Tag Archives: North Carolina Basketball

Your pocket guide to Duke-North Carolina

Posted on by
Leave a reply

No. 5 North Carolina will play host to the No. 10 Blue Devils tonight in the first meeting between the teams this season. Tipoff is at 9 p.m.

Duke is coming off a home loss to Reggie Johnson and Miami, but has not lost consecutive games since 2009. The Tar Heels struggled to get past Maryland over the weekend, but the interior tandem of John Henson and Tyler Zeller are playing as well as any frontcourt in the nation. Click here for a full preview.

Projected starters:

Duke (19-4): G Quinn Cook, G Seth Curry, G Austin Rivers, F Ryan Kelly, F Mason Plumlee.

North Carolina (20-3): G Kendall Marshall, G Reggie Bullock, F Harrison Barnes, F John Henson, F Tyler Zeller.

1. Can Duke handle the Tar Heels’ height?

North Carolina is the nation’s tallest team by Ken Pomeroy’s overall average height statistic, which is measured by weighting each player’s listed height by the number of minutes he plays. The Blue Devils rank 36th, and nowhere is this discrepancy more evident than on the wing. Six-foot-8 Harrison Barnes will have a four-inch advantage over Austin Rivers, and Duke’s big men will need to work hard to help out.

2. Can the Plumlees keep Zeller and Henson off the glass?

The North Carolina big men have combined for 112 rebounds over their last five games. While Mason Plumlee has 54 boards by himself over that span, his older brother has just 22 and Kelly has 28. Without a second rebounder, the Blue Devils will be hard pressed to take down the Tar Heels.

3. Live by the three, win by the three?

North Carolina’s weakness thus far has been from long range, where they shoot just 35.8 percent. The team scores under 19 percent of its points from beyond the arc, one of the lowest marks in the nation. Duke shot a woeful 9-for-31 from downtown Sunday against Miami, but might be able to overcome the Tar Heels’ efficient offense by knocking down some 3-pointers.

Counterpoint: North Carolina has too much firepower

Posted on by
1 Reply

After a demoralizing loss to Miami Sunday, the Blue Devils are no doubt eager to attack their opponents with renewed energy. Unfortunately, their redemption must wait at least one more game, because North Carolina—the most talented team in the ACC—will hand Duke another loss in Chapel Hill Wednesday.

Why? Let’s begin with a recap of last year’s series. The Tar Heels dropped two out of the rivals’ three meetings last season, but North Carolina notched a convincing 81-67 victory in the Dean E. Smith Center to capture the regular season conference championship. Despite 30 points from then-senior Nolan Smith, the Tar Heels jumped out to a 14-point lead in the first half and never looked back.

Although it would be unwise to draw too many conclusions from a single game, almost all of the players who squared off in that matchup last March will be back on the floor Wednesday night, except for a trio of Blue Devil stars. The North Carolina offense also remains as potent as it was last season, with the Tar Heels leading the nation in scoring at just over 84 points per game. Duke can score in bunches, but turning the game into a shootout would play right into North Carolina’s hands. The defensive effort put forth by the Blue Devils will ultimately determine whether they come away with the win, especially if they shoot poorly from the outside.

Yet I have a hard time believing Duke will succeed in shutting down all of Roy Williams’ weapons, especially considering the Blue Devils’ recent struggles on the defensive end. The NBA-ready trio of Harrison Barnes, John Henson and Tyler Zeller comprises one of the best frontcourts in the college game, while point guard Kendall Marshall ranks second in Division I in assists per contest. And even without the injured Dexter Strickland, the Tar Heels’ supporting cast features three players—Reggie Bullock, P.J. Hairston and James Michael McAdoo—capable of scoring in double figures on any given night.

After playing inspired defense against Virginia Tech Thursday, Duke experienced a letdown during the Miami game Sunday. Kenny Kadji and Reggie Johnson—similar in height but less skilled than Henson and Zeller—combined for 42 points in the Hurricanes’ first-ever win at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Given the success Johnson enjoyed down low, North Carolina’s twin towers should receive plenty of good looks at the basket. Granted, neither Zeller nor Henson carries the girth of the 285-pound Johnson, but they don’t need to outmuscle their defenders in order to score. Both players boast an arsenal of post moves and can knock down jumpers from 10-12 feet.

Unless the Blue Devils can consistently play the type of lockdown perimeter defense they displayed in the second half of Sunday’s defeat, Marshall will find a way to get his big men involved. He may not possess enough quickness to drive by Duke’s guards, but his court vision is so highly developed that he can put the ball in the hands of Henson and Zeller without penetrating deep into the lane. The distributor also excels in transition and can pick defenses apart with his outlet pass.

The Blue Devils could fluster the Tar Heels by exploiting Marshall’s occasional carelessness with the ball—almost 30 percent of his possessions this season have resulted in turnovers. But Duke usually doesn’t create many takeaways as a result of its defensive strategy. The Blue Devils’ opponents this season have coughed up the ball about once every five possessions, a mark slightly below the Division I average.

