have sacrificed you.’ I said, ‘I would not have sacrificed five of you.’ I said, ‘Please understand that.’ And he laughed and knew I was kidding and the whole thing.

“I said, ‘Guys … I apologize. There was miscommunication between Coach Holladay and myself. I would never have left you out there to play the game. What I wanted to do, needless to say we’re not going to erase a 33-point lead with 14 seconds [left]. I was trying to get my entire team off the court – to apologize to Florida State, make sure that they weren’t interpreting it the wrong way …

“So Steve Kirschner calls some people on the radio and tells them that. And basically, I’m not going to speak for Steve, they get on the radio and say it’s not true … You’re not going to call me a liar. And that’s exactly what happened. Every player on our team would tell you that. Every coach. I even told the coaches that today is the first time I told them that I didn’t know our guys stayed out there.

“I didn’t want to talk to any coach [after the game]. I didn’t want to talk to [anybody]. I just wanted to kill some-freakin’-body. We just got beat by 33. And all of those people who want to say different things – that’s their prerogative. We have the right to tell the truth and however which way they want to color it, they can do that. But we have the right to tell the truth.

“I told Steve Kirschner the truth, he said the truth. And that’s what it is. But there’s no way in Hades I would leave five of my guys out there. I mean, my gosh, if that had been me when I was on the freshman team, coach Guthridge would have left my butt out there. I wouldn’t want that …

“And again. It’s gotten too much attention. It was a mistake. It was confusion. It was miscommunication.
“But the fact of the matter is, Florida State kicked our rear ends.”

-- Andrew Carter

Most shocking blowout loss in UNC history?

2012-01-16T15:00:00.000-05:00

Where, exactly, does North Carolina's 33-point loss at FSU rank on the shock meter? I don’t think anyone could be that surprised that UNC lost this game. That wasn’t so shocking. But the way in which the Tar Heels lost – by being completely blown out – was.

I posed the question on Twitter yesterday (you can follow me @_andrewcarter) asking for opinions about whether this was the most the most lopsidedly shocking defeat in school history.

Of course, the Tar Heels have lost games by greater margins. But for a team with these kind of expectations surrounding it, and with a No. 3 national ranking, you could easily argue what happened on Saturday was the most surprising blowout loss in school history.

-- Andrew Carter

Roy Williams on loss to FSU: It didn't kill me

2012-01-16T14:30:00.003-05:00

CHAPEL HILL — At one point earlier today during Roy Williams’ portion of the ACC’s weekly coaches’ teleconference, a reporter opened his question to Williams with this: “Coach, how are you doing?”

To which Williams said, “Not very good but still alive.”

What else could Williams have said two days after his Tar Heels suffered a humiliating 90-57 defeat at Florida State on Saturday? Usually, each coach begins his teleconference with an opening statement before opening it up to questions. When Williams came on the line, he said, “I’d just about as soon just open it up to questions, we were so bad on Saturday.”

Williams hasn’t seen much of his team since Saturday. The Tar Heels flew home. Didn’t practice on Sunday. And then gathered for a team meeting earlier today. So Williams hasn’t had any opportunity to gauge the reaction of his team since the loss against the Seminoles, who gave the Heels their worst beating of Williams’ nine seasons at UNC.

“We haven’t practiced yet,” Williams said. “We had a meeting this morning. As soon as I finish this call, we’ll go practice but I haven’t seen anything that I liked. There is nothing related to Saturday’s game that I liked. And we’ll have to see how we respond in practice today. But the smartest thing I’ve ever done as a coach is not say too much to them, or to not say anything to them until today.

“That’s given me 48 hours.”

So what kind of signs will Williams look to judge whether his team is responding the right way?

“See if we live,” he said.

Asked to elaborate, Williams said, “I don’t think it needs much elaboration.”

“We’ve got to have great practices,” he said. “I mean, we’re not going to go up and beat Virginia Tech just because we lost on Saturday. People say, ‘Oh, they’re going to bounce back.’ Makes no difference. We can go up there and play well and still not be successful. We’ve just got to do a heck of a lot better job.”

After the loss at Florida State, several Tar Heels players questioned their own mental toughness. Williams said his team lacked poise.

The good news, if there is any, is that Williams has coached teams in the past that have developed the kind of mental fortitude that has eluded UNC so far this season.

“We have,” Williams said. “You can go back to last year. We were struggling but down the stretch those guys got tougher and tougher and tougher and hopefully this team will be able to do the same type of thing.”

-- Andrew Carter

N.C. State blowout was largely without Leslie

2012-01-16T14:00:00.001-05:00

Whether it was the end of the first half of the Georgia Tech game, when C.J. Leslie was on the bench with foul trouble, or the end of the Stanford loss, when Leslie was in the locker room with cramping issues, N.C. State had not responded well to playing without its top scorer.

Yet, when Saturday's game against Wake Forest started, Leslie was on the bench — a measure of discipline by Gottfried for practice-related reasons — and N.C. State was … just fine.

Leslie checked in at 16:40, with N.C. State up 6-2, had a nice assist in transition to Scott Wood for a 3 at 11:46 and played 15 relatively uneventful minutes in the first half.

His replacement in the starting lineup, forward DeShawn Painter, had five points and seven boards and helped N.C. State take a 33-17 at the half of what would become a 76-40 blowout.

Painter started the second half and Leslie played briefly before tweaking his left ankle going for a rebound at 11:49. He winced in pain, went to the bench and his day was done. With a 54-23 lead, there was no need to bring Leslie back.

Painter finished with seven points and 12 boards in 28 minutes, matching Rich Howell for the team lead in that category.

Leslie's day consisted of 17 minutes, zero points, three misses shots, four rebounds, two assists, two steals and a block — not great, but not awful by any means.

"We were able to pick it up for him and that's all we can do," C.J. Williams said after the game.
And since N.C. State hadn't been able to pick up for Leslie, who has been dominant at times this season and consistently so for more stretches than at any point in his erratic freshman season, that was a good sign for State.

The concern is how Leslie, who had a tendency to check out and disengage last season, will react going forward because State definitely needs him.

Gottfried, who was happy that Painter made the most of the opportunity, was confident Saturday wouldn't knock Leslie off the All-ACC course he has been on this season.

"Calvin has been very good this year, I expect him to be completely fine," Gottfried said.

For the record, Leslie was held scoreless in the infamous loss at Clemson last season — the one he didn't start and openly pouted during when State coughed up a 19-point lead — and came back with 14 points against UNC and 18 against Virginia Tech.

And when Leslie was suspended after the Virginia Tech game, for a coach's decision, he came back with 19 against Wake, 18 against Clemson and 18 at Maryland.

-- J.P. Giglio

UNC's Williams: Only Tyler Zeller didn't fail vs. FSU

2012-01-16T13:30:00.002-05:00

Some notes of interest from UNC basketball coach Roy Williams’ teleconference today:

--Senior forward Tyler Zeller, Williams said, was the only UNC player who received a passing grade from the coaching staff for his performance against FSU. Zeller finished with 14 points and 14 rebounds and was “really good,” Williams said.

--Though Florida State’s Deividas Dulkys scored a career-high 32 points and made 8 3-pointers against UNC, Williams disputed the notion that the Tar Heels’ perimeter defense has been a liability this season. “We have not had this year the trouble guarding the ball on the perimeter,” Williams said. “Our defensive field goal percentage on the 3-point line is about second in the league but we had trouble guarding it Saturday. For the most part, we’ve really done a good job with that.”

--Williams was asked why his team has appeared lethargic at times this season. He said: “I have no idea. If I had an idea I would have already changed it. I don’t think we were lethargic against UNLV. It was a great crowd and their team is pretty good. And they played [well.] But we were not as active as we needed to be against Florida State.”

--Williams ended his conference call a couple of minutes early. He said,“Guys, I’ve got to go to practice. Sorry but I delayed it until I could speak to you for a few minutes. Hope everybody understands.”

-- Andrew Carter

Tar Heels drop to No. 8 in polls; Duke No. 4

2012-01-16T13:12:00.000-05:00

Following its 90-57 loss against Florida State on Saturday, North Carolina dropped five spots from No. 3 to No. 8 in the weekly Associated Press top 25 poll, which was released on Monday afternoon.

The Tar Heels, who play at Virginia Tech on Saturday, are also No. 8 in the coaches’ poll.

Duke is the highest-rated ACC team in both polls, and the Blue Devils hold the same No. 4 ranking in each.

Virginia, which is 15th in the AP and 17th in the coaches’, is the only other ACC team to be ranked in either poll.

Florida State, by the way, received a single No. 25 vote in the AP poll. The Seminoles didn’t receive any votes in the coaches’ poll.

Duke's Austin Rivers in a rut, but still confident

2012-01-16T13:09:00.000-05:00

Clemson was in the midst of making Duke’s life uncomfortable, having cut what was a 13-point Blue Devils lead to six points with a little less than 2 minutes remaining when Austin Rivers threw up a difficult 3-pointer with some 15 seconds left on the shot clock.

Rivers’ 3-point attempt missed badly, and the Tigers came down the court and scored on a jumper by K.J. McDaniels to close within four points.

Duke went on to win Sunday’s game 73-66, of course, but Rivers’ attempt provides insight into the freshman’s mindset.

He’s confident enough not only to take a tough, contested 3-pointer with plenty of time left on the shot clock in a close game but also believe he was going to make it.

When the shots don’t fall, on the other hand, it can make Rivers look impatient and overly optimistic in his own abilities.

In recent weeks, the majority of Rivers’ attempts haven’t found the bottom of the net. Since a 20-point effort in Duke’s win over Western Michigan, Rivers has averaged 8.6 points per game while only shooting 36.4 percent from the floor and 21.4 percent for 3-pointers.

He still leads all ACC freshmen as well as the Blue Devils in scoring (13.8 points per game), which is one of the reasons why Rivers has his self-confidence.

Yet he seems to be in a bit of a rut.

“I just think he’s going through what a freshman goes through,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “There’s adjustments to everything. Overall, he’s done it really well.

“There’s adjustments to more physicality, speed, height, experience. There’s not one adjustment – all freshmen have to go through it. He’s done it fairly well to average about 14 points per game with the schedule we’ve had. He has to continue to make those adjustments.”

After Duke’s win over Western Michigan on Dec. 30, Krzyzewski praised the Blue Devils’ depth before stressing that it’s “better” to have some separation among the players in the regular rotation.

At the time, Rivers seemed as likely a candidate as anyone on the team to provide such separation.

That hasn’t happened over the last two-plus weeks, and Krzyzewski seems to have adjusted his assessment of the benefits of having a go-to player or two for this year’s bunch.

“I think you have to be flexible in the group that you have,” Krzyzewski said. “The group we have is 15-2 and overall is doing a really good job without just having one or two guys like (Kyle) Singler and Nolan Smith lead you.

“We have to be flexible in how we bring a team like this along like we have been and will continue to be unless we see an emergence of consistent excellence by a few guys or one guy.”

-- Jack Daly

History points to problems for Tar Heels

2012-01-16T13:00:00.004-05:00

From the department of doesn’t-really-mean-anything-but-still-kind-of-interesting: North Carolina’s 33-point loss at Florida State was the worst loss of the Williams era. You knew that. But did you know this: Three out of UNC’s past four national title teams didn’t suffer losses by 33 points combined in their title seasons.

The 2008-09 championship team lost four games by a combined 16 points. The ’04-05 team lost four games by a combined 28 points. The ’81-82 team lost two games by a combined 21 points.

For those looking for something positive to think about, there’s this: UNC won the national championship in 1993 not too long after the Tar Heels’ 26-point loss at Wake Forest in late January of that season. That was a good Wake team, though, with Randolph Childress and Rodney Rogers. The Demon Deacons went 21-9 and reached the Sweet 16.

Are the Seminoles equally as good? We’ll see.

-- Andrew Carter

Wolfpack's Leslie will start vs. Boston College

2012-01-16T12:49:00.000-05:00

N.C. State will go "back to normal" for Thursday's game against Boston College, Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried said. That means a return to the starting lineup for sophomore forward C.J. Leslie.

Gottfried benched Leslie for disciplinary reasons, stemming from a practice incident last week, in Saturday's 76-40 win at Wake Forest.

"I told him that was for one game and we'll go back to normal," Gottfried said Monday on the weekly ACC teleconference.

Leslie, who's second on the Pack in scoring with 12.8 points per game, came off the bench Saturday and was scoreless in 17 minutes. He tweaked his left ankle in the second half of the blowout but is expected to make a full recovery by Boston College's trip the RBC Center on Thursday.

Leslie has started 10 of 15 games this season. He missed the first three games because of an NCAA suspension related to taking improper benefits from a former Wolfpack football player in the spring of 2011.

He's second on the team in rebounding (6.4 per game) and first in blocks (2.0).

Junior DeShawn Painter started for Leslie on Saturday and finished with 12 rebounds and seven points in 28 minutes. Gottfried said it was a good confidence boost for Painter, who had a total of nine points and nine rebounds in N.C. State's first two ACC games.

"We need DeShawn, we need Calvin," Gottfried said. "We need everybody."

Leslie was suspended one game last season by former coach Sidney Lowe after the Virginia Tech game on Feb. 2 and came back with some of his best scoring efforts of the season. Gottfried believes Leslie will respond positively to the benching.

"My anticipation is he's going to come back and be very good," Gottfried said. "I don't anticipate anything other than that."

-- J.P. Giglio

Wolfpack's C.J. Williams accepts the challenge

2012-01-16T12:00:00.001-05:00

C.J. Williams spent his first three seasons at N.C. State as a beacon of hard work and hustle on teams otherwise lacking in both categories. As a senior he has emerged as both a leader and reliable scorer, to complement his yeoman effort.

So if anyone was going to be receptive to being called out by the coach, it was Williams, who was challenged by Mark Gottfried to step up his defense after giving up big scoring efforts to Terrell Stoglin and Glen Rice in N.C. State's first two ACC games.

"Being a senior, you have to be able to take that," Williams said. "Coach is definitely on me a little more than everybody but I accept that challenge."

Williams did so, and then some, in holding Wake Forest's Travis McKie, the second-leading scorer in the ACC, to two points in Saturday's ridiculously easy-looking 76-40 win.

Williams, Lorenzo Brown and Scott Wood all combined to defend McKie and C.J. Harris and hold the Deacons to 2 of 20 from 3-point range.

Defending the 3-point line has been one of N.C. State's biggest problems this season. The Pack is one of the worst teams in the country in that category, and Georgia Tech burned them from beyond the arc in Wednesday's loss in Raleigh, but State contested shots and closed out shooters on Saturday better than it has at any other point during the season.

-- J.P. Giglio

Bobby Lutz key to Wolfpack blowout of Wake

2012-01-16T11:00:00.001-05:00

Assistant coach Bobby Lutz handles the advanced opponent scouting for the Wolfpack and Lutz knew Wake Forest's offense better than any of its players on Saturday.

Lutz, the former Charlotte 49ers head coach, was calling out plays and pointing to spots on the floor — often the exact spot where the Wake Forest player was going.

That helped the Wolfpack to a 76-40 win over the Deacons that might not have been that close.

"Our staff normally does a good job with their scouting, it seemed to me today we really had them pegged," N.C. State head coach Mark Gottfried said.

As good as N.C. State's preparation and effort was on Saturday, Wake Forest was a hot mess. Dominique Wilkins thinks Nikita Mescheriakov needs to pass more. Mescheriakov took five shots in the first half (about four too many) with four misses from 3, and was taking shots (often while being defended and early in the shot clock) with reckless abandon.

Point guard Tony Chennault has made a big difference in Wake's offense this season, moving C.J. Harris off the ball and putting Harris in a better position to score, but Chennault somehow convinced himself he was Chris Paul on Saturday and took one ill-advised, forced shot after another.

Meanwhile, McKie and Harris — the second and third leading scorers in the entire ACC — just kind looked wistfully at the ball.

That's why Wake coach Jeff Bzdelik, who runs a modified version of the Princeton offense (which he learned at Air Force) said after the game:

"I don't know why we did what we did offensively. I don't know what to say."
Here's what to say: You have to give your best players the ball and put them in position to score. If other players are unwilling to give your best players the ball, get them off the court.

