Feb. 24, 2009
By Adam
Lucas
I read an article on the SI.com website written by Jack McCallum entitled "The Big Brutal." In this article McCallum is referring to the Big East as the nation's best or most difficult basketball conference. The article quotes Levance Fields, point guard, from the University of Pittsburgh men's basketball team as saying, "Our bottom teams would be middle to top tier anywhere else in the country, including the ACC." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Has anyone seen the bottom teams in his league? My question is how has the ACC faired against Big East teams this year? And, how has the ACC faired against Big East teams in say the past ten years? I am so tired of hearing about the Big East being the best conference, why don't the two conferences just put together a SHOWDOWN every year and figure it out on the court?
Lee Cope
Mars Hill College
There's no question that an ACC-Big East Challenge would hold more intrigue than the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, which has lost a bit of its freshness. Here's the thing: the Big East has 16 schools, unless they've added a couple more this week and haven't told anyone yet. With them, that's always a possibility. If you have 16 teams, of course you're going to have more power teams. You have more teams overall, so it's natural that some of them are going to be better. Let the ACC add four teams, and odds are one of them will be a powerhouse. That would give the league at least five teams in the top 20...just like the Big East.
The ACC currently has three teams in the top seven of the RPI and five teams in the top 17. The Big East has three teams in the top 11 and five teams in the top 17. Based on those figures, the tops of the two leagues are fairly even. But here's the point Lee is making: the bottom four in the Big East (St. John's, South Florida, Rutgers, and DePaul) have RPIs of 156, 161, 171 and 189. Other teams in that range include 12-16 Iona, 11-12 CSU Northridge, 14-12 Stony Brook, and other teams that you'd be likely to find as a 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The ACC, meanwhile, has just one team below 100 in the RPI (Georgia Tech at 158).
Some more numbers you won't often hear when some of the talking heads start touting the Big East: the ACC is 10-6 against the Big East this year, 40-33 against the Big East over the last five years, and 84-60 against the Big East over the last ten years.
At this time each year it is interesting to see which team has the hardest / easiest ACC schedule. The ACC schedule is half over. So what teams have played the hardest schedule? What are the ACC records? What teams have the hardest schedule left?
Thaddeus M. Fine
Louisville, KY
We're even more than halfway through the ACC schedule now, so it's a good time to look ahead. At the end of the year, if things are still tight, we'll look back at which team's schedule played out most favorably. The Tar Heels currently have a one-game conference lead with three games to play. Here's a look at the other league contenders:
Clemson has home games against Virginia Tech and Virginia. But they also must make road trips to Florida State--the Seminoles' only home losses are to top-five powers Carolina, Duke, and Pittsburgh--and Wake Forest, where the Deacs are 13-1 at home.
Duke travels to Maryland this week and follows that with a road game at Virginia Tech. You probably don't need us to tell you about the Terps; the Hokies, meanwhile, have lost three in a row. After that, Duke hosts FSU before ending the season in Chapel Hill.
Wake Forest, which needs some help to win the league, hosts NC State, takes road trips to Virginia and Maryland, and then closes the season at home against Clemson. FSU, a team everyone has basically forgotten about, goes to Boston College, hosts Clemson, goes to Duke, and then ends the season with Virginia Tech.
Because I know this is going to come up, if Carolina and Duke end the season in a two-way tie (which would probably require the Blue Devils to win out and the Tar Heels to drop only the season finale), the first tiebreaker is head-to-head play. That would be a split, so the next tiebreaker would be the record against the next-highest team in the standings. From a Carolina standpoint, the hope would be that Wake finishes as far down the standings as possible, because the Deacons own every tiebreaker against UNC. It's equally preferable (in the two-way tie scenario with Duke) that Clemson finish as high as possible, because Carolina's 1-0 record against the Tigers would trump Duke's 0-1 record.
The easy answer to all this, of course, is that the Tar Heels could enjoy the fact that they still control their own destiny, win out, and claim the league title by at least one game.
I am more convinced than ever of something that I have been saying this whole season, and that is, that someone is going to seriously hurt Tyler Hansbrough to take him out of the game. It seems there is little or no repercussions on players that commit such fouls. I have several questions regarding this.
1) Do you know if Coach Williams has expressed this concern to ACC officials?
2) Has a UNC player (or any player on any top ranked team) ever been `taken out' by such a foul for an extended period?
3) Does the NCAA even consider this a problem?
I understand that when you have a player of Hansbrough's caliber that the other teams are going to play him hard and do whatever they can to minimize his abilities in order to win the game, but come on, whatever happened to sportsmanship?
