Stats and stuff (Indiana game)...

[gary-7]

...and as I posted earlier this one had all the makings of walking into a snake pit. It was, and we didn't get the job done.

Stats
- The bad was obvious, as that's what it pretty much was on our end. When we got open shots we didn't convert. 39% from the floor and 59% from the line ain't gonna win you many ballgames, especially against a ranked opponent on their home floor.

- Justin had a good shooting night 7/13 FG, 4/7 3s. 3/4 FTs, as did Kennedy (5/9 FGs) when he wasn't being mugged. That's about it.

-Speaking of JJ, you can't ask for much more than 21 pts and 8 boards in a physical game like that.

- Only 2 Fast Break and 9 Secondary Break points. Not good.

- We did a decent job keeping them off the offensive glass (8 Off. Rebounds allowed) but team totals were 37 Rebounds each. Granted, with our poor shooting they had ample opportunity for Defensive Rebounds (29)

Stuff
- Roy went small down the stretch to step up defensive pressure with some success (but again we can see how much we miss Theo in those situations)

- Again, I want to see KW be more assertive on the offensive end. Passed up at least two open 3s.

- The killer sequence of the game came early, when Berry was called for 2 ticky-tack (phantom) fouls and forced to the bench at the 14:49 mark. Indiana proceeded to go off on an 11-2 run over the next 3:54 (which ended up being the differential of the game) and staked them to a 17 pt lead at 26-9. Roy then got away with putting JB back in for 7-1/2 minutes without picking up the 3rd and we outscored them 15-10 which got us back to what would end up being the half-time margin.

- We outscored them 38-35 in the second half but we could never make enough shots to get over the hump and make them have to earn it.

- I also figured going in we weren't gonna get any help from the home zebras. Welp, that was an understatement. It was pretty obvious Indiana's game plan was to be "physical" with our Bigs and they did and mostly got away with it. Again, expected... but at the risk of being politically incorrect, I would love to watch the replay with that crew and have them justify how Meeks didn't earn a single FT attempt with the pounding he was taking... and Hicks and JB only getting 6 FTs between them? Suffice to say double our 22 team attempts would have been more in order. That being said, the way we were shooting I'm not confident we would've made enough to win anyway

- Going in I figured the environment would be as hostile as one could imagine (it was), and Indiana would come out on fire (they did). I hoped we would be efficient and aggressive enough to overcome that (we weren't).

Bottom line, not a surprising loss, but still a disappointing one... Let's learn from it and get better.

 

[Steat]

Can't depend on Pinson as he may not even return this year. I don't understand why Roy keeps changing the line-up alternating Britt and Williams. Time to get rid of the politics. Britt is not a starter..period. Maye seems lost and that lay-up he missed when he was "shaking and baking" with no one within 5 feet of him was the last straw for me. Despite all of this, the Heels would have beaten Indiana on a neutral court. Now, need to kick butt at home the next 3 games and beat Kentucky in Vegas to move back up the rankings.

 

[BillyL]

The official box score . .

http://www.goheels.com/ViewContent.dbml?DB_LANG=C&SITE=UNC&DB_OEM_ID=3350&CONTENT_ID=1952263

13 of 22 from the FT line.

JJ had a good game, everyone else didn't.

 

[RP12]

I thought Seventh avoided falling apart and had some solid moments on D considering the pressure of the situation and the environment, but obviously we aren't able to compete with good teams without JB on the court at this point particularly on a poor shooting night.

 

[Archer2]

I had a bad feeling about this game all week. I could just imagine that our guys' heads were getting a little big after dominating in Maui. JJ and Kennedy were the only two players to play well. Tony finally looked like a freshman. And we couldn't throw the ball in the ocean from anywhere on the court. I think we probably needed a butt whippin' at this point to serve as a teaching lesson the rest of the season. We're potentially a very good team but there are a dozen teams out there that can say the same. Every now and then teams need a reminder that they can't just show up, they have to be focused every game.

 

[notashelbyfan]

What was those rebounding numbers for the first 8-10 mins of the game that when and why we got beat!

Could not get a rebound!