Done and done.

There is no circumstance where Chennault and Mescheriakov should take as many shots, or more in Chennault's case, than McKie.

Gottfried provided the unintentional comedy highlight of the day when he said after the game: "We dealt with their ball screens, they set a lot of them."

I wouldn't characterize any set Wake ran Saturday as screen heavy. It was often four guys spread behind the 3-point line, even 7-foot Ty Walker, while one guy dribbled until the end of the shot clock and waited for a ball screen that either never materialized or was set with the intensity of a third-grader.

-- J.P. Giglio

Tar Heels admit they weren't tough enough vs. FSU

2012-01-16T10:16:00.001-05:00

North Carolina is seeking a dose of mental toughness in the wake of the Tar Heels’ 90-57 defeat against Florida State over on Saturday.

Even in some of its most dominant victories this season, the Tar Heels have, at times, lacked poise and intensity. Roy Williams hasn’t questioned his team’s effort, and after the debacle at Florida State he said, “I don’t think our guys laid down.” But, right before he said that, he said this: “It definitely comes back to poise, there’s no question about that.”

The defeat against the Seminoles represented the Tar Heels’ third consecutive on the road. And they appeared rattled in certain moments of all three defeats – in the second half at UNLV on Nov. 26, in the final moments at Kentucky on Dec. 3, and now throughout at FSU on Saturday. Asked what the loss taught him, the junior guard Dexter Strickland said, “That we still have areas where we need to grow. Having that toughness to where we have to stay focused when we’re down like that.”

Said Harrison Barnes: “[We] weren’t mentally focused enough to get it done.”

And John Henson: “We didn’t come ready to play today.”

UNC has as much, if not more, physical talent than any team in the country. But the Heels challenge now is to become stronger mentally. Much stronger, after what happened on Saturday in Tallahassee, Fla.

There's more on this topic here.

-- Andrew Carter

Clemson-Duke: Three things to watch

2012-01-15T11:16:00.000-05:00

It’s game day for the No. 8 Blue Devils (14-2, 2-0), who travel to Clemson tonight to face the Tigers (9-7, 1-1) at 6 p.m. Duke has won 25 of its last 27 games against Clemson and 10 of its last 11 games at Littlejohn Coliseum.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind once the game tips:

1. Does Austin Rivers have a big game?

The Duke freshman is in the midst of a so-so stretch, having averaged 9.8 points per game in the Blue Devils’ last four contests while only hitting 37.8 percent of his shots and 25 percent of his 3-pointers.

Duke has a number of scoring threats on the perimeter, but Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski indicated a couple of weeks ago that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if one or two of them distinguished themselves as Duke’s go-to guy.

There are risks with Rivers adopting that mindset – he’s prone to making questionable decisions on when to drive to the hoop or when to shoot from the perimeter – but he’s clearly gifted on the offensive end. His first big conference game figures to come sooner rather than later.

2. Can Andre Dawkins build on Thursday’s effort against Virginia?

Before the Virginia game, Dawkins’ spot in Duke’s rotation was open to some debate. The junior guard had been hurt by the development of point guard Quinn Cook, which, together with the strong play of Tyler Thornton, had pushed Seth Curry to the shooting guard spot and had taken minutes away from Dawkins.

But with Curry seeing more time at the point against the Cavaliers, Dawkins was on the floor for 29 minutes, the most playing time he’s seen in nearly a month.

“I’m just out there playing – regardless of what the lineup is, if I’m out there on the court, I’m trying to play as hard as I can on both ends of the court,” Dawkins said.

He finished with 10 points, knocking down a pair of 3-pointers.

Just as impressively, Mike Krzyzewski singled Dawkins out in the post-game press conference, saying that it might have been the best defensive effort of Dawkins’ career.

It wasn’t an overpowering effort from Dawkins, but, for the first time in a while, it was something to use as a building block.

3. Remember the Seminoles

With Florida State’s 33-point rout of North Carolina on Saturday reverberating around the conference, it is worth keeping in mind that Clemson beat Florida State by 20 points last weekend.

Duke, then, will not want to misplace its intensity on the way to Littlejohn Coliseum. The Tar Heels’ loss provided a perfect example of the dangers of sleepwalking through a conference game on the road.

If that’s not vivid enough, Duke can think back to its 74-47 loss at Clemson when Miles Plumlee was a freshman.

-- Jack Daly

Gottfried challenges C.J. Williams, Wolfpack defense

2012-01-13T13:17:00.000-05:00

In each of its first two ACC games, N.C. State has allowed an opposing shooting guard to score at least 20 points.

That's a trend Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried wants to end for Saturday's trip to Wake Forest but the Deacons have two of the best wing scorers in the ACC in Travis McKie (18.0 points per game) and C.J. Harris (17.7). The two rank second and third, respectively, in the league in scoring.

"We have to be better than we've been on the perimeter, or those guys will have big nights," Gottfried said Friday.

Maryland's Terrell Stoglin scored 25 and Georgia Tech's Glen Rice had 22 against the Wolfpack, primarily while being defended by senior C.J. Williams.

Gottfried said he has been Williams' No. 1 fan this season but he has challenged his senior guard.
"It's time to cut to the chase, he has to be better defensively on the perimeter, period," Gottfried said. "For our team to take a step to become better, we have to have a perimeter shut-down guy and we think it's him."

As a team, N.C. State has had trouble defending the 3-point line. N.C. State ranks No. 312, out of 338 Division I teams, in 3-point field goal defense with opponents making 38.1 percent (114 of 299) of their shots behind the arc. Georgia Tech made 60 percent (9 of 15) of its 3s in Wednesday's 81-72 win over State.

"One area we have to be greatly improved is our perimeter defense, especially from behind the line," Gottfried said.

Harris has made 51.9 percent of his 3-point shots this season for the Deacs, who rank fourth as a team in the ACC in 3-point shooting (36.2 percent).

-- J.P. Giglio

Plumlees were critical to Duke's win

2012-01-13T12:04:00.000-05:00

DURHAM -- A few final thoughts and observations after Duke’s 61-58 college basketball victory over Virginia late Thursday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium:

1. The Plumlee brothers were critical in Duke’s win

After Virginia’s Mike Scott dominated the Blue Devils in the first half, Duke switched its defense and put Miles and Mason Plumlee on the Cavs’ forward. Both brothers tried to put a body on Scott at all times, and the result was that Scott only had seven points in the second half.

“The Plumlees, I thought, were the key to the game,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “Their physicality and then our defense – we played much better defense on Scott in the second half. That was both Mason and Miles.”

On the offensive end, Mason set the tone for the second half when Duke fed him the ball down on the blocks on its first play after halftime. Plumlee scored, and the Blue Devils comeback was underway.

Mason ended up leading the Blue Devils with 12 points, making five of six shots from the floor.

“We ran different sets in the second half that worked much better,” Krzyzewski said. “They had all of our ball screen stuff handled. We went to a couple things that got us better movement. All of the sudden, the post was moved and there was something there.”

The fact Mason asserted himself so definitively on the offensive end was notable because of his struggles from the free-throw line. Mason made only two of his 10 attempts, and it would have been easy for him to shy away from the ball to avoid any embarrassing moments from the line.

“Mason was unbelievable in that second half,” Krzyzewski said. “His verve, his resolve to go to the basket. I know he missed free throws, but he was such a key guy for us.”

2. Duke’s PG rotation is not set in stone

After nearly a month of Tyler Thornton and Quinn Cook handling the responsibilities at point guard, Duke reverted back to its November approach, with Seth Curry handling the job for long stretches of Thursday’s win.

Thornton played some and had a key role in the Blue Devils’ 7-0 run that changed the game’s complexion in the second half. Thornton had a driving layup and also found Miles Plumlee for a transition dunk that gave Duke a 45-38 advantage. After Virginia had led for almost all of the first half, that seemed like an especially big lead.

After a strong previous three weeks, Cook spent most of the second half on the bench after an ineffective 12 minutes. That doesn’t mean he won’t be starting for the third straight time when Duke travels to Clemson on Sunday, but it was a bit of a road bump for the freshman.

Either way, expect more flexibility from the Blue Devils as the season progresses.

“I don’t think you can do just one thing with our team,” Krzyzewski said. “We made a switch because they made a switch. They had (Jontel) Evans on Austin (Rivers), so that put (Sammy) Zeglinski on Seth. Well, then Seth can play the point. And that gave us the better offensive team against them than we would have had the other way.”

The large takeaway from the above two points that is Duke’s success is more dependent on matchups than in recent years. Scott was killing the Blue Devils until Duke put the Plumlees on him. Curry can play the point when if he’s going against a less athletic player. And, as Temple showed, Duke has trouble defending athletic perimeter or wing players.

3. Mike Scott could challenge for the ACC player of the year

UNC’s Harrison Barnes could have something to say about that, of course. But the Virginia forward looked mighty impressive in the first half, hitting a variety of jumpers, fadeaways and shots in the lane. He also had a number of passes that set up teammates – Krzyzewski thought he was responsible for two-thirds of the Cavaliers’ points before halftime in one way or another.

It got to the point that the Duke students – with the students back from holiday break, last night’s Cameron crowd seemed especially energized – were pleading with Scott to stop shooting.

The Plumlee brothers did a good job on him in the second half, but Scott was still the best player on the court.

-- Jack Daly

Slow start finally bites Wolfpack

2012-01-12T12:06:00.000-05:00

N.C. State's loss to Georgia Tech was about a slow start and generally poor play. Ethan Hyman photo.

Three observations from N.C. State's 82-71 college basketball loss to Georgia Tech:

1. It's not how you start, it's how you … uh, wait a sec …

N.C. State has been slow out of the gate for about a month and especially last night.

The Wolfpack was able to get away with it in the previous six games, all wins, usually with a strong finish to the first half or a quick start to the second half.

(Basketball 101 note: Halftime is when adjustments are made and good starts to the second half are indicative of good coaching. By the same token, slow starts at the beginning of the game are indicative of issues with motivation and readiness and fall on the minus side for coaching.)

In the first 3 minutes of Wednesday's loss, N.C. State had four turnovers — on consecutive possessions. An early timeout or a mass substitution, a la Roy Williams, might have been in order there to send a quick "stop messing around" message.

It didn't look like the biggest problem in the world because N.C. State led 6-5 by the first TV timeout, but it was more the opportunity that N.C. State — the better team — gave Georgia Tech — the inferior, visiting opponent.

Georgia Tech, in Brian Gregory's first season, is a limited team. Yes, Glen Rice, Mfon Udofia and Jason Morris are talented players, and former top 75 recruits, but there's a reason the Jackets only average 64 points per game. Cover your eyes, tempo-based zealots, it's because that's all they're capable of scoring. If they could score more, they would. Wednesday's game was the first time the Jackets had five players in double-figures all season.

Against a limited team you should beat, you have to start fast and give them no reason to believe they can win the game. Instead, Tech — a team with losses to Fordham and Mercer — got more confidence by the passing minute.

And when C.J. Leslie went to the bench with his second foul, the wheels came off as Georgia Tech closed the half with a 19-3 run in the final 7 minutes.

2. Another press-conference win for Mark Gottfried

Just like after the Maryland win, Gottfried was gold with the media on Wednesday. He was short (4 minutes, 50 seconds on my digital recorder), dropped in a curse word, answered a question about the officials and cut to the chase.

Not to repeat the previous post, but this was his best soliloquy.

"Sometimes, we'd all like to come up with this grand answer of why your team doesn't play good," Gottfried said. "Sometimes you just don't play good. I go golf, sometimes I'm terrible. Sometimes I'm a little better. It's part of life."

He's right, of course, especially with the N.C. State fan base, which turned almost every game in five seasons under Sidney Lowe into a referendum about Lowe's coaching ability or the point guard situation. And if you really want to go back to Herb Sendek, everything after 2001 was one long referendum on the "Prince-State" offense. (Note: These were/are all valid points of contention.)

Like Gottfried said, N.C. State can definitely play better and actually, it was the Pack's worst game of the season. The team just didn't play well, especially early (see: Point 1), there was no boogie man to chase.

3. About the officiating

Gottfried got his second technical of the season at 12:12 in the second half after an exchange with Roger Ayers. Gottfried ripped off his coat and threw it on the bench after a missed layup by C.J. Williams, a play on which Gottfried clearly wanted a foul called.

State was down 49-40 at the time and Rice made both free throws for two of his game-high 22 points. Georgia Tech's lead grew to 16 points a minute later and N.C. State never got closer than 11 the rest of the way.

And before we get to Gottfried's quote, a key sequence was when Gregory called a timeout after Williams' layup at 14:02 cut Georgia Tech's lead to 45-40. Out of the timeout, Gregory set up an isolation play for Rice, who converted a tough shot in the lane for an important basket. (Basketball 101 note: Use of timeouts, plays for your best player after the proper use of timeouts, well-designed plays for your best player for good shots after the proper use of timeouts are all signs of good coaching).

The call had an affect on the game, in the sense that N.C. State didn't respond after the call (Basketball 101 note: When your coach stands up for you, you're supposed to respond in kind) but it wasn't the reason N.C. State lost.

Gottfried said as much after the game.

"Let me say this clearly, the officials, they did not cost us the game, not at all," Gottfried said. "Everybody can have an opinion but my take on all that is my team has to play better. I'm not into excuses, I'm not into that at all."

Ayers has been, and still is, one of the best officials in John Clougherty's regular rotation. He should have given Gottfried an explanation for the technical, which Gottfried said he didn't, though.

Sean Corbin, a former NBA official, is also one of Clougherty's best. The head official, Jamie Luckie, is quickly becoming something of "referee non grata" in Wolfpack circles. Painful memories from the Stanford loss still linger on that front.

Georgia Tech ended up taking 31 free throws, compared with 27 for State, but N.C. State was fouling late and officiating didn't help Georgia Tech shoot 9-of-15 from 3-point range or out-rebound N.C. State, 34 to 29.

As for the 3-point shooting (60 percent), Gottfied had another good line but I'm not sure he was watching the same game. Tech did make some tough shots but N.C. State has yet to figure out how to consistently close out shooters on the perimeter. There's still too much room, on too many shots, in order for N.C. State to be anything other than ordinary on defense.

Gottfried stood up for his team's defensive effort after the game.

"I'm our hardest critic, but there were a lot of shots that they made that were tough shots — tough, tough shots — that were well defended," Gottfried said. "They went 9-for-15 from the 3-point line, two of them were bank shots, let's see if we can do that again."

That might be missing the forest from the trees on the coach's part but he gets credit for standing up for his players and complimenting the opponent because just as N.C. State didn't play well, Georgia Tech had its best performance of the season.

-- J.P. Giglio

Gottfried: N.C. State players 'have to play better'

2012-01-12T10:15:00.001-05:00

N.C. State's Mark Gottfried got a technical after throwing his coat in an 82-71 loss to Georgia Tech, but he said the officials didn't cost his team the game. Ethan Hyman photo.

Mark Gottfried cut to the chase in his post-game comments about N.C. State's 82-71 college basketball loss to Georgia Tech on Wednesday.

The first-year coach called it one of the team's "poorer" performances of the season. He gave a rather amusing philosophical answer in trying to explain what went wrong against a struggling Georgia Tech team that entered the game with a 7-8 record.

"Sometimes, we'd all like to come up with this grand answer of why your team doesn't play good," Gottfried said. "Sometimes you just don't play good. I go golf, sometimes I'm terrible, sometimes I'm a little better. It's part of life.

"Tonight, we didn't play very well, we have to play better, that's on us, not anybody else."

Gottfried got called for a technical foul at 12:12 in the second half, with the Wolfpack down 49-40. Foul trouble also hurt forward C.J. Leslie, who was limited to 24 minutes and ended up fouling out with 12 seconds left in the game.

N.C. State's players did not react well after Gottfried's technical, from official Roger Ayers, failing to get closer than 11 points the rest of the game, but Gottfried wasn't interested in blaming the loss on anyone other than his team.