R. Steve Starnes
Havelock, NC
1. Yes.
2. One of the biggest changes in basketball has been the way you feel when a player gets a breakaway. When a Tar Heel got the ball in the open court, it used to be an exciting play that created anticipation. Now, you immediately think, "I hope the other team doesn't hurt him." It's reached the point that I actually dislike breakaways. That's a sad commentary.
3. Try the NCAA Mailbag.
Hansbrough has had a very interesting senior season. He's been on the receiving end of at least three intentional fouls, had a tooth loosened against Clemson (and was called for a foul on that play), and suffered either a mild concussion or near concussion against Miami on a play where there was no call. "I would say it has been more physical than in past years," Hansbrough says. "Other teams are playing more physically and more aggressively." It's very similar to the senior year experienced by Eric Montross, whose free throws per game actually decreased as a senior as teams and officials "adjusted" to the way he played.
Over the last five ACC road games, Hansbrough has attempted 3.8 free throws per game (and it's worth noting that four of his free throws in that stretch came in garbage time at Duke rather than during meaningful game action). In that same stretch, shooting guard Wayne Ellington is attempting 5.6 free throws per game and Ty Lawson is attempting 6.2 free throws per game. Lawson has been driving to the basket more frequently, which accounts for some of his free throws (he's also smaller, which accentuates contact, which just might have something to do with it).
But let's look at Ellington. During that same stretch of five road games, 29 of Ellington's 58 field goal attempts (50.0%) have been three-pointers. Hansbrough has attempted 53 two-point field goals, most of them within the paint. But he's attempted significantly fewer free throws than someone who took half his shots from beyond the three-point arc.
Over the first five league games of the year, Hansbrough shot 12 free throws per game. Since then, the league must have gotten much less physical (why are you laughing?), because he's averaged 5.6 free throws per game in the eight conference games since then.
Brownlow's Down Low
Towards the end of the broadcast of our latest victory over Duke, there was a graphic showing Ty Lawson's game stats vs. those of Greg Paulus. Lawson: 25 points, 5 assists, 5 turnovers. Paulus: 8 points, 3 assists, 2 turnovers. What are their career stats against one-another? Also, is there a guard in the league that has matched up more than four times against Lawson that has the upper hand?
Jonathan Whitacre
Franklin, TN
Lauren writes: To be fair, this question came in before the Maryland game. It would be pretentious to point out the obvious - Carolina's defense is team-oriented and no one person can be assigned blame for any player going off. But even with Greivis Vasquez's 35-point explosion on Saturday, Lawson has still kept pace with 63 points to 70 in four games. Vasquez had as many points and rebounds in his previous three games against Carolina as he did in Saturday's game - 35 and 11. Vasquez has 29 assists and 23 turnovers in four games while Lawson has 19 assists to 16 turnovers.
Paulus has outscored Lawson in two of the three meetings and tied him in the other game. But overall on the strength of the last meeting, Lawson has outscored Paulus 62-59 in the four games and has shot 53.7% from the floor (40% for Paulus). He has 17 assists and 11 turnovers; Paulus has 13 assists to six turnovers. Interestingly, Paulus has made 10-of-25 three's in the four meetings and Lawson is 0-of-6 from beyond the arc.
Against Tyrese Rice, Lawson has not been healthy in all five meetings but still has 34 assists to nine turnovers. Rice has 22 assists to 16 turnovers. Lawson was not at 100 percent when Rice went off for 46 points against the Tar Heels in Chestnut Hills last season but Rice has outscored him, 116-53, in the five games. Rice has taken over double the field-goal attempts to do that, however (80 to 39); 42 of the points were from beyond the arc and 30 from the foul line.
In five games against Toney Douglas, he has 57 points to 77 for Douglas but has 22 assists to eight turnovers against Florida State's defensive ace. Douglas has 18 assists to 13 turnovers. Without his 32-point explosion against Carolina last time, he would average a little more than ten points a game against Carolina.
The junior point guard has also won some big battles over the years, most notably his freshman year. Against Ohio State's Mike Conley, Jr., he had 13 points on 3-of-6 shooting (6-of-12 from the foul line) to go with five assists and no turnovers. Conley, Jr. had just eight points on 3-of-9 shooting but did add eight assists to three turnovers. He played against NBA guard and former Georgia Tech player Javaris Crittenton twice and forced him into 12 turnovers (14 assists). Lawson had 12 turnovers and seven assists with just 13 points. Crittenton had 20 points in the two games on 6-of-22 shooting. He also frustrated Arizona's Mustapha Shakur, holding him to 15 points, four assists and eight turnovers. Lawson had 18 points, eight assists and just one turnover.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