 

[coryfly]

The official box score . .

http://www.goheels.com/ViewContent.dbml?DB_LANG=C&SITE=UNC&DB_OEM_ID=3350&CONTENT_ID=1952263

13 of 22 from the FT line.

JJ had a good game, everyone else didn't.

Yeah, and three missed front ends in the first half. I thought we got a really fair road whistle tbh. I also thought Seventh rebounded from some rough performances and did pretty well in the second half. We need way more from Hicks and Berry on the road and than includes not getting themselves into foul trouble. We have had three road games and two of them have been bad performances. Still, that is a really hard place to win. Even playing as terribly as we played they got back in the game. Great game from Jackson.

 

[DSouthr]

LOL, well we got taken to the ole woodshed and it was not a pleasant experience! This was a game about intensity level, it was a game about who dished out the blows and who took them, one team played as if this were a post season game and the other played like it was a pre-season game. Truth is this was a regular season game, 1 game in a long season, but that does not make accepting it any more fun.

I would rather, if we had to take a loss, that it be to a good team in a hostile rabid house, that is what this was. We were at least due if not over due for that game, you know the one, we see it every season, just when we think we are kings of the mountain we get crashed back down to earth. We got out played fellas, the refs didn't beat us, the clock operators didn't beat us, their cheerleaders didn't beat us, that IU team beat us and good for them!

This team has to play at a high intensity level and it begins with our back court defense and it was just not there last night, you could see that within the first minute of the game, it was there for IU. Joel has been great for us this season but he was not the attacker on either end we need him to be, he keys our back court intensity, if he doesn't have it we can be in trouble.

I said before this game, for us to lose we would have to come with our C game and IU would have to play their A game, in that first half giving what I saw us do and calling that even our C game is generous, of course Iu had a lot to do with that but the lack of intensity and focus was on our players. This is all part of the learning experience, never like to lose but sometimes you can gain more from a loss than you could a win, this team needed to understand that, they will learn a ton from this one.

 

[Heelicious]

LOL, well we got taken to the ole woodshed and it was not a pleasant experience! This was a game about intensity level, it was a game about who dished out the blows and who took them, one team played as if this were a post season game and the other played like it was a pre-season game. Truth is this was a regular season game, 1 game in a long season, but that does not make accepting it any more fun.

I would rather, if we had to take a loss, that it be to a good team in a hostile rabid house, that is what this was. We were at least due if not over due for that game, you know the one, we see it every season, just when we think we are kings of the mountain we get crashed back down to earth. We got out played fellas, the refs didn't beat us, the clock operators didn't beat us, their cheerleaders didn't beat us, that IU team beat us and good for them!

This team has to play at a high intensity level and it begins with our back court defense and it was just not there last night, you could see that within the first minute of the game, it was there for IU. Joel has been great for us this season but he was not the attacker on either end we need him to be, he keys our back court intensity, if he doesn't have it we can be in trouble.

I said before this game, for us to lose we would have to come with our C game and IU would have to play their A game, in that first half giving what I saw us do and calling that even our C game is generous, of course Iu had a lot to do with that but the lack of intensity and focus was on our players. This is all part of the learning experience, never like to lose but sometimes you can gain more from a loss than you could a win, this team needed to understand that, they will learn a ton from this one.

Great post as always south. And while I agree it wasn't a bad loss and IU in assembly is always tough, I guess I wonder / am bothered by "the need for a wake up call". Meaning if our starting 5 were frosh / Sophs I'd accept it more. But our big dogs are mostly juniors and seniors who have fought in many battles in hostile houses before. After how last year ended they shouldn't need a wake up call in any game, much less on the road against a top level blue blood.

That is on the junior senior leaders to bring intensify from the start, and get in the grill and hold accountable anyone who is in the game with their head / heart not right.

 

[Butterbutt44]

Number of minutes Luke maye got in this game of all games was mind boggling.. especially coming off an injury. We just rolled through Maui without him and he was practically first off the bench. He is not a unc level basketball player and should be getting spot minutes in games like this.