"Let me say this clearly, the officials, they did not cost us the game, not at all," Gottfried said. "Everybody can have an opinion but my take on all that is my team has to play better. I'm not into excuses, I'm not into that at all."

Gottfried did add he never received an explanation for the technical. He threw his jacket after a no-call on a Lorenzo Brown layup-attempt right before the technical. After a stop in play after the call, he walked out near midcourt and motioned to Ayers, who was under Georgia Tech's basket, but Ayers never came over to the State sideline.

"I can take my jacket off any time I'd like to," Gottfried said. "That's my prerogative. I never got an explanation. I asked repeatedly and never got one, never had any communication after that from them, and that's a little bit frustrating on my side."

-- J.P. Giglio

Mike Krzyzewski wins Tisdale Humanitarian Award

2012-01-12T10:10:00.002-05:00

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski will be honored with the Wayman Tisdale Humanitarian Award in April for his contributions to college basketball and the Durham community.

The board that helps choose the receipent of the award cited Krzyzewski's charitable contributions, including the Emily Krzyzewski Center, which is a community center in Durham that provides athletic and educational opportunities to economically disadvantaged students. In addition, Krzyzewski's work with the Duke Children's hospital, the Children's Miracle Network and the V Foundation for Cancer Research were all cited.

Dick Vitale was presented with the original award. The award's namesake, Wayman Tisdale, died in March 2009 after a two-year battle with cancer.

The award will presented on April 16 at a ceremony in Oklahoma City.

-- Jack Daly

UNC's supporting players produced vs. Miami

2012-01-11T10:29:00.003-05:00

Dexter Strickland scored 14 Tuesday. Robert Willett photo.

CHAPEL HILL — A few thoughts and reflections on No. 3 North Carolina’s 73-56 victory against Miami last night at the Smith Center:

First …

If the Tar Heels go on to accomplish great things later this season – a run to the Final Four, perhaps, or maybe more – the game last night might fade into memory. But maybe it shouldn’t. On a night when Harrison Barnes, John Henson and Tyler Zeller shot a combined 13-for-36 from the field, UNC still won with ease because it found offense in unfamiliar places.

Dexter Strickland and Kendall Marshall aren’t relied upon for their ability to score. They’re both known for different things. But they combined to score 26 points last night, and what they accomplished in the first half helped UNC build a 15-point halftime lead. Yes, Zeller (16 points and 10 rebounds) and Henson (11 and 14) both had double-doubles.

But still, the Big Three struggled offensively on Tuesday night like they hadn’t all season. But for the most part, UNC still made it look easy, thanks to the help of Strickland and Marshall.

Second …

That Marshall and Strickland turned into scorers for one night wasn’t the only role reversal for the Tar Heels. UNC’s perimeter defense had been exposed at times this season – both in its ability to defend outside shots and to stop dribble penetration.

But the Heels’ perimeter defense on Tuesday night has rarely looked better. Miami, which entered with the third-best 3-point shooting percentage in the ACC, made just 3 of its 16 3-pointers. The three made 3’s represented a season low for the Hurricanes.

As good as Marshall played offensively, he turned in one of his better defensive performances, too. He wasn’t beaten off the dribble and he was one of three UNC players with two steals. Afterward, Marshall said the Heels’ perimeter defense was the key to the game.

UNC didn’t allow Miami many open looks from the outside. And the Hurricanes had difficulty penetrating, too.

Third …

Barnes had one of those nights, which would have been frustrating at any time. It had to be especially so because of how well Barnes had been playing before scoring a season-low 6 points on Tuesday night.
In UNC’s four games before Tuesday, Barnes had scored 25, 20, 18 and 26 points. He was playing his best basketball of the season. Then, against the Hurricanes, he made 2 of his 12 attempts from the field.

The weird thing is, Barnes scored UNC’s first four points of the game, and then didn’t score again in the first half. Near the start of the second half, he broke away for a lay-up and it looked like the kind of play that could maybe ignite his offensive game. But it didn’t.

Barnes was 2-for-2 on the first shots he attempted in each half. And 0-for-10 otherwise. Just one of those nights. UNC’s offense is never going to look all that great when its best player goes 2-for-12. Still, maybe it was for the best for this team. UNC still won easily while Marshall and Strickland built some confidence in their scoring ability.

-- Andrew Carter

Harrison Barnes stubbled on offense against Miami, finishing with six points. Gerry Broome/AP photo

Duke players dealing with trust issues

2012-01-10T17:56:00.000-05:00

DURHAM – In team meetings and off-the-court conversations, Duke basketball players have stressed improving defensively.

After watching a few opponents blow by them off the dribble or lose them on screens, the No. 8 Blue Devils (13-2, 1-0 ACC) say they’ve had enough. A solid defensive performance in their 81-74 conference-opener over Georgia Tech has bolstered the team’s confidence as they welcome No. 16 Virginia (14-1, 1-0) to Cameron Indoor Stadium on Thursday (ESPN, 9 p.m.).

The Devils own the ACC’s worst scoring defense – allowing 69.4 points per game. Their opponents are allowing just 50.5 points per game and sit atop the conference in that statistical category, a familiar place where past Duke teams dwelled.

Only a few percentage points separate this young Duke team from others in scoring defense – No. 11 N.C. State (69.3), No. 8 Wake Forest (68.8) and No. 6 North Carolina (66.4) – yet it stings for a team that prides itself on stopping opponents.

“We’re definitely aware of it and it definitely bothers us,” Duke senior forward Miles Plumlee said on Tuesday. “It’s just not what Duke teams do. We’re trying to fix that and adjust how we play defense.”

What’s been the problem?

“We didn’t really trust each other,” Duke junior forward Ryan Kelly said. “To have a good defense, you have to be able to trust each other, know each other, have each other’s back.”

Without trust, players said, mistakes happen.

“Sometimes you don’t trust guys behind you, so you don’t pressure the ball as much and you get beat,” Duke junior guard Seth Curry said. “Guys don’t take charges or you’re just not guarding your man.”

The Devils point to a disappointing 78-73 road loss to Temple on Jan. 4 as a prime example. They saw warning signs headed into that game.

Recently, though, they’ve taken steps to address their on-court trust issues, meeting as a team and trying to build bonds away from the court.

Against Georgia Tech, there was evidence that their team-building was paying off. Players went out of their way to support teammates.

Kelly said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has focused on-ball pressure as a specific area of improvement.
Virginia, which likes to slow down and control the pace of a game, is averaging 65.7 points per game and features talented senior forward Mike Scott.

“We just want to pressure the ball more,” Duke freshman guard Quinn Cook said. “Just kind of get them out of rhythm with pressure on the ball.”

With intense perimeter defense on Virginia’s guards, the Devils can help their post players such as Kelly slow down the 6-foot-8 Scott, who is averaging 16.5 points and 8.9 rebounds per game and is garnering much attention with his play this season.

“He’s a tremendous player,” Kelly said of Scott. “He’s a player that can’t be guarded by one person. He needs the whole team around him, guys helping.”

The Devils are growing more in tuned with team defensive concept.

“Developing that closeness on the court is some thing unfortunately sometimes you have to go through some hard things to really develop,” Plumlee said. “That loss at Temple was tough for us. Coming back and trying to figure out where we are as a team is difficult as well. ... We’re headed in the right direction.”

-- Jack Daly

UNC vs. Miami: Three things to watch

2012-01-10T15:46:00.000-05:00

CHAPEL HILL — No. 3 North Carolina hosts Miami tonight at 9 p.m. (ACC network, WBTV channel 3 in Charlotte) at the Smith Center.

While we wait (and wait) for the late tip, consider these three things to watch:

First …

North Carolina’s perimeter defense. Miami is capable of making this an interesting game if it makes shots from the perimeter and if it can successfully penetrate the Tar Heels’ defense. UNC, of course, has had some problems in both those areas at times this season.

In the defeat against UNLV in Las Vegas on Nov. 26, the Runnin’ Rebels made 13 3-pointers and their guards often drove the lane without much problem. Against Long Beach State last month, UNC had no answer for Casper Ware, who scored 29 points and made four 3-pointers.

Teams with good guards, who can shoot, have the potential to pose problems for the Tar Heels. Miami’s Malcolm Grant can shoot (he’s second in the ACC in 3-pointers made per game, with 2.6), and Durand Scott is a good penetrator. Off the bench, freshman guard Shane Larkin (son of Barry Larkin, who on Monday learned he’s bound for the Hall of Fame) is shooting better than 40 percent from behind the 3-point line. And 6-foot-11 Kenny Kadji has made 9 of his 16 3’s.

Second …

How will the Tar Heels’ bench respond from a poor offensive game? Reggie Bullock and P.J. Hairston have been valuable offensive players off the bench for the Tar Heels. At times, so too has been James Michael McAdoo. But against Boston College on Sunday, those three players were a combined 4-for-17 from the field.

If Bullock, Hairston and McAdoo provided their “normal” offense, then UNC’s margin of victory would have been in over 30. As well as UNC’s Big Three played on Saturday, they still can’t do it alone. Dexter Strickland and Kendall Marshall aren’t consistently going to provide a huge amount of scoring, so it’s important for the reserves to produce when they have the opportunity.

Third …

Harrison Barnes. In UNC’s past four games, Barnes has scored 26, 18, 20 and 25 points. That stretch represents the first time this season that Barnes has scored at least 20 points in three out of four games. Barnes is playing his best basketball of the season, and he seems to be hitting his stride at just the right time – the start of conference play.

Not coincidentally, Barnes is playing with more confidence and assertiveness than he was at the beginning of the season. He’s playing well now but if he continues on this pace, it’s scary (for the opposition, at least) to think about how well he might be playing a month from now.

-- Andrew Carter

Wolfpack's best trait: Sharing the basketball

2012-01-09T13:35:00.000-05:00

Lorenzo Brown leads the Wolfpack in assists at 6.8 per game and is one of five N.C. State players averaging in double figures in scoring. Ethan Hyman photo.

N.C. State is the only ACC team with five players who average at least 10 points a game.

The Wolfpack's balance helped them in Sunday's 79-74 college basketball win over Maryland, which was essentially a one-man show in Terrell Stoglin (25 points).

C.J. Leslie led State with 20 points against the Terps, Scott Wood added 19, Lorenzo Brown had 11 and Richard Howell finished with 10.

N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried said the Pack's scoring distribution is a product of the system he runs, UCLA's high-post offense, and the unselfish attitude of his players.

"John Wooden's style of play is a proven system that has won a number of national championships," Gottfried said Monday on the weekly ACC teleconference. "I think our guys have bought into it."

Leslie leads the Pack for the season with 13.5 points per game, followed by Wood (12.9), Brown (12.4), C.J. Williams (12.1) and Howell (12.1).

"The way we play, it creates opportunities for everybody," Gottfried said. "It doesn't rely on one guy to be our leading scorer."

N.C. State has shown a willingness to share the ball this season. The Pack ranks second in the ACC with 17.6 assists per game. Brown is second in the league in dimes (6.8 per game), behind UNC's Kendall Marshall, who is on an historic pace (10.1 per game, no one league history has average double-digits over the course of the season). Senior guard Alex Johnson ranks ninth in the ACC with 3.2 assists per game.

-- J.P. Giglio

Miami's guards concern Tar Heels' Williams

2012-01-09T12:45:00.000-05:00

Miami's Durand Scott

CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina coach Roy Williams began watching film of Miami, which visits the Smith Center on Tuesday night, on Sunday. And the thing that stood out most to Williams? The Hurricanes’ guards.
Particularly, the starting backcourt duo of Durand Scott, a junior, and Malcolm Grant, a senior.

“I think that they set the tone for everything,” Williams said.

UNC has struggled at times this season against quality guards who can shoot. You saw that in the Tar Heels’ loss against UNLV earlier this season. And in the victory against Long Beach State at home last month, when Casper Ware scored 29 points and was practically unstoppable during one stretch in the first half.
The Heels will be faced on Tuesday with the task of slowing down another shooter who can easily get going. Grant ranks second in the ACC in 3-pointers made per game (2.6) and he’s fourth in the conference in 3-point field goal percentage (35.6 percent).

Freshman guard Shane Larkin, meanwhile, is a gifted shooter. As is the aptly named Trey McKinney Jones.
As a team, the Hurricanes are third in the conference with a 38.4 shooting percentage from behind the arc. Only Duke (41.7 percent) and UNC (38.8 percent) have been better. In describing what stands out about Miami, Williams said “Their ability to shoot the 3-point shot. Their very experienced guards who really do some nice things with the basketball.”

In addition to the guards, the Hurricanes’ 6-foot-11 sophomore Kenny Kadji is also a capable outside shooter. He has made 8 of his 14 3-point attempts and is averaging 10.6 points per game. Williams has noticed how adept Kadji is at drawing interior defenders outside, which in turn opens up things inside for other players.

“I didn’t know anything about him until I started watching some tape,” Williams said.

The Hurricanes also recently welcomed back 6-foot-10 center Reggie Johnson, who missed the first nine games of the season with a knee injury. In four games back, Johnson has averaged 10.8 points per game.
“They’re starting to get their players back now,” Williams said. “… We might even see a little bit of a different team in mid-February than we’re seeing now.”

After hosting Miami on Tuesday night, the Tar Heels will play the Hurricanes on the road on Feb. 15.
Some other quick notes from Williams’ ACC teleconference earlier today:

Williams said he has been pleased by Kendall Marshall’s progress on defense but indicated that Marshall still has a ways to go. Williams said Marshall has become a better on-the-ball defender, and said that has helped UNC become a better defensive team.

Harrison Barnes has been more aggressive lately, taking the ball to the basket, but Williams said he didn’t have an issue earlier this season when Barnes was more often settling for jump shots. Of the criticism Barnes received for taking outside shots, Williams said, “I don’t think that was valid at all.” He said he wants his players to take open shots.

Williams reflected on his relationship with Miami coach Jim Larranaga. The two have been friends for a long time, Williams said, and have known one another well since they’re days as assistant coaches in the ACC. Williams, of course, served as an assistant coach under Dean Smith. And Larranaga spent seven seasons as an assistant coach at Virginia.

-- Andrew Carter

Up next for Duke: Stingy Virginia defense

2012-01-09T12:29:00.002-05:00

Duke and Ryan Kelly beat Georgia Tech Saturday, but it's Virginia's defense Thursday night that could be an eye-opener. John Bazemore/Associated Press photo

After holding on against Georgia Tech on Saturday for an 81-74 college basketball victory, Duke’s next game is an interesting one.

The Blue Devils (13-2, 1-0) will host Virginia (14-1, 1-0) Thursday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium (ESPN, 9 p.m.). While the Cavaliers didn’t have the most rigorous non-conference schedule in the country, Virginia did manage to beat Michigan, Oregon and LSU while only losing to TCU.

With its slower tempo, Virginia leads the conference in scoring defense, yielding 50.5 points per game. The Cavaliers are also in the top three in the conference in field-goal defense (38 percent) and 3-point percentage defense (27 percent).

Duke leads the conference in 3-point shooting, making 41.7 percent of its attempts from beyond the arc. It will be intriguing to see which strength wins out.

Here’s what Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski had to say about the Cavaliers and their defense this morning on the ACC teleconference:

* “(Tony Bennett) has his system in place. He has guys who have played his style of basketball, which is a very good style of basketball, for a lot of competitive reps. In other words, he’s had a lot of games with guys playing that way. So guys are instinctively reactive. He doesn’t have a real young player playing. There’s no freshmen who are in the starting lineup. You have a couple of fifth-years guys, and another senior.”

* ”We’re not where they are in terms of being instinctively reactive. In the last game, we started two freshmen. We’re not at the same spot instinctively as they are. Hopefully, we’ll come closer to that by Thursday.”

* “They play together. It’s less possessions in a game for Virginia than our number of possessions, usually. But that’s the main thing – the main thing is they understand their jobs and they play together. They have each other’s back. It’s tough to get into the lane on them. They try to take away the post with the double team on the low post all the time.”

