Nov. 23, 2009
By Lauren Brownlow
The Basics
No. 6/4 North Carolina (4-1) will host Gardner-Webb (3-0) in its first of three home games in eight days. Carolina had its nine-game winning streak dating back to last season snapped by Syracuse in the finals of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic on Friday night. Syracuse beat Carolina 87-61 in the second-biggest loss of the Roy Williams era. Gardner-Webb (3-0) is coming off of an 83-58 win over Methodist on Saturday night. The Bulldogs have also beaten Covenant and Montreat, both at home.
Game Time: Gardner-Webb at North Carolina, 7:30 PM.
Last Time: Carolina beat Gardner-Webb 103-50 on November 19, 2006. Carolina shot 53% for the game and out-rebounded the Bulldogs 58-20. Gardner-Webb shot just 28.4 percent. Carolina led by 38 at halftime and Gardner-Webb had 17 turnovers at the break (it ended with 21 turnovers). Brandan Wright led Carolina with 21 points. Wayne Ellington had 19 points on 8-of-10 shooting and Tyler Hansbrough added 18 points and nine rebounds. Chris Gash led Gardner-Webb with 14 points. Takayo Siddle had ten points.
Radio Coverage: Tar Heel Sports Network coverage will begin at 6:30 PM.
Storylines
Just play basketball: After his team took the second-worst drubbing of the Roy Williams era, the head coach refused to allow the media or anyone else to use youth as an excuse for the loss or the 20-1 run Syracuse got on to start the second half. "Don't say that it's too young a team. We're basketball players. You've got to play and you've got to handle some adversity," Williams said. "We've just got to find some guys that will be more aggressive. We need to push it more. ... The first two possessions of the second half, we shoot two air balls and the next two possessions we turn it over, so the first four possessions of the second half we don't have a shot hit the rim."
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At times, it seems that even some of the older players are unsure of what to do. Part of it is this group getting used to each other and their different styles. But with the exception of 2-3 players, no one seems willing to make an offensive decision or take the shot when it needs to be taken at the end of a possession, leading to confusion and usually, a turnover. In fact, it took until the 17:13 mark of the first half for a Carolina field goal to hit the rim at all. Carolina had its chances. Syracuse went on a 20-1 run that began as a 15-1 run in the first 6:54 of the second half. Carolina rebounded its own missed shots four times to give themselves four extra possessions, but couldn't convert. In fact, Carolina committed five of its ten second-half turnovers in that span and had 11 missed shots, including two airballs. Syracuse had 13 possessions in that span and scored two-pointers on six of them and had a three-point play on another. But the Orange turned it over on three of those possessions and missed three shots. Carolina had three extra possessions and couldn't take advantage of the chances it had to keep the game within reach early on.
"We were playing kind of - Coach was saying cautious," Marcus Ginyard said. "We just came out not really attacking them and they got us back on our heels. They were taking advantage of every opportunity that we gave them. We felt like we were giving them a lot of extra opportunities that they weren't giving us." Carolina has eight days before it starts yet another stretch against ranked teams (two in the first five days of December) and it would ideally like to develop more chemistry and more comfort and confidence on the court. It has become something echoed by each player sick and tired of hearing the youth excuse that everyone on this team has been playing basketball their whole lives, and at a high level. The youth excuse is running thin on the team and frankly, it won't matter much anymore if the team goes on a skid. While they certainly needed to be humbled after Williams called them "fat and happy" last week, they also need to make sure their confidence doesn't take too big a hit over this next stretch of games before ACC play begins.
At The Game
Listening to the Tar Heel Sports network at the game: The in-stadium frequency in the Smith Center will be FM 92.7. That station will have a non-delayed feed of WCHL 1360, the local affiliate.
Watching At Home
Turn down the sound: If you're watching at home while listening to the radio or over the computer via Carolina All-Access, there will inevitably be some delay. For the reason - and a possible solution - click here.
A full list of THSN affiliates can be found here.
Fox Sports South coverage: The game will be available on Fox Sports South.
Names To Know
Travis Wear: Coach Williams is yearning for aggression in his young team, and one of its youngest members tried to provide him with just that against Syracuse. Down 65-47 with 9:53 to go, Carolina scored ten straight points to cut the lead to ten in 1:39 and had a 13-3 run to cut it to eight points over a span of 2:46. In that time, Travis Wear was in the game along with his twin brother, who hit the three to cut it to eight points. But Travis had two offensive rebounds (each of which led to second-chance points) and a two-point basket. The stats from that run weren't gaudy, but he ended up with eight points and three rebounds (all offensive) in just ten minutes during a game in which it seemed everyone on the team was scared to move. He was the spark that ignited that run.
