Nov. 28, 2009
By Lauren Brownlow
The Basics
No. 11/12 North Carolina (4-1) will play its second of three straight home games against Nevada (2-2). Carolina is coming off of a 93-72 win over Gardner-Webb on Monday night. Nevada lost at Virginia Commonwealth on Friday night, 85-76. This game will be Carolina's second straight against an unranked opponent before it faces two ranked opponents in a row and three ranked opponents in the next four games. Carolina will play three of its next four games in the Smith Center and six of its next nine before ACC play begins.
Game Time: Nevada at North Carolina, 6:45 PM.
Last Time: Carolina beat Nevada 84-61 in Reno on December 31, 2008. Nevada was up 14-12 early but a 10-1 Carolina run righted the ship and the Tar Heels led by 20 with 14:19 left. The lead got as large as 71-48 with a little over six minutes left. Carolina shot 50.8% for the game and was out-rebounded by the Wolf Pack, 39-38. Nevada hit just 1-of-10 three-pointers and shot 34.9 percent. Tyler Hansbrough led Carolina with 22 points. Wayne Ellington had 15 points and Ty Lawson had 11 points, seven assists and just two turnovers. Luke Babbitt led Nevada with 22 points. Armon Johnson had 15 points and Malik Cooke had 13 points.
Radio Coverage: Tar Heel Sports Network coverage will begin at 5:45 PM.
Storylines
Rebounding: There are two things that the Tar Heels should be good at, young or not, this season - rebounding and defense. Both of those are not as simple as being tall or being lengthy. And that has shown this season as this young team has not always been able to find their man to box out and or corral long rebounds on the defensive end. Every team this season that Carolina has played has rebounded at least one-fifth of their missed shots; Ohio State and Syracuse combined to rebound over 40% of their missed field goals. Carolina has a significant height advantage over an Ohio State team that it allowed to rebound nearly 43% of its misses, a season high.
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Carolina, on the other hand, has rebounded over 44.4% of its missed shots in all but one game; it rebounded just 37% of its misses against Ohio State. Against Gardner-Webb, Carolina rebounded 58.6% of its missed shots. As a young team tries to find its identity and prove on the things it does not do well, it should concentrate on making sure it succeeds in the areas of the game it is doing well. Last season, Nevada put up an impressive performance on the backboards against Carolina, particularly the offensive boards. Nevada is doing well again on rebounding this season. Nevada out-rebounded VCU 50-45, including a whopping 27-14 edge on the offensive glass. The Wolf Pack had just 19 second-chance points off of those offensive boards, compared to 20 for VCU on 14 offensive rebounds.
Tightening the rotation: Right now, Carolina has nine players averaging ten or more minutes and 12 averaging seven or more minutes. That will not continue as the season starts to get into more and more competitive games and Carolina will need to start figuring out which players will continue to get 10-12 minutes per game and which will see spot duty, in the 5-10 range perhaps. "We're still trying to give some guys some opportunities to decide whether they're going to be a player or not, whether they're going to be one in the main rotation or not," Roy Williams said. "We're getting close to where we're going to have to tighten up the rotation. I'm not going to play 12 guys just because I like the way they smile."
Six of the 12 players currently in the rotation are in the 7-15 minute range and of those, five are freshmen. It shows as they have accounted for about a fourth of Carolina's total turnovers; only John Henson has a note-worthy assist-turnover ratio (nine assists to just one turnover). But Henson, like the rest of the freshmen, is still gaining the confidence he needs. All of them seem afraid to make a mistake at times. With four straight days of practice going into the game and the Tar Heels facing one of two unranked foes in its next five games, the freshmen need to be more aggressive and gain some confidence in order to earn a rotation spot. "It's not just freshmen sometimes," Will Graves said of the tentativeness. "It's just wanting to do the right thing every time, not wanting to make mistakes and that leads into making mistakes instead of just playing basketball."
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 Net coverage: The game will be available on Fox Sports Net.