* “The double team is one thing. What the other three guys are doing is – I think where they do a great job is as that trap goes there, the other three react instinctively to where they are supposed to be. They know their duties and what they’re trying to get accomplished. They’re an outstanding defensive team.”

-- Jack Daly

Tar Heels widen gap on rest of ACC

2012-01-09T11:02:00.000-05:00

Without even doing much of anything, really, you could make an argument that North Carolina further separated itself from the rest of the ACC over the weekend. The No. 3 Tar Heels coasted to an 83-60 victory against Boston College on Saturday. If anything, the 23-point margin of victory was less than most would have expected.

But look around the rest of the conference: Georgia Tech has been one of the worst teams in the ACC and has lost this season against Mercer and Fordham. But the Yellow Jackets gave Duke all it could handle in Atlanta. Florida State, which many thought would be one of the best teams in the ACC, lost by 20 at Clemson, which hasn't played well all season. And Virginia, off to its best start since the Ralph Sampson era, barely held on for a 52-51 victory at home against Miami.

Parity has been the norm in the ACC for a while now and the league’s coaches have successfully attributed that to the fact that there have been lots of good teams with good players. But that explanation won't hold up this season. Let’s face it: Some of the conference’s teams have been awful. Georgia Tech loses to Mercer and Fordham, but has a chance to beat Duke? Clemson loses to a bad Hawaii team, and a bad South Carolina team, among others, but beats Florida State by 20?

After one weekend of ACC play, you have to be even more convinced than you might have been before that UNC should dominate the league. The question isn’t when the Tar Heels might lose, but when they might fail to win an ACC game by double-digits.

-- Andrew Carter

Wolfpack's NCAA path: One down, 10 to go

2012-01-09T11:00:00.001-05:00

Thanks to the posterizing play of C.J. Leslie and others, the Wolfpack beat Maryland to move to 1-0 in the ACC. They need 10 more ACC wins to get to the 11 coach Mark Gottfried says are needed to reach the NCAA tournament. Ethan Hyman photo

Three points from N.C. State's 79-74 win over Maryland on Sunday evening:

1. A little transparency can go a long way

Mark Gottfried told his team before the Maryland game that it needed to win 11 games in the ACC to make the NCAA tournament.

He told the media the same thing on Friday and then repeated his goals after the win on Sunday.

"That's our goal, I'm not afraid to say it," Gottfried said Sunday night.

It's one thing to say it to the team but it's another to tell the media, which is a rare piece of transparency, and honesty, from a coach (even if it is a motivational device to show his team his faith in them.)

For example, a day earlier, North Carolina coach Roy Williams took the traditional coach-to-media stance when asked what he told his team during a lengthy postgame talk after a lackluster win over a Boston College.

"It's like Vegas," Williams said Saturday. "Things you say in the locker room need to stay in the locker room."

That's not to condemn Williams, it's the coach's prerogative to share what he wants with the media (which across the board in 2012 is typically as little as possible), rather to commend Gottfried on a good move.

Gottfried never got the chance to "win" his press conference, that went out the window with the "sabotage" subterfuge from his boss, but N.C. State's coach made up for the lost public-relations opportunity after Sunday's win over the Terps.

"I didn't come here to play in anything other than the NCAA tournament," Gottfried said. "Now, whether we get there or not, that's a whole another story. We do probably do have a long, long way to go but I'm not ever going to hide from that."

He continued:

"I have a job to do. I'm here to do a job. I was hired to do a job. I know what that job is. We just have to grind them out, get tough and get better."

That's the kind of talk that endears a coach to a fan base, especially after beating an ACC rival it hadn't since 2006.

2. C.J. Leslie keeps getting better

With 20 points and 11 rebounds, Leslie was the best player on the court.

His assist was noteworthy as well, since it came on the fast break and he was willing to give the ball up, to Scott Wood in this instance, rather than force an ESPN highlight.

Leslie's biggest issue last season as a freshman was consistency. He has had no such problems as a sophomore and with a new coach.

Shot selection has been Leslie's biggest on-court area of improvement. The increase in his shooting percentage is proof of that, 53 percent (68-128) compared to 43 percent (123-284) last season.

In Leslie and Lorenzo Brown, N.C. State has two talented, All-ACC caliber players 10 other ACC teams don't (yes, even Duke).

That's why the stated goal of 11 wins is not as far-fetched as the historical precedent (once since 1975) suggests.

3. Terrell Stoglin can go

N.C. State tried every different defensive combination on Maryland guard Terrell Stoglin and contested almost every one of his 16 field goal attempts but the Pack couldn't stop him.

Stoglin poured in 25 points, with six 3-pointers, and did so while being defended primarily by a taller C.J. Williams (6-5) but also a shorter Alex Johnson (5-10).

Now, Stoglin's not 6-1, as he's listed by Maryland, but he's strong and quick and understands how to use his body to get his shot off.

Pe'Shon Howard had a relatively quiet game, eight assists aside, which is why State won, but it wasn't for Stoglin's lack of effort.

Forward Richard Howell put it best when asked about Stoglin: "That kid can score."

-- J.P. Giglio

Boston College vs. UNC: The good, the bad

2012-01-08T12:15:00.001-05:00

CHAPEL HILL - No. 3 North Carolina defeated Boston College 83-60 in the ACC opener for both teams. A look back at the highlights and lowlights from the Smith Center:

Why the Tar Heels won: North Carolina used a 10-0 run to take control in the first half, and then opened the second half on a 10-2 run. Outside of those two stretches, this was a surprisingly a pretty even game. Boston College, with its 12 first-year players and nine freshmen, showed some toughness and didn’t really go away. The Tar Heels, meanwhile, played well in stretches but had too many mental lapses, coach Roy Williams said. UNC won comfortably and should have. Even so, it was probably a tad closer than the 23-point final margin indicated.

The good: The Heels dominated in the paint, where they outscored the Eagles 46-26. And Harrison Barnes had one of his better games of the season. He finished with 25 points, made 10 of his 15 shots, and had one highlight-worthy dunk that brought the crowd to its feet during the first half. In fact, UNC’s entire front court played well. The big three of Barnes, John Henson and Tyler Zeller combined to score 59 points and they made 23 of their 36 field goal attempts.

The bad: Williams and his players spoke a lot about raising their intensity entering ACC play but the Tar Heels were a bit sluggish to start. About eight-and-a-half minutes into the game, UNC led just 15-14 before going on that 10-0 run. Plus, the Heels allowed Boston College to hang around. UNC built a 21-point lead early in the second half, only to see the Eagles cut it nine with about nine minutes to play. That frustrated Williams. So, too, did his team’s defensive lapses in the second half, when UNC failed to properly play screens that led to three Eagles’ baskets. The Tar Heels’ bench has been solid for much of the season but it was unproductive on Saturday. Reggie Bullock, James Michael McAdoo and P.J. Hairston combined to make 4 of their 19 attempts from the field and they scored 11 points as a group.

Key stat: The Tar Heels made 23 of their 35 field-goal attempts inside the paint. But they were just 8-for-31 outside of the lane. And just 3-for-17 on 2-point shots outside of the paint. If the Heels shoot better from the outside – both beyond the arc and inside of it, then UNC wins by at least 30.

Key stat II: Barnes, Zeller and Henson combined for 59 points and made 23 of their 36 shots from the field. When the Big Three are playing that well, UNC will be difficult to beat.

UNC player of the game: Barnes. Finished with 25 points and did it in a variety of ways – on the inside and from the outside. He made 3 of his 4 3-point attempts and also picked his moments to go to the basket and be aggressive.

Quotable: “You can’t make that pass. We have a lob for a dunk and you throw it over the backboard. I told him at 61, I can make that pass. Never had a guy that does a better job looking up and having the vision on the court that he does. But I really got ticked off there for a couple of minutes when it got down to nine or 10. But it wasn’t because it got to nine or 10. It was because we decided not to help down in the post, and Kendall goes and helps down in the post and his guy makes a three. And we say go over the screen, Harrison went below the screen, his guy makes a three. Next time he goes below the screen, Z steps out and help and they throw it Z’s man for a layup. You can’t make those kinds of mistakes.” –UNC coach Roy Williams, first on his frustration with Kendall Marshall’s errant lob to Harrison Barnes, and then on his team’s defensive lapses in the second half.

-- Andrew Carter

Duke's young team still learning to be great

2012-01-08T12:10:00.000-05:00

ATLANTA – When it was suggested to Mason Plumlee that Duke looked a bit fragile during stretches of Saturday’s 81-74 win over Georgia Tech, the Blue Devils’ junior forward didn’t disagree.

“I would just say it’s part of having a young team,” Plumlee said. “I wish I wasn’t still saying this now, but the more we’re in these situations and close games, the better we’ll get at it. We’re getting better.”

Easy to overlook after Duke’s 78-73 loss to Temple on Wednesday is the fact that this Blue Devil team is still a relatively young, inexperienced team. In addition to the underclassmen who are playing key minutes, juniors such as Ryan Kelly, Seth Curry and Mason Plumlee have all taken on more expanded roles than in years past.

Growing pains, in other words, are to be expected.

“I know people think of Duke and we’ve got these chiseled guys who have been – they’re all-Americans right away,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “That just doesn’t happen.”

It is also important not to evaluate the Blue Devils’ non-conference schedule solely on the basis of one or two games. Duke did a lot of things well in November and December, starting with its win at the Maui Invitational and continuing through its triumph over Washington at Madison Square Garden.

“Temple was the end of 14 non-conference games,” Krzyzewski said. “We’ve played a hellacious schedule. We want to make sure that we don’t judge what we’ve done by one game rather than take a look at the collection of what we’ve done.”

All that said, it is clear fifth-ranked Duke (13-2, 1-0 ACC) has some growing to do.

In light of the performance against the Owls, Krzyzewski said defense was the one area where he wanted to see improvement against the Yellow Jackets.

“We have to be better defensively on the perimeter,” he said. “We’re small on the perimeter. We have Quinn and Seth and Austin, who could be a point or a combo playing at the other wing. Athletic perimeters have hurt us. That’s one of the reasons we lost against Temple. … We have to keep getting better at that.”

The Blue Devils were inconsistent on defense against the Yellow Jackets, allowing Glen Rice Jr. enough open looks to score 28 points. Georgia Tech entered the game as the worst 3-point shooting team in the ACC, but it made 46.2 percent of its long-range shots against the Blue Devils.

At various times, Austin Rivers, Mason Plumlee and Kelly all seemed to have some confusion over who they were guarding or where they were supposed to be on the defensive end. Rivers was taken out in the first half after losing his man.

Even if Duke is still a work in progress, the win over the Yellow Jackets will help the team’s confidence heading into Thursday’s game against Virginia.

Between practices and team meetings, the two days in between the Temple and Georgia Tech games were arduous. The Blue Devils’ players said it was nice to have some positive reinforcement on the back side.

“The coaching staff believes we have a lot of potential and we can be a really good basketball team,” Kelly said. “We weren’t moving in the right direction leading up to Temple, and we needed to change the direction of our mentality and the way our team was playing the game of basketball. We did that (Saturday).”

-- Jack Daly

UNC forward James Michael McAdoo is 'doubtful' for Saturday's ACC opener against Boston College

2012-01-06T17:13:00.003-05:00

James Michael McAdoo has a sprained ankle.

CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina coach Roy Williams said Friday that freshman forward James Michael McAdoo is “doubtful” for the Tar Heels’ ACC opener on Saturday against Boston College (2:30 p.m., WBTV channel 3).

McAdoo, who has averaged 6.3 points in 14.5 minutes of playing time per game, suffered a sprained left ankle during practice on Wednesday. McAdoo sustained the injury when, after jumping, he came down on Tyler Zeller’s foot. X-rays that UNC’s medical staff conducted Thursday were negative, a team spokesman said.

McAdoo did not practice on Thursday, Williams said. If McAdoo is unable to play, the Tar Heels will be without a key frontcourt reserve in their ACC opener. McAdoo has averaged 9 points per game in UNC’s past four games.

“It would be a game-time decision and I would think [he is] doubtful,” Williams said.

-- Andrew Carter

Pack's Gottfried: Murray State can go undefeated

2012-01-06T14:13:00.001-05:00

Murray State's fans aren't the only ones who believe in the Racers. N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried, a former Murray State coach, thinks the 15-0 Ohio Valley Conference team can go into the NCAA tournament undefeated. John Wright/The Paduca (Ky.) Sun

There are still four undefeated teams in college basketball. With nothing but Ohio Valley Conference teams left on the schedule, 15-0 Murray State may have the best chance of any of them to become the first unbeaten since Indiana in 1976.

N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried thinks so: “Yes, they can,” he said Friday.

Gottfried certainly has reason to believe in the Racers. He spent three years there in his first college head-coaching job, a period in his career he remembers fondly for both the experience and the environment.

“They’re having a heck of a year, and I’m really happy for them,” Gottfried said. “It’ll be interesting to see them at the end, because I think they’re going to win a lot of games. I think they can go undefeated.”
Syracuse (16-0), Baylor (14-0) and Missouri (14-0) are the other undefeated teams.

Having coached there, Gottfried also knows just how much pressure there will be on Murray State to win the OVC tournament, especially if the Racers lose a conference game or two along the way. In his third season there, in 1998, Gottfried’s team was 28-3, but there was no guarantee of an at-large bid if the Racers lost the championship game.

“They have a heck of a win now at Memphis, although Memphis isn’t a top-10 team like we thought they were, it’s still a good win,” Gottfried said. “But the rest of their schedule is just kind of OK. If an ACC team played that same schedule, you’d be criticized. But they’ll get a break for it. I hope they get in (as an at-large). I think they will. I think they can go undefeated.”

That may not be the only difficult question the Racers pose for the NCAA selection committee. What kind of seed would an undefeated Murray State team get? In addition to Memphis, Murray State has wins over 14-2 Southern Mississippi and 11-4 Dayton. The highest-rated opponent on Murray State's remaining schedule is 3-12 Austin Peay, although the Racers will host a Bracketbusters game in February that could be against a quality opponent -- Long Beach State, Wichita State and St. Mary's are all among the road teams available.

Andy Glockner of SI.com found five examples of mid-major teams with gaudy records from the past 14 years; seeds ranged from No. 3 to No. 13. At 25-1, Princeton received a No. 5 seed in 1998, which may offer the best comparison to a one-loss Murray State team.

“It’ll be interesting. It’ll be a tricky one for the committee,” Gottfried said. “I don’t think they can be a 1 or 2 seed, I don’t think you can realistically do that. They’re going to play now, when you look at it, and I was in that league so I know, they’re going to play 12-14 games against 200 RPI teams and up, so it’s going to be a little tricky. I do think they’re really good. They’ve got a nice team.”

-- J.P. Giglio

Gottfried assesses N.C. State's NCAA chances

2012-01-06T12:21:00.002-05:00

N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried says teams who make NCAA tournament will earn their way in. He thinks the Wolfpack needs 11 ACC wins to accomplish that. Ethan Hyman photo.

In addition to his comments about N.C. State's ACC goals, Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried offered his expanded thoughts on the Wolfpack's NCAA chances on Friday.

Gottfried, who took Murray State and Alabama to the NCAA tournament seven times in 14 seasons and worked as an analyst for ESPN the last two seasons, has a firm grasp on the process and the selection committee's criteria.

At No. 49 in the most recent official RPI on the NCAA's web site, the Wolfpack is in bubble territory as it begins ACC play on Sunday against Maryland.

"The teams that go to the tournament are going to earn their way in," Gottfried said.

Gottfried thinks N.C. State will need to win 11 ACC games to get into the tournament but correctly pointed out that conference record is not a critical factor to the selection committee.

"If you get to 12 or 13 wins in the league, you could have played 15 games against Broughton High School, you're probably in," Gottfried joked.

Gottfried said N.C. State's strength of schedule will help its NCAA cause come March, assuming it can win its share of ACC games.

The NCAA's version of the RPI doesn't list N.C. State's strength of schedule but Jerry Palm, of CollegeRPI.com, does and has the Wolfpack's schedule at 36th.

"The (selection committee) will look at who you chose to play in those 13 to 15 non-league games and how you did in those games," Gottfried said. "We intentionally upgraded our schedule, hopefully that will help us at some point in time."