 

[DSouthr]

Great post as always south. And while I agree it wasn't a bad loss and IU in assembly is always tough, I guess I wonder / am bothered by "the need for a wake up call". Meaning if our starting 5 were frosh / Sophs I'd accept it more. But our big dogs are mostly juniors and seniors who have fought in many battles in hostile houses before. After how last year ended they shouldn't need a wake up call in any game, much less on the road against a top level blue blood.

That is on the junior senior leaders to bring intensify from the start, and get in the grill and hold accountable anyone who is in the game with their head / heart not right.

"the need for a wake up call" yeah, it is kind of one of those mystery of sports, it happens at every level, some nights "it" just isn't there. This shows us just how fine the line can be between average and greatness. IU was average last week while we were drilling the #16 team in the country, last night we were average and IU was special.

What disappointed me was that we didn't attack them in that first half, rather than pound the ball inside we settled for way to many jumpers. Example, Joel misses a and ball is tapped in to the deep corner and Joel chases it down, everything is in a scramble and Joel pumps up a really bad shot with no board coverage? That is not the kind of jumper Joel has been making, have no idea what he was thinking other than I need to make up for the prior miss. Our back court was not hitting anything yet they kept pumping them up, drive attempts were lackadaisical at best. Your bigs are not going to help you a lot if you do not get them the ball in a position to do anything with it.

 

[RP12]

Number of minutes Luke maye got in this game of all games was mind boggling.. especially coming off an injury. We just rolled through Maui without him and he was practically first off the bench. He is not a unc level basketball player and should be getting spot minutes in games like this.

Couldn't disagree more. He had ugly moments just like virtually every player in this game.

 

[Butterbutt44]

Couldn't disagree more. He had ugly moments just like virtually every player in this game.

Well, no offense, but the probability of Luke maye bringing much to an intense road game at Indiana besides what we saw is slim to none. I'm still not sure what people are seeing in this kid that gives them such high hopes for him but I hope they come to fruition eventually.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

JJ and Kennedy were the only two players to play well. Tony finally looked like a freshman.

Only JJ, really. Kennedy finally showed up in the 2nd half.

Kennedy was basically MIA in the first half - along with the rest of our bigs - and Hicks was pretty much MIA the whole game.

Even though Tony didn't have a particularly good game, if I'm Roy, I probably start him over Hicks next game. Hicks needs something to get him going or he'll go undrafted. Or is he this team's Deon Thompson - a fine player whose ceiling is just lower than we thought and struggles against better competition?

It didn't help that both Joel and Nate were shooting bricks to start the game (and only improved slightly later on).

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

I don't understand why Roy keeps changing the line-up alternating Britt and Williams. Time to get rid of the politics. Britt is not a starter..period.

I thought starting Nate in that meat-grinder environment made sense. The right time for experienced hands to be on the floor. Let Kenny come in after the initial hysteria dies down a bit. In retrospect it didn't help, but was logical.

 

[gary-7]

Number of minutes Luke maye got in this game of all games was mind boggling.. especially coming off an injury. We just rolled through Maui without him and he was practically first off the bench. He is not a unc level basketball player and should be getting spot minutes in games like this.

Luke did not play badly at all overall and his minutes had nothing to do with the loss.

 

[gary-7]

Can't depend on Pinson as he may not even return this year. I don't understand why Roy keeps changing the line-up alternating Britt and Williams. Time to get rid of the politics. Britt is not a starter..period. Maye seems lost and that lay-up he missed when he was "shaking and baking" with no one within 5 feet of him was the last straw for me. Despite all of this, the Heels would have beaten Indiana on a neutral court. Now, need to kick butt at home the next 3 games and beat Kentucky in Vegas to move back up the rankings.

I tend to agree on the lineup changes. Disagree on Maye though. True he didn't totally have his legs under him but he was far from lost. Did some good things. And there's no reason to think we won't have Theo in January. Agree on everything else.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

LOL, well we got taken to the ole woodshed and it was not a pleasant experience! This was a game about intensity level, it was a game about who dished out the blows and who took them, one team played as if this were a post season game and the other played like it was a pre-season game. Truth is this was a regular season game, 1 game in a long season, but that does not make accepting it any more fun.