Only six Tar Heels attempted more than five shots in two games in Madison Square Garden last week. Wear joined Marcus Ginyard, Will Graves, Deon Thompson, Tyler Zeller and attempted just one fewer shot than Ed Davis (10). He made 6-of-9 and scored 12 points in 22 minutes, adding four offensive boards and just one turnover. Even just taking shots is important, as many seem tentative to even do that - in the last two games, Wear was second on the team in shots attempted per minute behind Will Graves (0.558) with 0.48 per minute. And he made 66.7% of his attempts while Graves made 33.3 percent. The other three freshmen who played in both games combined to attempt 13 shots in 93 minutes, making just two. His four offensive rebounds came in 44 fewer minutes than Marcus Ginyard, glass-cleaner extraordinaire, who had just five, all against Syracuse. As Roy Williams seeks effort, consistency and aggression, Travis Wear seems to be providing all three.
Larry Drew II: Like a quarterback who has been sacked too many times, sometimes point guards who have a rough start to their careers can be gun-shy. Just ask Quentin Thomas how long it took him to regain his confidence, or see a guy like Adam Boone and ask him how much fun it was to play out of position and hear it from the fans during an 8-20 season. It takes a special breed of person to be able to handle playing the point in a Roy Williams offense, and Carolina has been spoiled by watching two of the best point guards to ever play at Carolina in five of Coach Williams' first six seasons. But while Bobby Frasor's jersey won't be in the rafters, he will forever be in the hearts of the Tar Heel faithful for things like that wink at the foul line and the way he always coolly - and confidently - led the team to the best of his ability.
Well, good news, Carolina fans - Larry Drew II will be just fine as well. The only issue with Drew at this point is that he is perhaps not aggressive enough. To be fair to him, he is still feeling out his teammates and his new role as the starter. But of the nine players to see action in both games, he was by far last in shots per minute taken (0.096) with just five shots in 52 minutes played. Dexter Strickland's 0.19 shots per minute were not much better, but his tentativeness is understandable. Drew and Strickland cannot combine for 79 minutes and ten shots and 11 points in two games, and they particularly can't combine for ten turnovers if they are taking that few shots.
Still, Drew's confidence - both in himself and his shot - is growing every day, as evidenced by his thoughts after the Syracuse loss. "There are no more butterflies. I have my feet set. I'm confident," Drew said. "My two jumpshots (against Syracuse) - one hit the backboard I airballed one of them and they both felt good. I'm just going to keep my confidence in my shot. I just feel like I need to do a better job of leading my team, getting my teammates shot and creating on offense."
Auryn MacMillan: At just 6-8 and 235 pounds, MacMillan is the Bulldogs' tallest player and the Australian center has played that way. He is one of only three seniors on the team and has improved each season, spending last summer with the Australian National Team. In three games, he leads the team in scoring (12.7 points), blocked shots (4.0 per game) and is shooting a ridiculous 72.7% from the floor (16-of-22). He is doing all that in just 22.3 minutes per game, fourth-most on the team. Against Methodist, MacMillan had 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting and added nine rebounds and four blocks in 30 minutes.
Josh Henley: The sophomore forward is coming off of a freshman season in which he led the entire country - all Division-I freshmen - in rebounding. He is just 6-3, but the tenacious Henley is not content to rest on his rebounding totals from last year. He has 32 of the team's 134 rebounds this season and is leading the Bulldogs in that category with 10.7 per game. He is also shooting 73.3% from the floor, first on the team, on his way to 7.7 points per game. Against Methodist, he had 18 points and 13 rebounds in 29 minutes, shooting 9-of-10 from the floor. He has not hit a three-pointer this season and is just 1-of-5 from the foul line and has committed a team-high 11 turnovers, so his aggression can work against him as well. But to be 6-3 and rebound the way he has in his career means he could make some bigger Tar Heels look silly if they do not find him every time a ball goes up.
Quotables
"It's amazing - I don't know where they picked in the league, but when they lost their exhibition game, everybody was saying that Syracuse is not very good. I'd hate to play that non-Division I team (LeMoyne) on a regular basis if they're better than Syracuse." -Roy Williams
"We tried, but they (Syracuse) were hard to handle - tonight. I'd like to have a chance to play them again tomorrow tonight and they might beat us again and I'd like to play them the next night and they might beat us again. But hopefully, we'll learn a lot of things from this game." -Roy Williams
"260 (pounds) met 210 (pounds). That's really what happened. I just got big-boy'd." -Marcus Ginyard on taking a hard shot by Syracuse's Arinze Onuaku
Lauren Brownlow is the executive editor of Tar Heel Monthly.