Improving the SOS has been a point of emphasis for Gottfried, whose early teams at Alabama were left out of the NCAA tournament because of shoddy out-of-league schedules. Even losses to Syracuse (No. 1 in the official RPI), Indiana (15) and Vanderbilt (32) will help the Wolfpack.

Finding wins in the ACC against top 50 RPI teams -- Duke (2), North Carolina (12) and Virginia Tech (40) -- and top 100 teams -- Miami (61), Virginia (65), Florida State (71), Wake Forest (85) -- will ultimately determine the Pack's postseason fate.

N.C. State hasn't been to the NCAA tournament since 2006, which is the longest drought in the ACC.
"We could have helped ourselves a couple of nights," Gottfried said. "There's no question, but I think with the strength of schedule and who we played, I think we're going to put ourselves in a great position -- if we're fortunate enough to be in the discussion."

-- J.P. Giglio

Scouting: How one team sees Tar Heels

2012-01-06T12:07:00.001-05:00

Does North Carolina's Tyler Zeller dislike contact? At least one of the Tar Heels' December opponents -- and not necessarily Nicholls State, thinks so. GETTY IMAGES photo.

CHAPEL HILL - True story: A team that played at North Carolina in December left a copy of its scouting report on a copier in the Smith Center. And that scouting report, which includes a few lines about each of the Tar Heels’ top eight players, made its way to me.

I thought it’d be interesting to share it because it provides some insight into how an opposing team prepared to play UNC. I won’t identify the team that came up with this scouting report. The Tar Heels, of course, played six games at home in December.

So here’s how this particular team broke down each of UNC’s top eight players (punctuation, sentence structure, etc., are exactly as it reads in the scouting report):

STARTERS

Kendall Marshall: “Very crafty. Pushes the ball with the pass. Doesn’t like pressure. Must have active hands to affect vision.”

Dexter Strickland: “Very aggressive in transition. Driver!! Their best defender – Always running through passing lanes.”

Harrison Barnes: “Very efficient on offense. Good 3pt shooter. On dribble pull up. Make him uncomfortable.”

John Henson: “Long and very active. Wants to spin off of you in post. Hates it physical. Hates pressure on perimeter. Physical block outs.”

Tyler Zeller: “Runs pipe hard. Jump hook over left and right shoulder. Play the ball early. Hates it physical.”

RESERVES

Reggie Bullock: “Shooter. Offensive rebounder. Looks for 3’s in transition.”

James Michael McAdoo: “High energy offensive rebounder. Runs floor hard.”

P.J. Hairston: “Shooter. Looking to shoot at all times. Doesn’t guard.”

In addition to the player breakdowns, the scouting report included a “team summary” about UNC. That read like this:

Offense:

-Transition team looking to ball ahead and run the pipe

-Secondary – Carolina Break & 5 up

-Half court – Pus for Barnes/Shuffle for Bigs

Defense:

-Deny wings

-Run and jump after TO’s

-Hard help on ball screens

-Marshall and Barnes don’t want to guard

The offensive keys for this particular team:

-Run it right back at them

-Earn space/get open/be strong

-Execute/screen/drive

And the defensive keys for this particular team:

-Transition D

-Defensive rebounding/Physical box outs

-Getting after Marshall

So there you have it: an opposing team’s scouting report on UNC.

Some quick thoughts:

-Notice that the same sentence was used to describe both Henson and Zeller: “Hates it physical.” That’s the rap on both those guys, though when I asked Henson earlier this week whether he hated it physical he just smiled. He said he understood that’s the scouting report for both him and Zeller, and that teams will try to play them rough.

-This particular team certainly didn’t give much respect for Hairston’s defense. “Doesn’t guard.” Hairston’s offense is further along than his defense – don’t think anyone would dispute that – but it will be interesting to see how Hairston develops as a defensive player. Certainly that’s a point of emphasis for him.

-This particular team acknowledges Marshall’s excellent court vision and wants its players to have active hands to disrupt that vision. Easier said than done.

-Strickland is sometimes the forgotten man among UNC’s starting five but it’s clear he received a lot of respect in this scouting report. This particular team was afraid cautious about his ability to drive, and warned its players about his defense.

-- Andrew Carter

Duke looks to bounce back vs. Georgia Tech

2012-01-06T11:16:00.000-05:00

Duke is heading to Atlanta this afternoon for Saturday’s ACC opener against Georgia Tech (ESPNU, noon).
While the Yellow Jackets have been underwhelming so far this season – Georgia Tech has lost three games in a row, falling to Mercer (ouch), Fordham (double ouch) and Alabama by 25 points – the game will be an intriguing one for the fifth-ranked Blue Devils (12-2) after Wednesday's loss at Temple.

After an intense day of practices and meetings Thursday, it will be an ominous sign if Duke doesn’t come up with a strong performance. Ryan Kelly, Andre Dawkins, Seth Curry and, to a lesser extent, Austin Rivers all have something to prove after lackluster efforts against Temple.

And expect the Blue Devils to be especially active on the boards after allowing undersized Temple to outrebound them Wednesday night.

A strong performance Saturday won’t necessarily show Duke has internalized the lessons of Wednesday’s loss to Temple. The Blue Devils will have to demonstrate that in the upcoming weeks when the memories of Temple defeat aren’t as fresh.

Duke had a string of solid performances after its blowout loss at Ohio State. But against Temple, the team seemed to forget about all the progress it had made and what it had been done to make that progress, especially on the defensive end.

In that sense, Georgia Tech is just a first step.

But an important one.

With the ACC season starting, here are three other dates that stand out on the schedule (aside from games against North Carolina, which everyone always circles):

1. Jan. 12 vs. Virginia (ESPN, 9 p.m.). The Cavaliers had as good a non-conference season as anyone in the ACC, losing only once. Virginia can use this game as a measuring stick for its progress.

2. Feb. 2 at Virginia Tech (ESPN/ESPN2, 7 p.m.). Outside the trip to Chapel Hill, this could be the toughest remaining road game for the Blue Devils. Duke has something to prove away from Cameron after its last two performances in hostile environments.

3. Feb. 16 vs. N.C.State (ESPNU, 9 p.m.). The Wolfpack look better under Mark Gottfried, but this game will be important because Duke plays three of its next four on the road. It will want to make sure its house is in order before leaving Cameron for an extended stretch.

-- Jack Daly

UNC vs. Boston College: Three things to watch

2012-01-06T10:35:00.001-05:00

Boston College 7-0 center Dennis Clifford.

CHAPEL HILL - And Happy Friday from Chapel Hill. Tomorrow, some of you from the farther reaches of the state will undoubtedly be on your way to the Smith Center, where North Carolina hosts Boston College in the ACC opener for both teams.

That said, today’s edition of the daily three: Three things to pay close attention to in UNC's ACC basketball opener:

First …

How North Carolina starts the game. Leading into the start of ACC play, Tar Heels coach Roy Williams and his players have spent a lot of time talking about the need to raise their intensity level entering conference play. And now it’s time to make that talk a reality.

UNC has looked good recently in dominant victories against overmatched non-conference opponents. And, really, this freshman-laden Boston College team – the Eagles have 12 players in their first year with the program and nine freshmen – isn’t much better than the likes of Monmouth or Nicholls.

Still, it’s the ACC opener. That should be enough for UNC to play with inspiration. The Tar Heels need a fast start tomorrow not because they might lose if they don’t have one. But more because such a start could help set the right attitude for conference play.

Second …

UNC’s defense. Ask North Carolina players the one area where they want to improve the most and the answer will come quickly: Defense. And it’s not like the Tar Heels have struggled defensively.

As of Jan. 1, the Heels ranked 17th nationally in field goal percentage defense, holding opponents to 37.6 percent shooting. The Heels also ranked 17th nationally in blocked shots, with an average of 5.8 per game.
The one area where North Carolina can improve, though, is on the perimeter. UNC ranks 59th in 3-point field goal percentage defense. That’s not terrible given that UNC is 59th out of 338 Division I teams.

Still, when UNC has found itself in close games this season, it’s usually because the opposing team is shooting well from the outside. Boston College is shooting 33.9 percent from 3-point range, which ranks 9th in the ACC. But the Tar Heels can’t rely on the fact that the Eagles are likely to miss shots from the outside. UNC must effectively guard the perimeter.

Third …

The Eagles’ Dennis Clifford down low vs. UNC’s Tyler Zeller and John Henson. Boston College doesn’t have the personnel to compete with North Carolina. Not even close.

But when the Eagles’ 7-foot center Clifford is in the game, it will be worth watching what goes on on the interior. The Tar Heels haven’t had to face a lot of size recently but Clifford, a freshman, at least presents some physical challenges.

Zeller and Henson are far more skilled than Clifford but Clifford still gives the Eagles some defensive options. They’re likely to use him to help double team Zeller, and make things uncomfortable for him. And how will UNC’s perimeter players – especially guys like Harrison Barnes, Dexter Strickland and P.J. Hairston – attack the rim with a 7-footer looming in the paint?

Even though Clifford is inexperienced and raw, going against him could serve UNC well down the road.

-- Andrew Carter

C.J. Leslie's dunk highlights Wolfpack fun and games vs. Delaware State

2012-01-05T12:29:00.000-05:00

Three things to note from N.C. State's game against Delaware State:

C.J. Leslie bounces the ball ...

1. Fun and games

N.C. State hasn't had many chances, in the first 15 basketball games, to have a little fun. The Wolfpack did just that Wednesday in the 78-44 win over Delaware State.

A 22-0 run to close the first half took any suspense out of the outcome and C.J. Leslie's alley-oop to himself during that run signaled the beginning of the fun and games.

then leaps to retrieve it ...

Rich Howell, who had his fourth straight double-double (12 points, 12 boards) and Scott Wood (14 points) got into the act in the second half.

"I hope his ankle is bothering him," Leslie joked. "For his sake, I hope so."

Wood's near-dunk was the cause of discussion among his teammates, and some good-natured ribbing when he couldn't quite get high enough up to flush the ball.

Howell got off a two-handed dunk on the break but his relatively modest vertical leap is also a topic of conversation in the locker room.

"I'm just trying to dunk like C.J. Leslie," Howell said after the game, with Leslie standing five feet in front of him.

Leslie was actually taken out of the game after his dunk near the end of the first half but it was because he had two fouls. Coach Mark Gottfried talked to Leslie briefly when he took him out of the game.

Leslie said Gottfried wasn't talking to him about the dunk.

"He did say I better make it," Leslie said.

2. Progress, against Delaware State at least

finds the target ..

N.C. State needed a last-second shot by Wood to beat the Hornets last season. Wednesday's game was a blowout. State gave up 70 points to the Hornets last season and only 44 on Wednesday.

N.C. State also showed rebounding improvement against the Hornets, an undersized MEAC team. The Pack had a 49-32 advantage on the glass on Wednesday, compared to 35-31 in last year's game.

3. Another slow start

As lopsided as the final score was, State led just 20-18 after 13 minutes. The Pack was sloppy early on in the first half with seven turnovers contributing to its problems on offense.

The Pack started slow against Western Carolina, too, last Saturday. Some of that can be chalked up to the opponent but good teams are self-motivated and if State is going to make noise in the ACC, to nine or 10 conference wins, it can't let such outside factors influence its effort.

and dunks it home.

-- J.P. Giglio

Duke's Austin Rivers: Temple played harder

2012-01-05T11:20:00.000-05:00

Temple's Khalif Wyatt drives past Duke's Austin Rivers.

PHILADELPHIA – One of the refreshing things about Duke freshman Austin Rivers is the fact he’s unafraid to speak honestly. Sometimes that means Rivers might come across as brash.

Other times it means Rivers will offer assessments that are critical of himself and, if one conceives them broadly, his teammates.

But with Rivers, one always gets the sense he is speaking from the heart. In the aftermath of Duke’s 78-73 somewhat unexpected loss to Temple, Rivers’ emotion seemed especially raw. It appeared he was trying to process how the Blue Devils turned in such a tepid performance.

Among his observations:

* “We have to fight. When we fight, we’re a really tough team to beat. When we don’t, we’re very beatable.”

* “We have to come out strong. At halftime, we’re only down two. We come out like we’re down 30 or something and our heads are down for no reason. It was a two-point game. It’s a one-possession game, and we came out and we were slow. They just kept extending the lead and they were excited. They played harder.”

* “It’s frustrating because these are things we have been working on. These have been our main focuses. We’ve been working on this in practice about coming out strong, and being strong and physical and getting our rebounds and playing great defense. That’s a staple of Duke basketball. It’s frustrating that we go hours and hours and hours in the gym working on that every day, and then we fly out here to Philly, and we lose. And we don’t do those things. You wish you could do things over, but that’s not how it works.”

Rivers did not have an especially strong outing. He had trouble getting to the rim effectively, and just about all of his points came from the perimeter.

After one ill-advised drive, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski yelled at Rivers to settle down. As the Blue Devils begin their ACC season Saturday against Georgia Tech, it will be interesting to see how the team and Rivers respond.

-- Jack Daly

ACC play could cure Tar Heels' boredom

2012-01-05T11:14:00.000-05:00


Some early-season opponents haven't measured up.

Not to give too much away about what I’ve been working on lately, but I had the chance yesterday to visit the Smith Center, where I spent some time talking to UNC basketball players John Henson, P.J. Hairston and Kendall Marshall.

The common theme of the conversation? All agreed that this is the time of year when the intensity level goes up. A good thing, considering that at times during the non-conference portion of the season, North Carolina appeared a bit bored.

During this extended home stand that lasted most of December, UNC coach Roy Williams emphasized the need for his team to play with more intensity. We saw that emphasis manifest itself against in dominant victories against Texas, Elon and Monmouth – games in which the Heels wasted little time establishing tempo and energy.

And now we’ll see how that translates into the start of 2012 ACC play. The weird thing is, though Boston College represents the start of the ACC schedule for UNC, the Eagles don’t represent that much of an upgrade over the Heels’ recent competition.

Boston College is 270th in the RPI – this according to realtimerip.com (there are other versions of the RPI out there) – and Monmouth is only 19 spots below the Eagles. In fact, Nicholls (No. 242) ranks higher than the Eagles. And Appalachian State (No. 275) is in the neighborhood.

Second …

Kind of a weird scheduling quirk, but you can argue that UNC’s ACC schedule progressively becomes more difficult in each of the Tar Heels’ first five games. They open up with Boston College, which has been by far the worst team in the league. Then UNC plays Miami at home. Then on the road at Florida State. Then on the road at Virginia Tech. Then at home against N.C. State.

So what does this all mean? Not sure, exactly, other than the fact that the opponents become more difficult as the games wear on. But I found it interesting, nonetheless.

It’s the kind of thing, though, that could be helpful come the postseason, when the competition level – in theory – increases from game to game. That’s what will happen through the Tar Heels early ACC schedule.

Of course, the most difficult portion of the schedule probably comes in late February and early March. Over their final four conference games, the Heels will play N.C. State, Virginia and Duke on the road. The lone home game in that stretch comes against Maryland, which should be significantly better then than it is now.

Third …

Did you happen to catch Duke’s 78-73 defeat against Temple last night? You probably did. And, if you’re a UNC fan, you probably took some satisfaction in the Blue Devils' loss. But I’d argue that, for once, UNC fans shouldn’t be happy that Duke lost.

A defeat at Temple is nothing to be ashamed about, of course. Surely, the Owls were motivated and played well. Duke didn’t play all that well (16 turnovers for the Blue Devils, who allowed Temple to shoot 56.4 percent). The loss isn’t all that embarrassing.

Still, it’s another black mark for the ACC during the non-conference portion of the schedule. Last year was considered a down year for the conference, at least until the ACC sent three teams into the Sweet 16. But right now, 2012 is shaping up to be even more of a down year.

Look at SEC football. It’s always more fun – more interesting, too – when the power teams in a conference are playing to their potential. UNC-Duke will still be intense, of course, when the teams meet twice later this season. But with each misstep that both teams take, the games this season between them lose a bit of luster and importance.

