Dec. 19, 2009
By Adam Lucas
ARLINGTON--Last year in Memphis, Roy Williams was describing what made Gonzaga such an effective opponent. The key phrase: "They're five guys moving together." On defense, the Bulldogs moved together. On offense, they moved together. They knew where their teammates were going, knew how to react to every move, and knew how to communicate to make it work.
There's no way to quantify that attribute. Right now, though, Carolina doesn't have it.
There were physical stories from Saturday's 103-90 loss to Texas. Some of the statistics were staggering, the kind you may not see again. The Tar Heels gave up over 100 points in regulation for the first time in the Roy Williams era, with Texas breaking the previous opponents' high (Virginia Tech in 2007) by seven points. The Longhorns grabbed 29 offensive rebounds. They scored their 103 points without even shooting 40 percent from the floor. That's hard to do.
And Texas is good. The consensus among the players in the locker room was that the Longhorns are the best team Carolina has played during this difficult stretch of five ranked teams before Christmas. "They're big," Williams said, "and they're good."
It's also true that the Tar Heels aren't quite themselves yet. In the final few minutes of the game, Texas workhorse Dexter Pittman dominated the action without his team ever running a single play for him. He simply went into the paint, used a big paw to ward off the nearest Tar Heel, and waiting for one of his teammates to miss a shot. Then he grabbed the rebound and drew a foul or got a stickback.
Pittman is the type of player Roy Williams's system is built to exploit. As the primary post threat, he's susceptible to foul trouble against a team that continuously pounds the ball inside. And as someone who wrestles with his physical conditioning, he's vulnerable against a team that is committed to pushing the ball up the floor after both makes and misses.
But Pittman played 26 minutes against the Tar Heels, and although he did look tired on a couple of occasions, Carolina never applied the knockout blow.
"We wanted to get him in foul trouble and we wanted to run him," Williams said. "Then we had to deal with him in there (at the end) and he's a load inside."
Those are the types of plays that can be corrected. Carolina can concentrate on getting the ball inside more regularly, or pushing the tempo more often. The freshmen are still learning--you can almost watch the light coming on in Dexter Strickland's head as he figures out the difference between good aggressiveness (when you have numbers and a big man backpedaling, take it to the basket, as he did successfully in the second half) and bad aggressiveness (don't force a shot with 15 seconds left in the first half that opens the door for a six-point Texas swing in the final 30 seconds). Those physical improvements will come. They've come for every class in the Williams era, and there's no reason to believe they won't for this group.
But there's another element to a successful basketball team, and it's not evident on the stat sheet. Carolina's communication right now is, well, how would you describe it, Marcus Ginyard?
"Miserable," the senior said. "We'll talk on the court for one play or two plays. Something good will happen. Then we'll be dead silent the next couple plays. We're not flying around. Talking and communicating has a lot to do with it. We're way behind in that game. We've definitely got to do a better job communicating. When we do talk, we're not hearing each other. And it's me too, because I can think of a play where I didn't do what I was supposed to do."
Keep in mind that that's partly the tone of a frustrated senior in the minutes immediately following a disappointing game. But it's also the voice of experience who knows that his team is not in sync. On multiple occasions, Carolina came out of a dead ball with a set play and at least one player didn't know where he was supposed to be. Some of the reason was unfamiliarity--Strickland was caught unaware of his role as a two-guard on one set because he's spent most of his time learning the point guard position--but some was just a mental miscue.
On one UT possession, with Drew and Strickland in the game together, they failed to identify which Longhorn each was guarding. Eventually, Carolina will be good enough to overcome that type of mistake--although it'll still drive the coaching staff just as crazy. Right now, they're not. Right now, it looks like no one's having fun on the court because everyone is so busy trying to make sure they're going to the right place. Danny Green used to talk about the joy of losing himself in the game. This year's Tar Heels aren't certain enough of themselves yet to lose themselves.
"Right now, we're not in sync," Ginyard said. "We're not talking."
Those are words that need to be heard.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of five books on Carolina basketball, including the just-released book on the 2009 national title, One Fantastic Ride. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter.