I would rather, if we had to take a loss, that it be to a good team in a hostile rabid house, that is what this was. We were at least due if not over due for that game, you know the one, we see it every season, just when we think we are kings of the mountain we get crashed back down to earth. We got out played fellas, the refs didn't beat us, the clock operators didn't beat us, their cheerleaders didn't beat us, that IU team beat us and good for them!

This team has to play at a high intensity level and it begins with our back court defense and it was just not there last night, you could see that within the first minute of the game, it was there for IU. Joel has been great for us this season but he was not the attacker on either end we need him to be, he keys our back court intensity, if he doesn't have it we can be in trouble.

I said before this game, for us to lose we would have to come with our C game and IU would have to play their A game, in that first half giving what I saw us do and calling that even our C game is generous, of course Iu had a lot to do with that but the lack of intensity and focus was on our players. This is all part of the learning experience, never like to lose but sometimes you can gain more from a loss than you could a win, this team needed to understand that, they will learn a ton from this one.

Yep. Most of the time Justin was the only guy who looked like he came to play.

You can't beat a team like that in their house full of hysterical fans if you only make the occasional good play or only give full effort sometimes. Some of our guys did give good effort, but were outplayed or had off games. Others seemed in a lower gear.

How is that possible? How is it possible for experienced seniors and juniors to not be ready for this caliber of game?

Compare how this game started with how the OK State game started. Our intensity to open the OK St game was razor edge. And it needed to be because OK St came out fast and hard. But we were faster and harder.

Where did that team go?

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Luke did not play badly at all overall and his minutes had nothing to do with the loss.

Luke was one who gave good effort all his minutes. He just has a lower ceiling. We needed some of our better players to give that level of effort.

Ditto for Tony. He played hard and pretty well. This was just a level above the intensity he has ever experienced.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

I guess I wonder / am bothered by "the need for a wake up call". Meaning if our starting 5 were frosh / Sophs I'd accept it more. But our big dogs are mostly juniors and seniors who have fought in many battles in hostile houses before. After how last year ended they shouldn't need a wake up call in any game, much less on the road against a top level blue blood.

That is on the junior senior leaders to bring intensify from the start, and get in the grill and hold accountable anyone who is in the game with their head / heart not right.

Nailed it.

 

[Butterbutt44]

Luke did not play badly at all overall and his minutes had nothing to do with the loss.

Didn't play badly at all? Sure he hustles and gives good effort but that shouldn't be the standard for getting pt at this place. He cost us two points on the wide open air balled layup and air balled a three at a juncture we needed a good possession. Of course he himself didn't cost us the game but to say his minutes had nothing to do with the loss is disingenuous.

Also the fact that the lineup that in Maui had a plus 61 advantage over their opponents only played together for 26 seconds in that first half is mind blowing, and Luke was in during some of that.

 

[JuleZ '02 HEEL]

The official box score . .

http://www.goheels.com/ViewContent.dbml?DB_LANG=C&SITE=UNC&DB_OEM_ID=3350&CONTENT_ID=1952263

13 of 22 from the FT line.

JJ had a good game, everyone else didn't.

As badly as we played and as rattled as we looked, just a normal percentage of those free throws, including the back end of those missed one-and-ones, would have made this a pretty close game.

 

[heelmanwilm]

We all should know coach's mo by now. He will experiment with line ups and chemistry to see who can produce and be best prepared for conf play. I honestly dont think it concerns him to lose these early games considering what he learns from giving these guys a chance to prove themselves. This time of year hes coaching to set the team up for later as opposed to an all in duel to the death over a meaningless game that noone will remember come tourney time.

 

[Butterbutt44]

We all should know coach's mo by now. He will experiment with line ups and chemistry to see who can produce and be best prepared for conf play. I honestly dont think it concerns him to lose these early games considering what he learns from giving these guys a chance to prove themselves. This time of year hes coaching to set the team up for later as opposed to an all in duel to the death over a meaningless game that noone will remember come tourney time.

I'm aware of Roys methodology and it is fine, I just thought putting Luke in basically first off the bench after not playing for a few weeks and after our success in Maui was questionable. After all we have Radford coming up- why not give him a few more days to get back into it and comfortable? It's not like we are talking about Theo or one of our studs here. Also the decision to start Britt was puzzling as well.