-- Andrew Carter

Ranking ACC after UNC, Duke (Hint: Not great)

2012-01-04T12:30:00.001-05:00

After a disappointing – more on this in a second – non-conference portion of the season, the ACC basketball season begins this week.

North Carolina, of course, hosts Boston College on Saturday. So now’s as a good time as any to look ahead at the Tar Heels’ conference schedule which, really, doesn’t look all that formidable.

That’s the case for two reasons: One, UNC is very good. And, two, the ACC, as a whole, appears to be significantly down compared to its normal standard.

Two ACC teams – Duke (No. 2) and UNC (No. 13) – rank among the top 15 teams in the RPI, according to realtimerpi.com. The rest of the league? You’ve got Virginia Tech at No. 37. N.C. State at No. 43.

Virginia at No. 56. Florida State (No. 72) and Miami (No. 78) are the only other conference teams in the top 100. Five ACC teams – nearly half the conference – rank 105th or worse in the RPI.

And some teams appear to be truly abysmal.

Boston College, which ranks 262nd in the RPI, has losses against the likes of Boston University, Holy Cross and Rhode Island. Those three teams, by the way, are not good.

Clemson, meanwhile, lost to Coastal Carolina at home. And that’s not even the Tigers’ worst loss, according to the RPI. Georgia Tech lost at Tulane. And against Mercer. And at Fordham. Not good. Not good. Not good.

Florida State, meanwhile, has to be thankful it’s not in the Ivy League. The Seminoles, who were supposed to be one of the stronger teams in the ACC, would already be trying to climb out of an 0-2 hole after losses against Harvard and Princeton.

So the bottom half of the ACC – and even some of the top half – appears to be in complete disarray entering the start of league play. Most teams usually improve as the season progresses, so it figures that Boston College, Clemson and Georgia Tech won’t be as bad in February as they appear to be now.

Still, though, when the floor already so far underground, how high can the ceiling really go? My guess is that once conference play begins, more defined tiers will emerge within the ACC. Here’s how those tiers would look now, entering league play:

TOP: UNC, Duke.

NEXT: N.C. State, Virginia Tech, Virginia.

NEXT: Florida State, Miami, Maryland.

BOTTOM: Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Boston College.

How crazy is it that here on Jan. 4, UNC and Duke appear to be the ACC’s only sure-things to make the NCAA Tournament? Of course, at least a couple more conference teams will make it. Who they’ll be, though, is anybody’s guess.

So back the original point of this post, which was to rank the Tar Heels’ conference games in order of difficulty.

In order of difficulty, from easiest to most difficult. We’ll break these up into tiers:
TIER 1

Boston College

Clemson

Georgia Tech

At Wake Forest

TIER 2

Miami

At Miami

Virginia

Maryland

TIER 3

N.C. State

At Virginia

At Maryland

At Virginia Tech

TIER 4

At Florida State

At N.C. State

Duke

At Duke

Some thoughts:

UNC shouldn’t lose any of the four games in tier 1. Those are all basically gimmies. If any of those are even close games, it’d be surprising.

UNC shouldn’t lose any of the four games in tier 2, either, though the level of competition increases over tier 1. Virginia has potential (we don't know how much because the Cavaliers haven't really played anybody), and the game in Charlottesville could be difficult. But UNC should win with ease at home. Right now, Miami is not good.

Tier 3 is where it starts to get interesting. N.C. State has talent and, it seems, coaching. At least one of those things has been missing in that program for a while now. UNC could win that game by 20 at the Smith Center, and probably should win that game comfortably. But you never know. The other three games in tier 3, all on the road, are loseable. They’d be big upsets, but all three of those places can be difficult places to play.

Tier 4 include what I think are UNC’s four most difficult conference games. Florida State is not playing well right now, but I covered the Seminoles for four years and I’ve seen strange, weird things happen in that building in Tallahassee. I thought FSU had no shot – none – to beat Duke down there last year. I was wrong. Florida State is a difficult place to play for about two games per season: When Duke and UNC come to town. The other three games in tier 4 are all rivalry games, two of them on the road, two of them against Duke.

-- Andrew Carter

Duke Blue Devils face Temple, Dunphy tonight

2012-01-04T11:44:00.002-05:00

Temple coach Fran Dunphy

At Temple tonight, the 12-1 Duke Blue Devils will continue through the Penn Quakers segment of their schedule. Having smashed Penn coach Jerome Allen’s team on Sunday, 85-55 in Durham, No. 5 Duke now faces former Penn coach Fran Dunphy, who now leads the Temple Owls (7 p.m., ESPN2).

Dunphy coached the Quakers for 17 seasons, winning 310 of 473 games, before taking over for John Chaney at Temple in 2006-07. The Owls (9-3) have a more varied defense under Dunphy than was the case with Chaney and his trademark match-up zone. Little else has changed, especially the record. Dunphy’s past two Temple teams went 29-6 and 26-8.

Like Mike Krzyzewski, Dunphy’s early coaching roots included a stop at West Point in the early 1970s. Before Krzyzewski landed the Army post in 1975-76, Dunphy was an assistant for Dan Dougherty. By the time Krzyzewski got the Army job and hired Pete Gaudet and Bob Dwyer (former Wake Forest guard), Dunphy had left to take the Malvern Prep School job in Philadelphia.

The Owls’ three losses this season have been to Texas (77-65), Bowling Green (67-64) and Purdue (78-67). The most impressive win was over Villanova (78-67). Temple stopped Penn (73-67) to begin the schedule. In a 66-63 win over Delaware on Dec. 30, Temple’s experienced perimeter - seniors Ramone Moore and Juan Fernandez and junior Khailf Wyatt - collectively had their worst shooting game of the season, going 9-for-35.

The game against Duke will be Temple’s first of the season in Philly’s 20,000-plus seat Wells Fargo Center. The majority of the home games are played in on-campus Liacouras Center (10,200).

-- Caulton Tudor

Roy Williams: Tar Heels must increase intensity

2012-01-03T16:28:00.000-05:00

It’s the first week of January, which means that the start of the ACC basketball schedule is near. After his team’s 102-65 victory against Monmouth on Sunday, North Carolina coach Roy Williams spoke of the need for the Tar Heels to raise their intensity given the start of conference play. And that’s true. The intensity always rises when ACC games start.

Even so, UNC's first ACC opponent, Boston College, isn’t exactly an upgrade over the kind of competition UNC has faced lately. The Eagles, who have lost to the likes of Holy Cross and Boston University, rank 227th in the RPI, according to realtimerpi.com.

UNC, meanwhile, has only played three teams (Appalachian State, Nicholls and Monmouth) that rank lower in the RPI than Boston College does right now.

-- Andrew Carter

UNC's Leslie McDonald returns to practice

2012-01-03T16:17:00.003-05:00

North Carolina coach Roy Williams said today during his weekly ACC teleconference that junior guard Leslie McDonald, who suffered a torn ACL during a summer league game in July, has been practicing with the Tar Heels on a limited basis.

The UNC medical staff last week released McDonald to practice. Williams said that McDonald participated in some five-on-five work on Friday.

The plan, Williams said, is to “gradually increase” McDonald’s work load before deciding on how much – if any – he’ll be able to play this season.

If the knee injury keeps him from playing this season, McDonald would receive an extra year of eligibility. A decision on his status would be made within the coming weeks, Williams said.

-- Andrew Carter

UNC 97, Appalachian State 82: The look back

2011-12-18T03:36:00.000-05:00

CHAPEL HILL - No. 5 North Carolina defeated Appalachian State 97-82 here at the Smith Center on Saturday night. It was an easy win, but one that didn’t come as smoothly as Tar Heels coach Roy Williams would have preferred.

A look back at UNC’s victory against the Mountaineers:

Why the Tar Heels won: North Carolina dominated the middle portion of the game. The Heels led 34-30 with 4:32 to play in the first half. Over the next 14 minutes and 17 seconds, UNC outscored the Mountaineers 42-17. That was pretty much the game right there. The Tar Heels were sloppy when they allowed Appalachian State back in the game in the middle of the first half. And UNC was sloppy again in the final 10:15, when Appalachian outscored Carolina by 14 points. But the Tar Heels were so dominant in the middle it didn’t matter.

The good: UNC converted a high number of its chances. The Heels were just 2-for-10 from 3-point range but they still managed to shoot 54.5 percent overall. So, obviously, they converted a high rate of their shots inside the 3-point line. The Tar Heels should have dominated in the paint and they did, outscoring the Mountaineers 54-24 there. Tyler Zeller finished with 31 points - one short of tying his career high - and 10 rebounds.

The bad: Twice it appeared that UNC was going to completely blow out Appalachian State, and both times the Tar Heels failed to close the deal. They led by 12 in the first half before allowing Appalachian State to go on a 15-7 run to make it a 4-point game. Then UNC built a 29-point lead and took the foot off the gas coming down the stretch. This was an easy win - make no mistake about it - but still: Williams was frustrated by how his team played at times. The Mountaineers shot well from the perimeter, where they made 9 of their 20 3-point attempts, and they also took advantage of some of the Tar Heels’ sloppiness.

Key stat: That one’s easy this game. The Tar Heels’ dominance in the paint, where they outscored Appalachian by 30 points, was the obvious difference.

Key stat II: The Tar Heels went 6:35 without a field goal during one stretch of the second half. This was after they’d built that 29-point lead. Think Williams will be emphasizing the mistakes of that drought in an upcoming film session? Me too.

UNC player of the game: Zeller. Williams didn’t agree afterward that this was Zeller’s best game of the season. Still, he played well and finished with 31 points and 10 rebounds in 26 minutes.

Quotable: "OK, it was a W. It’s Christmas time. I’m not going to be Scrooge, by any means. We were really good for about the last four minutes of the first half and the first four or five minutes of the second half. And then we went brain dead there for a while." - UNC coach Roy Williams

-- Andrew Carter

Vanderbilt visits Davidson

2011-12-07T11:41:00.001-05:00

The Davidson Wildcats get a visit from the SEC's Vanderbilt at 7 p.m. today in Belk Arena (ESPN3).

The Wildcats (6-1) have been getting solid play from forward Jake Cohen, who scored 26 points and had five rebounds against Wofford last week, then scored 16 and had seven rebounds against Furman. He shot 75 percent in those two Southern Conference victories and was named the league's player of the week.

The Commodores (5-3) might have star center Festus Ezeli back in the lineup for the game. Ezeli hurt his knee in the preseason and has missed all eight games so far. But he has been practicing this week and, according to the Associated Press, coach Kevin Stallings is debating about whether to give him some minutes tonight.

Vanderbilt has been ranked as high as seventh nationally, but has lost two straight and fallen out of the Top 25 with those defeats against Xavier and Louisville. -- David Scott

Duke's defense gets exposed by Buckeyes

2011-11-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

Duke’s Austin Rivers, a shoot-first guard, doesn’t play like his father, now-Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers.

But here’s a trait they share: Both have a blunt, analytical way of dissecting a loss.

Freshman Austin used the word “embarrassing’’ frequently in describing an 85-63 loss to Ohio State Tuesday night. To Rivers, the Blue Devils didn’t just lose their first game, they lost their identity.

“Duke is all about defense, but we played individual. We didn’t play as a team’’ Rivers said. “The offense was fine. But we were awful defensively.’’

The 7-0 start was good for Duke’s confidence, but it might have created a false sense that a young team had already arrived.. As Mason Plumlee put it, “It kind of opened our eyes to reality.’’

Plumlee had primary responsibility for guarding Ohio State forward Jared Sullinger, who finished with 21 points and eight rebounds. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said Plumlee didn’t play badly, and that seems fair when you consider what a load Sullinger is.

He’s the most dangerous low-post scorer in college basketball, so it was inevitable the Blue Devils would have to give Plumlee help guarding him. They did, and the Buckeyes had a far too easy time exploiting those double-teams. Ohio State’s 8-of-14 accuracy from 3-point range was a direct result of how well the Buckeyes found the open man and how poorly the Blue Devils rotated.

Duke won’t play a team of Ohio State’s skill and talent every night. But to effectively play man-to-man defense the way Krzyzewski expects, this group has to do a much better job of doubling, then recovering, if it expects a Final Four season.

Unlike college football, one early-season loss in basketball doesn’t derail a season. It might demonstrate what Duke must do to get where it expects to be.

-- Rick Bonnell

Harrison Barnes in doubt for Wisconsin-UNC game

2011-11-28T21:37:00.000-05:00

CHAPEL HILL -- Harrison Barnes is suffering from a sprained ankle and his status is in doubt for North Carolina's game here on Wednesday night against Wisconsin, Tar Heels coach Roy Williams said on Monday during his weekly radio show.

Barnes, the sophomore forward, sustained the injury on Saturday night during UNC's 90-80 defeat against UNLV. He left the game with 6:13 to play in the first half but returned about three minutes later and finished with 15 points in 30 minutes.

"If we had a game today he would not have played," Williams said during his radio show.

He said he hopes Barnes will be able to play against No. 9 Wisconsin, which will visit the Smith Center as part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. Through six games, Barnes has led UNC with an average of 17.3 points per game.

If Barnes is unable to play on Wednesday night, Williams said sophomore guard Reggie Bullock and freshman guard P.J. Hairston would receive more playing time. Hairston has averaged 9.7 points per game and Bullock 7.8.

Barnes seemed to be affected by the injury on Saturday night, when he made 6 of his 16 field goal attempts and struggled to find an offensive rhythm during the second half. After the loss against UNLV, the Tar Heels dropped from No. 1 to No. 5 in the latest Associated Press top 25.

-- Andrew Carter

Krzyzewski: Penn State scandal 'the worst thing'

2011-11-14T14:00:00.000-05:00

Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski said today that he believes the Penn State sex abuse scandal was “the worst thing,” and that those who question coach Joe Paterno’s failure to act should remember that how social issues are handled has changed dramatically in Paterno’s lifetime.

“One thing you have to understand is that Coach Paterno is 84 years old,” Krzyzewski said. “I’m not saying that for an excuse or whatever. The cultures that he’s been involved in both football wise and socially have been [through] immense changes. And how social issues are handled in those generations are quite different. Quite different. And I think that has something to do with the situation.”

Paterno was fired last week after allegations of sexual abuse of young boys were brought against one of Penn State’s longtime former assistant coaches, Jerry Sandusky. According to reports, Paterno was told about an incident regarding Sandusky and reported it to his superiors at Penn State but didn’t contact police.

In June, before news of the scandal surfaced, Krzyzewski appeared with Paterno in a forum on coaching, ethics and other issues that was taped and later broadcast on ESPN. Krzyzewski was asked about Paterno today at a news conference today scheduled to discuss Duke’s game Tuesday with Michigan State as Krzyzewski needs one win to break Bob Knight’s Division I career record of 902.

Paterno is “a great man, and it’s a horrific situation,” Krzyzewski said. Social issues, Krzyzewski said, are handled differently now than in the past.

“Thank goodness,” Krzyzewski said. “Thank goodness. But as we judge, remember that there’s just a lot there.”

Krzyzewski said he doesn’t know how the sexual abuse case ultimately will affect Paterno’s legacy.

“You don’t have control, except through your actions, on how people report those actions,” Krzyzewski said. “I don’t know how it will all turn out, but that’s part of being at a high level. Especially when you’re involved in an educational institution, you’re going to be judged differently than you would be if you were a pro coach or whatever. It’s just different. And really it’s the way it should be.”

Ken Tysiac

Briscoe: Off-the-bench scoring punch?

2011-11-08T18:21:00.000-05:00

Noting the 49ers:

-- Men's basketball coach Alan Major doesn't want to divulge his starting lineup for Friday's season opener against N.C. Central, but don't expect it to be different from last week's group that started against Belmont Abbey in a preseason exhibition.

That means that freshman Pierria Henry will again start at point guard ahead of junior Jamar Briscoe, last season's starter.

Major said there are so many potential combinations in the backcourt that it might mean Briscoe ends up playing more minutes that Henry (Henry played 18 minutes against the Crusaders, Briscoe 17).