Names To Know
Dexter Strickland: It was overwhelming for the true freshman, newly-converted point guard to play in front of his hometown family and friends just four games into his young career. But Strickland has tried to do his best this year to take everything being thrown at him in stride and learn as best he can. "I'm just learning all the spots and everybody's spot, where everybody is supposed to be, and just getting players involved," Strickland said. "Coach (Williams) said he's going to throw a lot of things at me - I've just got to stay focused and catch every one of them. I think I'm doing a good job at that. I can do better. It's a challenge, but I'm getting through it."
The freshman had a rough beginning to his career, dishing out just one assist to five turnovers in 11 minutes against FIU and posting eight assists to 11 turnovers in the first five games. He has seemed to calm down quite a bit and his three assists to just one turnover represented his best assist-turnover ratio game this season. He also had four points on 2-of-5 shooting, his best game since NC Central. "I try to go out there and not make a mistake and then wind up making a mistake," Strickland said. "In high school, I didn't think about making mistakes and I played much better. So I think if I have that mindset, I'll play much better when I get out there on the floor."
Strickland has yet to make a three-pointer this season (0-for-5) but he has penetrated very well at times and made some nifty baskets, shooting 7-of-14 (50%) from two-point range. The fact that Williams is playing him nearly 15 minutes a game shows that he has faith in Strickland. Williams even tried playing Strickland alongside the comparatively much more experienced Larry Drew II against Gardner-Webb to help bring him along. "We did some unusual things because that is the first time with Dexter and Larry in together, and then Dexter forgot and didn't set a screen on the secondary, which you've got to be able to do as the one-man or the two-man," Williams said. "It was probably a little hectic for them out there."
John Henson: The uber-talented freshman is a physical specimen to behold but appears to still be finding his legs in college basketball. At times - like when he picked off a Syracuse inbounds pass and slammed it home with ease - he seems unstoppable. At other times, he seems a bit lost at his new position on the wing. Obviously, those kinds of stretches are typical for a freshman. But it's a good sign for Carolina that Henson tied his season-high for minutes with 13 against Gardner-Webb and had three points, three rebounds, two assists, a block and no turnovers. "I think I just need to work on defense, guarding your man up top, screens and slowly building my confidence to be out there and doing my thing," Henson said.
It's hard for him to keep up with quick, penetrating small forwards. But as Henson gets more and more comfortable on the other end of the court, that should start to show as well. It already has to a certain degree - the freshman has nine assists to just one turnover, by far the best ratio on teh team. If he can get comfortable enough to take more shots and get more aggressive, he will likely solidify a spot as the seventh or eighth man off the bench behind Tyler Zeller and Strickland.
Brandon Fields: The 6-4 senior guard is the second-leading scorer on Nevada this season with 18.3 points a game and has added 5.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists and nearly a steal per contest. He is shooting 49.1% from the floor and 8-of-22 (36.4%) from beyond the arc; he is tied for the team lead in made three's with eight. Fields also ranks second on the team in free throws attempted with 19 (4.8 per game) and ranks ahead of star forward Luke Babbitt in that category. This is yet another penetrating guard Carolina will face that will look for his offense and penetrate. Against VCU, Fields had 13 points and nine rebounds but shot just 4-of-14 from the floor (0-of-4 from beyond the arc). Last year against Carolina, Fields had just five points on 2-of-8 shooting in 21 minutes.
Luke Babbitt: The 6-9 sophomore forward has started off the season strong yet again, leading his team in scoring with 29.3 points per game and 10.8 rebounds per game. He is shooting just 47% from the floor but had made 3-of-9 three-pointers, including 3-of-6 in Nevada's first three contests. Against VCU on Friday, Babbitt had 27 points on 12-of-25 shooting (0-of-3 from beyond the arc) and 11 rebounds (eight offensive). He had a very good game against Carolina last year, scoring a team-high 22 points on 8-of-14 shooting (1-of-2 from beyond the arc) and adding seven rebounds.
Quotables
"A ball is loose laying on the floor and (Gardner-Webb's Grayson Flitner) about 18 feet away and we've got four guys doing the Mexican hat dance deciding who's going to get the dadgum had on the floor. He dove in there and got the loose ball." -Roy Williams
"I guess it's the giving season." -Tom Izzo at halftime of the Florida-Michigan State game Friday night (his team had 13 turnovers at the break)
Lauren Brownlow is the executive editor of Tar Heel Monthly.