Finally, Duke will need to find a way to contain Barnes—North Carolina’s leading scorer. The 6-foot-8 forward poses a serious matchup problem on the wing, and the Blue Devils are fortunate that he’s still dealing with an ankle injury sustained last week. Nevertheless, Barnes mustered 18 points against Maryland Saturday and hit a late jumper that sealed the Tar Heels’ victory.

When Duke takes the floor at the Dean Dome, Mike Krzyzewski will make sure his team understands the level of intensity needed to earn a victory in the Tobacco Road rivalry. But if Blue Devils haven’t shown the ability to sustain that focus and unity of purpose in tough games at home, doing so in front of 21,750 hostile fans seems unlikely.

Blue Devils rank No. 6 in preseason coaches poll

Posted on by
Leave a reply

Duke has been tabbed as the nation’s sixth-best team, according to the preseason coaches poll released Thursday.

North Carolina top the list with 774 points, including 30 of the 31 first-place votes. Kentucky followed with 721 points and the remaining top vote. The Blue Devils are only other ACC team in the poll with 635 points, though Florida State leads the “others receiving votes” category.

The Big East leads all conferences with six teams ranked in the poll, including four in the top 11. The SEC and Big 12 are both represented by four teams, and the Big 10 and Pac-12 have three each.

Arizona, who beat the Blue Devils in last year’s NCAA tournament behind the play of Derrick Williams, came in at No. 16.

Is It Really a Down Year?

Posted on by
Leave a reply

As the regular season winds down, it is becoming clearer which teams will be dancing. In Joe Lunardi’s latest edition of bracketology, just four ACC teams make the cut. I say “just four” because many experts have coined this as a down year for the conference. I will concede that compared to the powerhouse Big East, which is slated to receive an unprecedented 11 bids, the ACC is in a down year.

I argue though that, for the last few years, the conference has become a little overrated.  The ACC has received just four bids in two of the last five seasons, and through the last ten years, the conference only averages five bids each year. Furthermore, through that span, it averages fewer than two teams reaching the Sweet 16 each year. To find the last time three teams from the ACC reached the Sweet 16 you have to go all the way back to 2005. In 2005, North Carolina won the championship, and No. 1 seed Duke reached the Sweet 16 along with No. 10 seed N.C. State.

This year it seems likely that the conference sends two teams, the Blue Devils and Tar Heels, to the Sweet 16. Both teams are ranked in the top 13 of both the AP Poll and Coaches’ Poll this week. They are slated to be a No. 2 and No. 3 seed respectively in Lunardi’s latest projection. The other ACC teams projected to receive bids are Florida State and Virginia Tech. Both of these teams beat Duke to earn their signature victories. Clemson, who is one of first eight teams missing the cut according to Lunardi, has the chance to do so tonight, while Boston College will likely have to make a run in the conference tournament next week if it wants its season to continue.

Regardless of how many teams end up making the cut, if Duke and North Carolina both pull their weight, this cannot be coined a down year for the conference. It will be a very standard year for the ACC. The conference may be slightly overrated if this is considered a down year when in reality it is average when you look at the statistics. If either the Seminoles or Hokies make a run like the Wolfpack did back in 2005, then this year can ultimately be considered a strong year for the conference.

Which team is more likely to make a run? As of now Lunardi projects Virginia Tech as a No. 9 seed and Florida State as a No. 10 seed. The Hokies received the votes in the AP Poll this week while the Seminoles did not receive votes in either of the major polls. Both have their big wins against the Blue Devils coming at home, so let’s take a look at some other metrics to compare these two squads.

The teams have very similar resumes. Both teams are coming in hot, each boasting a 9-3 record in their last 12 games. They also have identical records in combined neutral site and road games, 8-6. Based on strength of schedule, the Seminoles have a slight edge (96th compared to 104th), but Florida State does not have any impressive road wins. In their chances against quality opponents on the road, they have lost to Virginia Tech, Clemson, and Maryland. While the Hokies do not have any overly impressive away wins, they beat the Terrapins at College Park as well as N.C. State.

Since it is difficult to give one team an edge based strictly on resumes, let’s take a look at some of their statistics. Florida State averages more turnovers than assists (16 to 13) per game. They also only have one player, Chris Singleton (who is injured and out indefinitely), who averages double figures in points. On the other hand, Virginia Tech has three healthy players who average over ten points-per-game, each of whom are capable of scoring 20 on a given night. They boast a better assist-to-turnover ratio, along with higher percentages from the foul line and behind the arc. Because of those statistics and the cliché that guard play is key in March, I’m going to give the edge to the Hokies.

Although the tiebreaker could really ultimately be the seeds they receive. A No. 8 or No. 9 seed makes it more difficult to reach the Sweet 16 because the team must then go through that bracket’s No. 1 seed. Therefore all of this column may be a moot point if one of the teams ends up with a No. 8 or No. 9 seed and the other is lucky enough to be a No. 10-12 seed in its bracket.

Hold Off Judgment on the ACC

Posted on by
Leave a reply

Led by Chris Singleton, Florida State's upset of Duke last week showed the ACC may not be as down as experts think, says Matt Levenberg.

While the ACC saw its giant fall last week, the conference race is a tight one, featuring five one-loss teams and another six teams with just two losses.