"It's like football players like Darren Sproles or Reggie Bush," said Major. "They can do so many things that it's hard to keep them off the field. I think that's what (Briscoe) can create for himself. He's got these great instincts, and an ability I love that he can come off the bench with some real scoring punch."

Briscoe was the nation's second-leading freshman scorer three years ago at N.C. Central.

The 49ers, incidentally, are practicing in the mornings this season (from 7:45 a.m. to around 10) to accommodate players' class schedules.

-- 49ers forward Jennifer Hailey has missed recent practice time due to a concussion, but women's basketball coach Cara Consuegra is hopeful she'll be able to play in the 49ers' season opener Friday against Presbyterian. Hailey has been cleared to practice.

-- Charlotte's men's soccer team is in the enviable position of not needing to win this week's Atlantic 10 tournament in St. Louis to gain a berth in the NCAA tournament. The third-seed 49ers (13-3-2), who play defending champ Xavier on Thursday, have an RPI of 9, which should already guarantee them a spot, no matter what happens in St. Louis. The 49ers are also ranked 12th in this week's Soccer America poll.

Blue Devils working on defense

2011-11-08T17:40:00.000-05:00

DURHAM – In both of Duke’s preseason exhibition games, the Blue Devils had stretches when they struggled to stop their opponents on the perimeter.

Bellarmine made eight 3-pointers, including five in the first half. Shaw got excellent penetration from its guards and shot 50 percent from the field in the first half.

It should be no surprise, then, that No. 6-ranked Duke has spent a lot of time working on its defense in recent days as Friday’s 9 p.m. opener against Belmont approaches.

Junior Seth Curry said the Blue Devils guards are working on pressuring the ball and preventing dribble penetration.

“You’ve got to do both,” Curry said during a media availability Tuesday afternoon. “It’s tough.”

Other players said the Blue Devils have had a tendency to watch the ball too often and haven’t been quick enough to react in help side defense when a guard gets beaten off the dribble.

Defending the 3-point arc will be the most urgent objective against a strong season-opening opponent. Belmont ranked third in the nation last season with 9.3 3-pointers per game and returns four players who started in last season’s NCAA tournament loss to Wisconsin.

Belmont finished 30-5 last season.

“We know they’re good,” Curry said, “so we’re preparing like it’s an ACC game or whatever. It’s great to play a game right out of the gate that we have to be prepared for.”

Schedule a challenge. Duke’s early schedule should be a significant challenge for a team with just one scholarship senior that lost standouts Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler and Kyrie Irving from last season.

The opener should be difficult, even though Belmont doesn’t have a big name. The Blue Devils will play Michigan State and Ohio State from the Big Ten, and neither game will be at Cameron Indoor Stadium. In the Maui Invitational, Duke will meet Tennessee, Michigan or Memphis and then probably a third strong opponent.

All this will take place before the end of November and should test the Blue Devils’ youth immediately.

“I think that was kind of the mind set in making the schedule like that,” said junior guard Andre Dawkins. “But at the same time, I think it will bring the best out of our guys.”

Milestone approaches. With coach Mike Krzyzewski nearing the Division I career victories record, Duke’s players are facing inevitable questions about what it will be like to be a part of the team that helps the coach reach a milestone.

Krzyzewski has 900 wins and needs three more to surpass his mentor, Bob Knight. The record could fall as early as Nov. 15, when the Blue Devils meet Michigan State at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Players say it will mean a lot to be part of the celebration, but said Krzyzewski doesn’t talk about the record or focus on it.

“He never brings it up,” said freshman guard Austin Rivers. “. . .All he cares about is winning. The number never comes up.”

Ken Tysiac

VIDEO: College basketball's top tradition

2011-11-04T11:34:00.001-04:00

The top fan tradition in college basketball is not at Duke, or Charlotte, or any other Carolinas school. And you have to see the video to believe it.

UNC overwhelming choice to win ACC

2011-10-19T17:12:00.002-04:00

CHARLOTTE – North Carolina received 57 of a possible 59 first-place votes to finish atop the ACC media poll released Wednesday at the conference’s Operation Basketball media event.

The Tar Heels return all five starters, including preseason ACC player of the year selection Harrison Barnes, from a team that finished 29-8, reached an NCAA regional final and won first place in the ACC with a 14-2 conference record last season.

Duke was picked second in the poll, followed by Florida State, Virginia, Miami, Virginia Tech and Clemson. N.C. State was selected to finish eighth, with Maryland, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Boston College closing out the poll.

Barnes and teammates John Henson and Tyler Zeller were voted to the preseason All-ACC team, with Barnes as the only unanimous selection. Miami’s Malcolm Grant also was selected, and Duke’s Seth Curry tied Virginia’s Mike Scott for the final spot on the team. Barnes received 57 of a possible 59 first-place votes, with Henson getting the other two.

Duke freshman Austin Rivers was voted ACC rookie of the year, also receiving 57 votes. North Carolina’s James McAdoo and Maryland’s Nick Faust each received one vote for rookie of the year.

Here are the poll results:

ACC standings, with first-place votes in parentheses and total points:

North Carolina (57) 706
Duke (2) 649
Florida State 560
Virginia 463
Miami 455
Virginia Tech 411
Clemson 403
N.C. State 316
Maryland 264
Georgia Tech 176
Wake Forest 109
Boston College 90

All-ACC

Harrison Barnes, UNC, 59 (unanimous); John Henson, UNC, 47; Tyler Zeller, UNC, 46; Malcolm Grant, Miami, 32; Seth Curry, Duke, 20; Mike Scott, Virginia, 20

Player of the Year

Harrison Barnes, UNC, 57; John Henson, UNC, 2

Rookie of the Year

Austin Rivers, Duke, 57; James McAdoo, UNC, 1; Nick Faust, Maryland, 1

Ken Tysiac

Duke preaches defense, rebounding

2011-10-19T11:44:00.002-04:00

CHARLOTTE - Duke loses senior first-team All-ACC players Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler plus No. 1 NBA draft pick Kyrie Irving off the 2010-11 team.

So how are the Blue Devils going to win this season with just two returning starters? At the ACC’s Operation Basketball event today, junior co-captain Ryan Kelly said defense and rebounding will be Duke’s staples.

“At any time we can put five guys on the floor that can score the basketball,” Kelly said, “but our first and most important thing is going to be defense.”

Kelly said this season’s team will be built like the 2009-10 NCAA championship team, which used bruising big men Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas to dominate defensively and on the boards.

This season’s defense will be built from the inside out with Kelly, junior Mason Plumlee and senior co-captain Miles Plumlee.

“In our program, the big guys have been the backbone of the defense,” Miles Plumlee said, “and having experience there is going to be huge.”

Kelly said Miles Plumlee – who had six offensive rebounds in the Blue-White game Friday – has been a force on the boards in practice. But the team’s best defender, Kelly said, is sophomore guard Tyler Thornton, who has disruptive throughout preseason practice.

“He’s just a pest,” Kelly said, “on the ball and off of it.”

Ken Tysiac

Curry shows leadership for Devils

2011-10-14T23:19:00.000-04:00

DURHAM – Duke’s Blue-White scrimmage Friday night was an opportunity for a player to show he wants to lead the team.

Junior point guard Seth Curry did that in spectacular fashion.

Curry scored 16 of his 28 points in the second half and accounted for half the Blue team’s scoring in a 56-53 win at the preseason-opening “Countdown to Craziness” event.

He shot 8-for-13 from the field, and made nine of 10 free throws, rallying his team from a 13-point halftime deficit. After committing a backcourt turnover with 19 seconds remaining and the Blue nursing a one-point lead, Curry stole the ball from Ryan Kelly and made both ends of a one-and-one free throw opportunity.

“Obviously Seth was fantastic,” said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. “Very efficient 28 points. I thought he took really good shots, hit all his free throws, and he made two unbelievable steals. He made two great steals. And I thought he was the difference.”

Krzyzewski has said Curry is quiet by nature and is trying to get him to be more of a vocal leader.

“I just tried to do that tonight,” Curry said. “Our team kind of struggled at first, so we just had to pull out of that hole, and I was trying to be the guy to get that going.”

Miles of improvement. Senior co-captain Miles Plumlee appeared to be a much-improved player over last season.

He led the White team with 15 points and led all players with eight rebounds. He also won the dunk contest with a leap over younger brother Marshall in the finals.

“Miles is playing great,” Krzyzewski said. “He’s so powerful and he’s in such a good place. He’s talking out there. I’m really happy for him. He’s put a lot of work in.”

Krzyzewski said offensive rebounding could be a huge factor for the Blue Devils with Miles and Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly banging on the boards in a three-player rotation for two positions.

Miles Plumlee had six offensive rebounds, and Mason Plumlee and Kelly had three apiece.

“Our big guys are good,” Krzyzewski said. “The two Plumlees and Ryan, they’re very good basketball players.”

Freshmen make impact. All five players in Duke’s highly regarded freshman class made their presence felt in the scrimmage.

As expected, wing Austin Rivers was the leader of his class, as he scored 13 of his 14 points in the first half.

Point guard Quinn Cook scored seven points, shot 3-for-4 from the field and handed out two assists.

“They can all help us,” Krzyzewski said. “There’s no question about that. We’re going to need them to.”

Ken Tysiac

Krzyzewski despises 'pod' idea for ACC

2011-10-12T18:44:00.001-04:00

DURHAM – Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski came out in favor of more ACC expansion Wednesday but cautioned against splitting up an expanded ACC too much.
“It seems to me that if you’re going to go to 14 [schools], you should go to 16,” Krzyzewski said at his preseason-opening news conference. “And anytime I hear the word ‘pod,’ it makes me vomit.”

Last month the ACC announced it is adding Pittsburgh and Syracuse from the Big East, although their date of entry has not yet been declared. That would bring conference membership to 14 schools.

ACC commissioner John Swofford hasn’t ruled out the idea of expanding to 16 schools, and Notre Dame, Texas, Connecticut and Rutgers all have been mentioned in reports as possibilities.

One of the formats that’s been the subject of speculation for a 16-school conference is a split of four mini-divisions or “pods” of four schools each. Schools in each pod would play one another once each football season, plus home and away during basketball season.

That would allow the North Carolina “Big Four” schools of Duke, North Carolina, N.C. State and Wake Forest to strengthen their rivalries. Krzyzewski doesn’t like that idea.

He said it wouldn’t help national recruiting.

“The pods, I think that’s one of the worst business models there could possibly be,” Krzyzewski said. “I just break out in a rash when I hear it. You’ve got to be kidding me. A pod.

“ ‘Well, what did you this year?’

“ ‘We won our pod.’

“What’s the trophy for that?”

Krzyzewski advocates a split into two divisions. He said that would create scheduling formats for basketball that would expand from the current 16 ACC games to 19 in the case of a 14-team conference, and 18 ACC games for a 16-team conference.

He also was asked about negative comments his friend, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, made about joining the ACC. Boeheim predicted that the ACC tournament would stay mostly in the South but also would occasionally be held in New York City, where the Big East tournament currently is played annually.

“It’s a great place for a tournament,” Boeheim told an audience in Birmingham, Ala. “Where would you want to go to a tournament for five days? Let’s see: Greensboro, North Carolina, or New York City? Jeez. Let me think about that one and get back to you.”

Krzyzewski said Boeheim was reacting to a big change for his program, but said Syracuse officials are happy to be in the ACC.

“He just needs his coffee early in the morning,” Krzyzewski said. “He’s all right. He’s not a glass-half-full guy

Ken Tysiac

Bigs to play major role for Duke

2011-10-12T17:33:00.001-04:00

DURHAM – For the last several seasons under coach Mike Krzyzewski, Duke has used a perimeter-first formula to build an elite basketball program.

But personnel losses from last season leave Duke with 6-foot-11 junior Ryan Kelly and 6-10 junior Mason Plumlee as two of its three returning starters from a team that went 32-5 and lost in the West Regional semifinals of the NCAA tournament.

The Blue Devils’ lone senior is 6-10 Miles Plumlee, one of three Plumlee brothers on the team. So for the first time in recent memory, Duke’s focus is shifting away from the perimeter and toward veterans who play closer to the basket.

“Our big guys can be very good,” coach Mike Krzyzewski said Wednesday at the team’s preseason media availability. “And they should be. They’re ready to be. And a lot of success that we’ll have this season will be dependent on their play.”

Krzyzewski said Duke’s coaches learned during their August exhibition trip to China and Dubai that the two eldest Plumlees and Kelly are much improved players.

The trip was a chance for players to impress the coaches because standout seniors Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler are gone from last season’s team, along with No. 1 NBA draft pick Kyrie Irving.

Kelly led the team in scoring in China, averaging 15.0 points per game. Miles Plumlee averaged 9.8 rebounds per game, and Mason Plumlee shot 18-for-22 from the field to average 10.3 points.

Miles Plumlee and Kelly were named team captains in September.

“Coach definitely told us over the summer when we saw him that we can be a central focus of our team,” Kelly said. “It’s been a little bit different. The talent level of our bigs has increased a ton, and guys have gotten better.”

Duke still faces a lot of questions as it prepares for the Countdown to Craziness festivities Friday night that will begin preseason practice. The departures of Smith, Singler and Irving leave a team that Krzyzewski said will be balanced but doesn’t have players who are used to leading roles.

The team’s only major threat to create a shot off the dribble is guard Austin Rivers, who won many national player of the year awards as a high school senior but still is just a freshman.

So when the Blue Devils need a big basket down the stretch, it’s unclear who will take it.

“We don’t necessarily have to have Nolan taking the last shot,” Mason Plumlee said, “although that was nice.”

Instead, Duke may have different options each game and will rely more heavily on big men than in the past. In particular, the Plumlees and Kelly will quarterback the defense.

Krzyzewski said the coaches will figure out how to take advantage of the bigs’ ability to block shots and take charges. All around, for a team that has relied on Smith and Jon Scheyer and J.J. Redick for the past several years, the Blue Devils appear destined for a major change as the post players get more involved.

“How we incorporate our bigs in what we’re doing both offensively and defensively is a change from the last couple of years,” Krzyzewski said. “So there are some habits to break as far as how we score, how we defend. So we incorporate our big guys more. And we’re going to do that.”

Ken Tysiac

Devils to open practice with 'Craziness'

2011-10-11T17:02:00.002-04:00

For the third straight season, Duke’s men’s basketball team will begin practice with its Countdown to Craziness event at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Doors at Cameron will open at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 14, and the Blue-White Scrimmage will start at 8:55 p.m.

The event will feature live music, inflatable games, highlight videos, live performances and on court contests. Veteran analyst Bill Raftery will be on site as ESPNU will cover the event as part of its four-hour Midnight Madness special.

Ken Tysiac

Jordan Brand Classic returning to Charlotte

2011-09-13T12:28:00.000-04:00

James Michael McAdoo

The Jordan Brand Classic high school basketball all-star game will return to Charlotte's Time Warner Cable Arena on April 14, 2012, game officials announced today.

The game, featuring many of the top high school seniors in the country, will be televised live by ESPN. The day also includes an international all-star game and a regional game featuring players from the Carolinas.

Tickets are on sale at www.ticketmaster.com.

The event moved to Charlotte from New York City in 2011, and North Carolina freshman James Michael McAdoo and Kentucky freshman Anthony Davis were named co-most outstanding player.

Curry emerges as leading guard for Duke

2011-08-31T15:36:00.000-04:00

One of the goals of Duke’s four-game exhibition trip to China and Dubai earlier this month was to figure out which players could establish themselves in leading roles after the departures of Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler and Kyrie Irving.

Junior Seth Curry, a Charlotte Christian graduate who has taken over the point guard duties for Smith and Irving, stepped forward into one of those roles.

Curry averaged 13.5 points per game as Duke won three games against the Chinese Olympic Team and a fourth over the United Arab Emirates National Team.

“Seth’s good,” coach Mike Krzyzewski said this afternoon during his post-tour media briefing. “He’s just really good. I think he’ll be one of the better point guards in the country, especially if he learns to be the leader and not just a scorer. And I think he can do that.”