These games aren't totally meaningless either. Sometimes games like this can be the difference in a seed line depending on how things shake out.

 

[Hark_The_Sound_2010]

Didn't play badly at all? Sure he hustles and gives good effort but that shouldn't be the standard for getting pt at this place. He cost us two points on the wide open air balled layup and air balled a three at a juncture we needed a good possession. Of course he himself didn't cost us the game but to say his minutes had nothing to do with the loss is disingenuous.

Also the fact that the lineup that in Maui had a plus 61 advantage over their opponents only played together for 26 seconds in that first half is mind blowing, and Luke was in during some of that.

To be fair, Luke didn't airball that layup - he got stuffed by the rim. That 3 ball was fugly too. And agreed on the first part that effort is nice, but shouldn't be the standard. I mean if you threw me out there I'm sure I'd give just as much effort as Luke did - but I'll be the first to say I belong nowhere near the court.

But ultimately, as you said, it wasn't Luke that cost us the game. It was Roy, coupled with the top tier players playing poorly enough to not be able to compensate for his miscues (with the exception of JJ). Not calling timeouts, mixing up what has worked, and experimenting with screwy substitutions/rotations has become the norm for him in the pre-conference slate. To expect anything different from him at this point is asinine.

To be clear I'm not attacking Roy - I think he is well aware of what he's doing, and is perfectly fine "sacrificing" this game to give the team different looks and using it as a learning experience. It's somewhat frustrating from a fan perspective, but other than a small chance it drops the Heels a seed come March (which I doubt) it doesn't really hurt the team at all. I just wish he would send us a note before these games letting us know that he'd be dicking around the whole time so that we'd know we could go to bed early

 

[gary-7]

Didn't play badly at all? Sure he hustles and gives good effort but that shouldn't be the standard for getting pt at this place. He cost us two points on the wide open air balled layup and air balled a three at a juncture we needed a good possession. Of course he himself didn't cost us the game but to say his minutes had nothing to do with the loss is disingenuous.

Also the fact that the lineup that in Maui had a plus 61 advantage over their opponents only played together for 26 seconds in that first half is mind blowing, and Luke was in during some of that.

So he missed a layup (which is probably a hangover from the ankle). Given the rust, Luke played ok and I would imagine graded out pretty well overall, and I expect he'll get back to form as his ankle improves. I also expect Theo will be a bit rusty when he returns. It happens. Luke is a very good basketball player, as any learned eye will tell you, and is, should and will continue to be a major part of the rotation. If you're trying to lay what went wrong in that game on Luke's minutes (other than our starters minutes being limited and our rotation affected by the officials) you are barking up the wrong tree.

And BTW, Maui means nothing vis-a-vis this game. This was a VERY different environment and game flow than anything in friggin Maui.

 

[coryfly]

Luke played 8 minutes. That is not much for a Roy team. We didn't lose because of Luke Maye.

IU seldom losses at home to ranked opponents. They certainly don't lose to ranked opponents that can't make FTs and basically anything else. It was a tough game. They lost. Roy has done this all before. It works almost every year. We'll be playing our best basketball at the end of the year just like always. Last year by this point we had lost to UNI and we ended up in the title game.

 

[Steat]

The Heels were within 6 points in the second half. Would have won the game on a neutral court. I'm just not going to continue to beat on our guys. Just win the next 4 games and everyone will be happy. Gotta beat Kentucky.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

                Q1  Q2  Q3  Q4  T
North Carolina  11  18  17  21  67
Indiana         26  15  16  19  76

We won the last 3 quarters. Not by much, but we still won them. If we hadn't stunk it up in the first quarter, it's a different game.

 

[gary-7]

The Heels were within 6 points in the second half. Would have won the game on a neutral court. I'm just not going to continue to beat on our guys. Just win the next 4 games and everyone will be happy. Gotta beat Kentucky.

Bingo.

 

[Butterbutt44]

Luke played 8 minutes. That is not much for a Roy team. We didn't lose because of Luke Maye.

