Fear the Venezuelan?

Fear the turtle. I'll admit it, when Maryland won in 2002, I thought this was a pretty clever saying. I mean, who fears a turtle (unless it's a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle)?

Well the Venezeuelan is the one I fear. Greivis Vasquez dominated North Carolina, scoring his teams first 16 points. It was almost a foreshadowing of things to come. His stat line for the night: 35 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists, 2 steals, and 3 blocks. Definitely a stat stuff right there. But look at the match up problem. Sure, he's a 6'6" point guard, so the only one who really matches up with him height wise is Danny Green. I know various people were on him at different times. Bobby, Wayne, Ty, and Danny all took shots at him, but he did whatever he wanted. I will give him credit. He probably played the best game he will ever play in his life. Sure we can question the defense like we have all season, but this is partly why the ACC is so tough to win; because of players like Vasquez. When he was yelling at the crowd by the first or second T.V. timeout and flashing his jersey, I said to myself, "Man, he's gonna look like a real dork after we win this game." But Vasquez came through and played well. So hats off to him. But I still don't like you!

Another area I would like to talk about is the officiating. I don't normally like to fault officials; they are human, humans make mistakes, therefore referees will make mistakes. Well these officials certainly made a big one. With 1:35 left in the game, Hansbrough inbounded the ball to Lawson, who was instantly pushed over by Sean Mosley (related to Sugar Shane Mosley?), who immediately threw up his hands saying he didn't foul, which he clearly did. So big no call there. Very next play, Ty and Hansbrough on a fast break, Ty dumps it of to #50, who is then called for an offensive foul. Was it an offensive? I don't know what the exact definition is off the top of my head, but it was close. What I didn't like was the guy who clobbered Hansbrough while he was being undercut, which seems to be a common occurrence with Tyler now - not getting the foul calls, just getting mugged. I don't even want to comment on the last play in overtime, but I feel the officials really didn't help the Heels cause on Saturday.

What I didn't like from the game:

-Officiating

-Maryland fans chanting DUI while Lawson was on the line. Duke already did it so you're copying them.

-Bench Scoring: UNC-5 MU - 41. Ouch

-Not getting #50 enough touches. He took 12 shots, making 4 of them. Obviously not a great shooting night for him(but it's hard when their post players hang on you). But this has been my concern the last few games is that we seem to think we are Duke and can shoot a bazillion 3's now. When you have the reigning NPOY, why do you not get him the ball more often?

What I did like:

-Rebounding guards. Frasor had 7. Danny had 9. Wayne had 4. Wayne has particularly been rebounding well with games of 7, 9, 7, 10 and a few others.

-Deon had a pretty good game with 13 and 7. Last few games, he has been contributing well, in my mind anyway.

-This loss is in February, not March. I always like having a loss in February to keep the team focused. I think that in 2005, without the loss in the ACC tourny, they would not have won the championship. I feel this could be one of those games. Sure, a 2 game cushion in the ACC would have been amazing, but they can take care of business the rest of the way. If we won this game and continued winning until the championship, then that would have been 23 straight wins. That's a lot and hard to do. I'll take this loss as a learning experience and even though I feel we should have won, I believe this will work on in the long run.

-We shot horribly and still had a chance to win it. I felt the same way after the Wake game. Wake - 35% FG. UM - 38%. Result. Lost both games by 3 with a chance to tie at the end of the game. My mind says average defense in those games, so if average defense can keep us in games when we shoot badly, then I hope we stay really hot in March.