Junior forward and former Ravenscroft player Ryan Kelly also emerged in a much bigger role, averaging 15 points per game and improving his ability to score as a driver and in the low post. Krzyzewski said Kelly has the ability to make his teammates better.

“Ryan, that’s a good position for us, because that second big, matchup wise, when you can do the things he does, creates some really good situations for us in spacing, in mismatches,” Krzyzewski said.

Krzyzewski entered the trip uncertain of what to expect from the team because the three leaders from last season – Smith, Singler and No. 1 draft choice Irving – are gone. During the trip, which ended last week, Duke a six-player foundation separated itself from the pack.

Kelly, senior Miles Plumlee and junior Mason Plumlee demonstrated that they can be a strength of the team as they share minutes at the two forward positions. Curry, junior Andre Dawkins and freshman Austin Rivers solidified positions as the top players in the backcourt.

As was the case last season, scoring appears to be a strength of this team, according to Krzyzewski. He said the perimeter shooting ability of those top six players helps spread the floor and leave the big guys open in the post.

“We can really score the ball,” Krzyzewski said. “With the group that was starting, or if Mason’s in there, you can score from all five positions.”

Ken Tysiac

ACC schedule shows milestone set for New York

2011-08-24T16:01:00.002-04:00

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski's first attempt at breaking Bob Knight's Division I men's basketball career wins record is likely to take place against Michigan State in New York City, according to the ACC basketball schedule released this afternoon.

Krzyzewski has 900 wins and needs three more to pass his mentor, Knight, as Division I's winningest coach. Duke opens with games against Belmont and Presbyterian before meeting Michigan State on Nov. 15 in an event called the "Champions Classic."

North Carolina, which is expected to be the nation's No. 1 team when the preseason polls come out, also has a high-profile game scheduled against Michigan State in the Tar Heels' opener. The teams will meet Nov. 11 on the deck of the U.S.S. Carl Vinson in San Diego.

The always highly anticipated meetings between Duke and North Carolina will occur Feb. 8 at North Carolina and March 3 at Duke.

New N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried will get his first taste of rival North Carolina in games Jan. 26 in Chapel Hill and Feb. 21 in Raleigh. Gottfried's debut with the Wolfpack will come Nov. 11 against UNC Asheville. The Wolfpack's nonconference games will include a Dec. 4 visit to Stanford and a Dec. 17 meeting with Syracuse at the RBC Center in Raleigh.

Ken Tysiac

VIDEO: Vols women's basketball coach Pat Summitt talks about her dementia diagnosis

2011-08-23T17:12:00.002-04:00

Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt talks about her diagnosis of early onset dementia.

Vols coach Summitt has early onset dementia

2011-08-23T13:40:00.003-04:00

Legendary Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt has been diagnosed with early onset dementia, Alzheimer's type, she says.

Summitt, 59, plans to try to coach this season for the Volunteers. She has 1,071 career victories and eight national championships at Tennessee.

"There's not going to be any pity party and I'’ll make sure of that,"Summitt told the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

Kelly shines as Duke completes sweep in China

2011-08-22T14:19:00.001-04:00

Junior Ryan Kelly scored a team-high 20 points for the second straight game, and Seth Curry added 16 points to lead Duke to a 93-78 win over the Chinese Olympic Team Monday.

Miles Plumlee dropped in 14 points and pulled down 13 rebounds - eight of them offensive - and Mason Plumlee added 14 points on 7-for-8 shooting to help the Blue Devils sweep the three-game series with China.

Austin Rivers chipped in with 11 points and Andre Dawkins had 10 points to give Duke six double-figure scorers in the contest.

The Blue Devils dominated early, making their first four 3-point attempts and running out to leads of 13-2 and 28-6. Curry got off to a fast start, scoring eight of his 10 first half points in the first three minutes with a pair of three-point shots and a 20-foot jump shot. Miles Plumlee added six points during the run and finished the first half with 10 points and seven rebounds. . Duke led 49-40 at the half, on the strengh of 19-35 shooting, its best shooting half of the three games in China.

Kelly took over early in the second half to thwart a spirited charge by China. After China cut Duke's lead to 50-47, the 6-foot-11 junior poured in 14 points during a decisive 18-3 run. Rivers came up with a couple of key steals and chipped in five points in the quarter, helping Duke enter the final period with a 70-59 lead.

Mason Plumlee took control midway through the fourth quarter, scoring on a layup, a short turnaround jump hook, and a pair of dunks to lead the Blue Devils on a 12-1 run that put the game out of reach.

Chinese basketball icon Yao Ming attended the game and was presented with a Duke jersey at halftime by head coach Mike Krzyzewski. Ming also had lunch with Krzyzewski and the rest of the Duke staff earlier in the day.

Duke wraps up its foreign tour Thursday in Dubai against the United Arab Emirates national team.

- Duke Sports Information release

Box score (PDF)

Duke finishes China trip with third win

2011-08-22T10:43:00.000-04:00

Duke closed out its men's basketball tour of China with a 93-78 victory over the Chinese national team in Beijing Monday. Read more about the game at the website of Duke's student newspaper, the Chronicle.

The Blue Devils finished 3-0 in China, and will play a game in Dubai Thursday.

Kelly steps forward for Duke in China

2011-08-19T11:25:00.001-04:00

Duke junior forward Ryan Kelly has enjoyed bartering in the market and cruising down the Huang Pu River in the seemingly endless city of Shanghai, whose population numbers about 23 million.

On the Blue Devils’ exhibition trip to China, Kelly also has established himself as one of the most improved players on the team in wins over the Chinese Olympic team.

Kelly scored 14 points with 13 rebounds Wednesday in Kunshan and led Duke with 20 points and added eight rebounds Thursday in Shanghai.

“I think that’s the big thing is playing with confidence,” Kelly said in a teleconference with reporters from North Carolina newspapers this morning. “I’ve had a long summer to work on a lot of areas of my game, and I’ve really taken advantage of the opportunity to be at Duke all summer.”

A returning starter, Kelly averaged 6.6 points and 3.7 rebounds per game for Duke last season. The former Ravenscroft player has improved his game to fill a void for the Blue Devils, who have lost senior stalwarts Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler plus No. 1 overall NBA draft pick Kyrie Irving.

The focus for Kelly this summer has been improving his jump shot, quickness and lateral movement so he could create more shots for himself and others. That has paid off to the tune of 15-for-20 shooting from the field over Duke’s first two exhibition games.

“I knew I had to grow as a knock-down shooter and become more confident in my jump shot,” Kelly said, “and with that also make more plays off the dribble and not only create for myself and other players on the court.”

After playing games on back-to-back days, Duke is preparing to leave Saturday for Beijing. The Blue Devils will go to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City on Sunday and play the Chinese Olympic Team on Monday.

Duke will visit the Great Wall of China on Tuesday.

“Seeing the different cultures is a great experience,” Kelly said, “but we’re also here to play basketball.”

The trip has had its challenges for Duke. The charter flight that was supposed to leave from Raleigh-Durham International Airport was delayed by a day. In two games, the Chinese Olympic Team has shot 72 free throws to 25 for Duke.

But the Blue Devils have persevered, and they’ve avoided the controversy that surrounded another U.S. college team, Georgetown, in China. On Thursday, a brawl broke out between Georgetown and a Chinese team in an exhibition, causing an immediate end to the game in the fourth quarter.

“Obviously it’s an unfortunate situation, and when tempers are flaring you never know what’s going to happen,” Kelly said. “We’re certainly hoping nothing like that would happen to us.”

So far, only good things have happened to Kelly on this trip. He said the exhibition games have been helpful to the team, too, as the Duke coaching staff tries to figure out what roles players will be ready to assume on a team with significant personnel losses.

“Especially our freshmen have an opportunity to play against a high level talent,” Kelly said. “. . .It’s just an incredible opportunity for us to grow as individuals and as a team.”

Ken Tysiac

Ryan Kelly leads Duke to another win in China

2011-08-18T11:51:00.001-04:00

Ryan Kelly scored 20 points, Seth Curry added 15 and Austin Rivers 12 as Duke beat the Chinese National Team 78-66 in Shanghai, China, on Thursday.

The Blue Devils are 2-0 on their trip to China for the Friendship Games.

For complete coverage, including photos, check out The Chronicle, Duke's student newspaper, which is along for the trip.

Rivers makes successful Duke debut in China

2011-08-17T17:35:00.000-04:00

KUNSHAN, China – Highly recruited freshman guard Austin Rivers didn’t disappoint in his Duke debut.
Rivers, who’s considered to be one of the top freshmen in the nation, led the Blue Devils with 18 points and five assists in a 77-64 exhibition win over the Chinese Olympic Team. He shot 8-for-15 from the field.

"I felt very comfortable from the start of the game," Rivers said. "We got off to a little bit of a slow start but in the second half we came out and played well. We are excited about the way we played especially in the second half and looking forward to getting out there to continue to develop.”

Junior forward Ryan Kelly added 14 points and 13 rebounds for the Blue Devils, who held the home team in check with a solid defensive effort. China shot just 20-for-61 from the field and committed 19 turnovers.

Junior guards Andre Dawkins (15 points) and Seth Curry (13 points) combined for seven 3-pointers.
Duan Jiangpeng scored 19 points and made five 3-pointers for China, and Wang Zhelin scored 18 points with eight rebounds.

Duke will play the Chinese Olympic Team on Thursday in Shanghai and again Tuesday in Beijing as its exhibition tour continues.

Duke Sports Information

Aircraft problem delays Duke's trip to China

2011-08-15T10:15:00.000-04:00

Mechanical problems with the North American Airlines charter plane that was supposed to take Duke's basketball team to Shanghai have delayed the team's trip to China and Dubai.

In a news release this morning, Duke announced that the mechanical problem developed Sunday in Miami. An inspection later at Raleigh-Durham International Airport determined that the plane was not able to depart for Anchorage, Alaska, where a refueling stop was scheduled late Sunday night.

The airline was not able to provide a backup plane until Monday morning, according to Duke officials. The team is expected to arrive in time to tour the future campus at Duke Kunshan University and play the Chinese Olympic team on Wednesday at Kunshan Stadium.

The teams will meet again Thursday in Shanghai and on Aug. 22 in Beijing.

Ken Tysiac

Trip to China about improvement for Duke

2011-08-11T17:40:00.000-04:00

Duke's basketball team starts a X-day, four-game trip to China on Aug. 17, and Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski told the Duke Chronicle the trip will make his team better.

“I think [the Friendship Games will] make us a better basketball team,”Krzyzewski told the Chronicle. “If we’re a better basketball team, that helps everybody at our school and makes everybody a little bit more happy.”

The Blue Devils leave for China on Sunday.

UNC-FSU on ESPN Gameday, but not UNC-Duke?

2011-08-11T10:53:00.001-04:00

ESPN has released the lineup for its College Basketball Gameday, and the list includes the Jan. 14 North Carolina visit to Tallahassee for a game against Florida State. It's a return trip for the Tar Heels' Harrison Barnes, who quieted the FSU crowd with a three-point dagger for the win with three seconds left.

It's also the first time the Seminoles have hosted Gameday.

Another first? A flex option on March 3, either North Carolina at Duke or Texas at Kansas. Internet vote? An ESPN wait-and-see? Top bidder? No word yet on how the Worldwide Leader will choose, but the choice will be announced on Feb. 25.

Duke, Kansas highlight Davidson schedule

2011-08-04T10:33:00.003-04:00

Games against four opponents that finished last season with top-30 NCAA RPIs, including two at home in Belk Arena, highlight the 2011-12 Davidson men’s basketball schedule.

“Our schedule presents many challenging opportunities for our players and many exciting opportunities for our program and fans,” said Davidson coach Bob McKillop. “There is a mix of legendary programs, teams from some of the top conferences in America and
historical Davidson rivalries. Plus, the Southern Conference continues to get better from top to bottom.”

Davidson will play seven opponents that made NCAA tournament appearances last season and a total of nine that made it to the postseason.

The Wildcats will renew its long series with Duke Nov. 18 in Cameron Indoor Stadium and travels to Kansas City to meet Kansas Dec. 19. The Wildcats also host Richmond Nov. 14 and Vanderbilt on Dec. 7 in Belk Arena.

Davidson will host Lenoir-Rhyne in an exhibition Nov. 5, and open the regular season against visiting Guilford on Nov. 11.

The Wildcats will make the short trip to Mecklenburg County rival Charlotte on Saturday, Dec. 10. Their lone Southern Conference game against rival Appalachian State will be Saturday, Jan. 14 in Boone.

Davidson returns 11 lettermen and four starters from the 2010-11 team that finished 18-15 and advanced to the quarterfinals of the College Basketball Invitational. Seven of the Wildcats’ top eight scorers last season were freshmen or sophomores.

2011-12 Schedule:

NOVEMBER: 5, Lenoir-Rhyne (exhibition), 7 p.m.; 11, Guilford, 8; 14, Richmond, TBA; 18, at Duke, TBA; 21, Presbyterian, TBA; 26, at UNC Wilmington, 2

DECEMBER: 1, at Wofford*, 7; 3, Furman*, 7; 7, Vanderbilt, 7; 10, at Charlotte, 7; 19, at Kansas (Kansas City), TBA; 22, at UMass, TBA; 29, Penn, 7.

JANUARY: 5, at UNC Greensboro*, 7; 7, Georgia Southern*, 7; 12 Western Carolina*, 7; 14, at Appalachian State*, 2 p.m.; 19, College of Charleston*, 7; 21, The Citadel*, 7; 26, at Chattanooga*, 7; 28, at Samford*, TBA

FEBRUARY: 1, at Furman*, 7; 4, Chattanooga*, 4; 6, Wofford*, 7; 9, at The Citadel*, 7; 11, at College of Charleston*, TBA; 15, Samford*, 7; 18, BracketBuster, TBA; 23, Elon*, 7; 25, at Georgia Southern*, TBA;

MARCH: 2-5 Southern Conference tournament in Asheville

*-Southern Conference game

Observer News Services

Davidson releases men's basketball schedule

2011-08-04T10:12:00.002-04:00

A home game against Vanderbilt, hosting a Bracketbuster game and road games against Charlotte, Duke and Kansas highlight Davidson's men's basketball schedule, released Thursday.

Date Opponent, Time

N5 Lenoir-Rhyne (exhibition), 7 p.m.

N11 Guilford, 8 p.m.

N14 Richmond, TBA

N18 at Duke, TBA

N21 Presbyterian, TBA

N26 at UNC Wilmington, 2 p.m.

D1 at Wofford*, 7 p.m.

D3 Furman*, 7 p.m.

D7 Vanderbilt, 7 p.m.

D10 at Charlotte, 7 p.m.

D19 at Kansas (Sprint Center, Kansas City), TBA

D22 at Umass, TBA

D29 Penn, 7 p.m.

J5 at UNCG*, 7 p.m.

J7 Georgia Southern*, 7 p.m.

J12 Western Carolina*, 7 p.m.

J14 at Appalachian State*, 2 p.m.

J19 College of Charleston*, 7 p.m.

J21 The Citadel*, 7 p.m.

J26 at Chattanooga*, 7 p.m.

J28 at Samford*, TBA

F1 at Furman*, 7 p.m.

F4 Chattanooga*, 4 p.m.

F6 Wofford*, 7 p.m.

F9 at The Citadel*, 7 p.m.

F11 at College of Charleston*, TBA

F15 Samford*, 7 p.m.

F18 BracketBuster (opponent TBA), TBA

F23 Elon*, 7 p.m.

F25 at Georgia Southern*, TBA

M2-5 SoCon Tournament at Asheville Civic Center, TBA

All times Eastern (unless noted) and subject to change

* Southern Conference game

North Carolina headlines 2012 Maui field

2011-07-27T11:33:00.000-04:00

The Maui Invitational has officially announced its field for 2012, headlined by North Carolina.

The tournament, hosted by Chaminade, is scheduled for Maui's Lahaina Civic Center, also includes Butler, Illinois, Marquette, Mississippi State, Texas and Southern Cal.

The 2011 tournament, held over the Thanksgiving weekend, features Duke, Georgetown, Kansas, Memphis, Michigan, Tennessee, UCLA and Chaminade.