IU seldom losses at home to ranked opponents. They certainly don't lose to ranked opponents that can't make FTs and basically anything else. It was a tough game. They lost. Roy has done this all before. It works almost every year. We'll be playing our best basketball at the end of the year just like always. Last year by this point we had lost to UNI and we ended up in the title game.

I never said we lost the game because of Luke maye. I'm just expressing a bit of surprise that he was in the game so quickly. I mean even if he's fully healthy the kid should be our 9th man. But it's also about the rotations which Roy deviated from Maui which was surprising. We all know he loves to tinker but it was the way he tinkered in a big game that surprised me.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

It wasn't the UNC-Kansas game in the 2008 tournament, but I'm guessing I wasn't the only one with 2008-flavored deja vu.

I hate to bring it up, but did Roy call a TO in the first quarter? I don't recall one and I'm not feeling brave enough to watch the replay.

Just as we moved into the 2nd quarter, Indiana scored, making it 28-11.

The rest of the game we outscored them 56-48.

Those are practically 2 different games. What needs to be addressed is how the game got so far out of control so quickly. I'm not pretending that a TO or 2 would have cured the problem. You also need strategies and plays to turn things around. But we didn't have either the strategies or the timeouts to combat the early bloodletting. That's what puzzles me. Why not?

If Nate and Joel had hit a few of their early bricks - as they usually would - it's easy to imagine an approximate tie at the half. And that would have helped inside, too. So I'm sure Roy was expecting that and expecting the team to right itself. Usually that's a good bet.

The thing is, as I'm sure we can all attest, it wasn't hard to look at that team and see that something was wrong. We were taking their early flurry of punches but we weren't wearing them down. That's when you expect the coach to have a plan B.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

The Heels were within 6 points in the second half. Would have won the game on a neutral court. I'm just not going to continue to beat on our guys. Just win the next 4 games and everyone will be happy. Gotta beat Kentucky.

It's not the end of the world. The ship will be righted.

But I'm not letting them off that easy. They stunk in the first quarter. Except for Justin, they didn't bring their A game to an A-game event.

I'm particularly down on Isaiah. Maybe that's not fair. If I work up the courage to watch again, maybe I'll take that back. But all our starters except Justin stunk in the first half and while Joel, Nate and especially Kennedy picked up their games in the 2nd half, Isaiah still under-performed.

To be fair, Indiana's front line was formidable. I expected to have trouble with Bryant, but they had more than just Bryant. Nevertheless, Isaiah and Kennedy are seniors. No excuses.

 

[notashelbyfan]

Luke played 8 minutes. That is not much for a Roy team. We didn't lose because of Luke Maye.

IU seldom losses at home to ranked opponents. They certainly don't lose to ranked opponents that can't make FTs and basically anything else. It was a tough game. They lost. Roy has done this all before. It works almost every year. We'll be playing our best basketball at the end of the year just like always. Last year by this point we had lost to UNI and we ended up in the title game.

Seamed like he was on the court the whole game and the fact that it Seamed that way and the only stuff I recall him doing was screwing up means 8 mins was to damn many!

 

[acarter0277]

I don't want to beat on the guys either, but Nate played way too much. He BRINGS A TON to this team, but 28 minutes is way too much for him. He needs around 15 mpg

 

[DSouthr]

It's not the end of the world. The ship will be righted.

But I'm not letting them off that easy. They stunk in the first quarter. Except for Justin, they didn't bring their A game to an A-game event.

I'm particularly down on Isaiah. Maybe that's not fair. If I work up the courage to watch again, maybe I'll take that back. But all our starters except Justin stunk in the first half and while Joel, Nate and especially Kennedy picked up their games in the 2nd half, Isaiah still under-performed.

To be fair, Indiana's front line was formidable. I expected to have trouble with Bryant, but they had more than just Bryant. Nevertheless, Isaiah and Kennedy are seniors. No excuses.

To be honest, I have to re-watch this game because I got so wrapped up in how poorly we were playing that I couldn't focus a lot on why it went as it did. One thing I did notice and noticed it in the last few games, our bigs need to work better with each other, setting inside screens, and opening up passing angles for our guards to find them in scoring position. We have started to settle for a lot of jump shots, last night was a lot of poor look jump shots and not looking for a better shot.

