Grown man out there against UVA! Monster rebounds and best D he has ever played. No "tapering off" this year! 
Shout out to Meeks!
- Thread starter mikeirbyusa
- Start date
Solid as a rock in the post this year for the Heels. Couldn't be happier for the guy, that is until we win the title.
In 28 games played:
23.6 MPG, 12.6 PPG, 9.1 RPG, 1.2 APG, 0.9 SPG, 1.0 BPG, 1.3 TPG, .533 FG%, .621 FT%
In 28 games played:
23.6 MPG, 12.6 PPG, 9.1 RPG, 1.2 APG, 0.9 SPG, 1.0 BPG, 1.3 TPG, .533 FG%, .621 FT%
Meeks was never a dominant talent but the consistency that has lacked the previous years is so much better this year.
Even though Bradley is the more talented player. Maye has been thru a title run and seen it first hand. That is invaluable come tournament time.
7th, Tony, and Brandon are all playing well too. We're going to need all those guys down the stretch. Nate as well, but in a reduced capacity I hope.
I was really, REALLY impressed with the number of blocked shots and tie-ups near the rim that he and others managed to create. UVA had a miserable FG %, true, but they didn't get any help from the UNC defense being lax either.
props to all in Carolina Blue.
props to all in Carolina Blue.
The big thing for me is that finally this season Meeks has carried forward his solid play past december and here we are in late feb.
Talked a lot over the summer about the fact that Meeks faded at a point in december for the prior 2 seasons and I was concerned that 2 seasons in a row could become 3 in a row and it hasn't, thank goodness.
I was told several times that it was injury exclusively that caused those fades and I did not nor do I now dispute that injury was a factor. I just didn't buy it as the whole story and still don't but I do think I know what the rest of the story was.
This may be hard for some folks to understand but you have to realize this kid came to UNC over 300lbs, he was nipping around 330 at the Peach jam the summer before coming to us. Now we saw the kid work on that body, we saw it pay off, kid lost a ton of weight, I think more than the staff has let on. To do that you have to make radical changes to your fitness program as well as your diet. Now you may look great but your body has to have time to adjust to such radical changes. I think his body took longer to adjust to the radical changes he had to make, in that he may have over done it, over worked his body in the off seasons and not realizing it. His body was not only having to adjust to his fitness work but as well to diet intake changes.
Now the excitement of a new season can get you up for a while but then the day to day of that new season he seemed to wear down, like he had the will to play but his energy was sapped. Roy even talked about his not jumping, Roy would not have done that had the whole story been about injury. Kid just looked drained, he tried, he just looked like a player whose body was telling he needed to rest it. Between soph and Jr season, reports were that he worked even harder and yet again we saw him look just drained as the season went in to jan.
He looks like a new player now, as if he has the energy, as if his body has finally adjusted to his new life style changes, and now we do not see the fall off that we saw the last couple years and we see him playing bigger minutes and being productive in them. Yeah, he did have some nagging injuries to go along with this but pretty much most kids this late in the season have some nagging injuries, bet he has some right now but the energy is now there to play thru them and I do not believe that energy level was there for the prior 2 seasons.
Most folks believe that if you lose a ton of weight that your energy automatically jumps up and many times it does but rarely do you see an athlete having to make those kinds of changes, it can be to much for an athlete that has to compete at this kind of level, different from the person that loses a lot of weight and does not over train for a sport.
I think there's truth in that, Dave. Let's hope Kennedy can sustain his stellar play throughout the rest of the season. If so, it would be huge for our chances of winning it all.