Top-to-bottom the conference may not be as bad as most people think, though, as evidenced by the Yellow Jackets’ shellacking of the Tar Heels. While Harrison Barnes may not quite be living up to the hype (no twenty-point games this season), Boston College guard Reggie Jackson and Georgia Tech guard Iman Shumpert have greatly exceeded expectations for their teams this season.

In ESPN’s college basketball expert Joe Lunardi’s Monday edition of bracketology, he predicted that the ACC will send five teams to the Big Dance in March. That would tie the league with the SEC for the fourth-most of any conference behind the Big East’s 11, and Big Ten and Big 12 with six each. While experts are quick to deem this a terrible season for the ACC (See Jay Bilas’ column from two weeks ago entitled “The ACC is undeniably down this season), I think we should reserve judgment.

First of all, there’s no way the Big East will ultimately receive 11 bids. Sure, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Villanova and Connecticut all are essentially locks to play in March, but when all is said and done it is likely that teams such as Notre Dame, Georgetown, Louisville, St.John’s, Cincinnati, West Virginia, UCF and Marquette will beat up on each other. Many of these teams are inexperienced and untested, and conference play in the Big East is a long, difficult road. The Big East got eight teams in last year, and this year we should expect a similar number.

There is no dispute that the Big East is the strongest conference this year, but the ACC is not far behind the Big Ten or Big 12. The experts panic that the ACC only has one ranked team, yet as of Tuesday, nine of the league’s twelve teams are at least five games over .500. The Big 12 has 10 of 12 teams boasting records of at least five games over .500, while the Big Ten has seven of its 11 teams meeting this criteria.

All it takes is for one hot streak for any of those top nine teams to jump into the rankings. My message to experts: Don’t abandon ship just yet, there still is a lot of talent in the conference. Continue reading →

ACC Looks to Earn Respect in ACC-Big Ten Challenge

Posted on by
Leave a reply

Chris Singleton and the rest of the ACC are the underdogs in this season's ACC-Big 10 Challenge.

With only one team left in this week’s AP Top 25, the ACC’s struggles have been well-documented this season. The defending champions are the lone remaining undefeated team in this young season. For comparison’s sake, as of Monday, eight conferences had multiple undefeated teams.

One of these conferences is the Big Ten, one of the strongest conferences this season. Jay Bilas thinks it’s the best league in the country, and it boasts five ranked teams this week heading into the ACC-Big Ten challenge. The ACC won the first nine series between the conferences. Last season, the ACC was leading 5-4 and needed a win from either the Blue Devils or the Seminoles who were both on the road. The home Badgers and Buckeyes pulled out the victories and earned their conference bragging rights last season with a 6-5 win.

Although the ACC has dominated this clash since its inauguration, the Big Ten certainly is favored this season. The ACC will also see this as an opportunity to earn respect both for the conference and the individual programs since all eleven contests will be televised on the ESPN family of networks between Monday and Wednesday.

One of Tuesday’s biggest games is between No. 2 Ohio State and unranked 5-1 Florida State. The Seminoles have not played a game on national television yet this season, and they will have their hands full when they face one of the Big Ten’s strongest squads. They will need a big game from reigning conference defensive player of the year Chris Singleton. Singleton, the ACC’s representative for ESPN’s Conference Voices Blog series, wrote about the pressure of playing in front of NBA Scouts.

Singleton and the rest of the players in that contest can be sure that there will be scouts in attendance for Tuesday’s meeting which will be on ESPN at 7:30 p.m. Florida State center Xavier Gibson, who has seen his playing time increase as he entered the starting lineup this season, along with the aforementioned Singleton are both viewed as NBA prospects. With Singleton averaging 15.8 points and 9.8 rebounds per game heading into Tuesday’s contest, he can jump onto the radar of NBA teams if he performs like that against the second-ranked team in the country.

Following the Seminoles’ contest, the Tar Heels will battle No. 21 Illinois. The Fighting Illini beat Maryland by four points at Madison Square Garden to take third place in the 2K Sports Classic. North Carolina, who has fallen out of the rankings, has lost its last two meetings televised on ESPN to Minnesota and Vanderbilt respectively. In the Tar Heels’ matchup with the Gophers, freshman phenom Harrison Barnes shot 0-for-12 from the field. He followed that up with an 11 point game against Vanderbilt.

While scouts agree that Barnes has the potential to be the top selection in this year’s NBA draft, he has yet to prove he can score consistently at the collegiate level. Although Barnes is scoring 11.8 points per game, scouts cannot be impressed with his 35.2 field goal percentage. Fortunately for Barnes, this season is young and he will have several more opportunities to shine on national television, beginning Tuesday night at 9:30 p.m. on ESPN.

Lastly, one of the most anticipated games of this young season showcases two of the greatest coaches in college basketball history as well as two of the strongest programs of the last decade. Coach K’s No. 1 Blue Devils host Tom Izzo’s No. 6 Spartans in Cameron Wednesday night at 9:30 p.m. As the last scheduled game in this year’s ACC-Big Ten challenge, it may be the deciding game in the series; however, more than likely, it will be up to Duke to save some respect for its conference.