There is no good reason for Hicks playing 27mins and only getting 4 shots or Tony only getting 2 shots in 15mins. That is not Carolina basketball, 6 shots between 2 of our key 3 big men?

 

[gary-7]

It's not the end of the world. The ship will be righted.

But I'm not letting them off that easy. They stunk in the first quarter. Except for Justin, they didn't bring their A game to an A-game event.

I'm particularly down on Isaiah. Maybe that's not fair. If I work up the courage to watch again, maybe I'll take that back. But all our starters except Justin stunk in the first half and while Joel, Nate and especially Kennedy picked up their games in the 2nd half, Isaiah still under-performed.

To be fair, Indiana's front line was formidable. I expected to have trouble with Bryant, but they had more than just Bryant. Nevertheless, Isaiah and Kennedy are seniors. No excuses.

There's nothing puzzling or particularly complicated. They came out on fire and we came out pretty much the opposite, and before we could restore order our best player and catalyst gets sent to the bench with 2 (being kind) touch fouls. 11-2 run and we're in a deep hole. As for Hicks, in fairness what was happening to him in the paint would have drawn yellow flags in a football game for defensive holding. It's one game early in the season in a tough environment. Would I have liked more intensity? Yes. Should we have shot better? Yes. Is there some systemic problem? No.

 

[Butterbutt44]

I don't want to beat on the guys either, but Nate played way too much. He BRINGS A TON to this team, but 28 minutes is way too much for him. He needs around 15 mpg

Yep him and Luke. Nate also made some terrible decisions in very key moments. One possesion late I believe we were down 6 and berry gave him the ball at the top of key and Jackson was wide open in the corner nate looked him of and dribbled around for 20 seconds then missed a floater in the lane. Too many times in close games these past few years hes inexplicably been the one taking huge shots for us.

when he plays within himself and his role hes a huge assett. When he starts trying to do too much he can really hurt us.

 

[Hark_The_Sound_2010]

                Q1  Q2  Q3  Q4  T
North Carolina  11  18  17  21  67
Indiana         26  15  16  19  76

We won the last 3 quarters. Not by much, but we still won them. If we hadn't stunk it up in the first quarter, it's a different game.

It wasn't the UNC-Kansas game in the 2008 tournament, but I'm guessing I wasn't the only one with 2008-flavored deja vu.

I hate to bring it up, but did Roy call a TO in the first quarter? I don't recall one and I'm not feeling brave enough to watch the replay.

Just as we moved into the 2nd quarter, Indiana scored, making it 28-11.

The rest of the game we outscored them 56-48.

Those are practically 2 different games. What needs to be addressed is how the game got so far out of control so quickly. I'm not pretending that a TO or 2 would have cured the problem. You also need strategies and plays to turn things around. But we didn't have either the strategies or the timeouts to combat the early bloodletting. That's what puzzles me. Why not?

If Nate and Joel had hit a few of their early bricks - as they usually would - it's easy to imagine an approximate tie at the half. And that would have helped inside, too. So I'm sure Roy was expecting that and expecting the team to right itself. Usually that's a good bet.

The thing is, as I'm sure we can all attest, it wasn't hard to look at that team and see that something was wrong. We were taking their early flurry of punches but we weren't wearing them down. That's when you expect the coach to have a plan B.

These are some great points. I think a timeout, or Kenny starting, or less odd lineups in the first "quarter" would have really done a number to decrease the 15 point deficit that we dug ourselves to start the game.

And I'm pretty sure Roy didn't call a timeout the entire game - but someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Butterbutt44]

These are some great points. I think a timeout, or Kenny starting, or less odd lineups in the first "quarter" would have really done a number to decrease the 15 point deficit that we dug ourselves to start the game.

And I'm pretty sure Roy didn't call a timeout the entire game - but someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

I wholeheartedly agree. Being a UNC fan though Ive come to expect a few of these games every year in November or Dec. Im not even saying theyd have won but he definitely couldve increased our odds easily. But in the end he wins when it matters in March so... But it can be frustrating.