Carolina Catch-Up

Sorry, wanted to do some posts last week, but other responsibilities limited me to do this and now I'm paying the price because I can't find something I wanted to comment on. It was from Tar Heel Blue and one thought from the article that stuck out to me was the fact that North Carolina will be searching for a go-to-guy this year.

Last year's team had 3 players, who we knew could take over the game at any time. Tyler Hansbrough was the returning scorer; we knew Wayne Ellington could get hot from 3 land and start filling up the box score; and there was Ty Lawson, who was faster than a lighting bug. This year, we have Marcus Ginyard, a fifth year senior, but has never been called to carry a team. Deon Thompson returns after averaging a respectable 10.6 points per game last, but never really showed the ability to take over a game. Ed Davis had a few double digit games, but nothing that makes you think that he is going to throw down 20 and 12 every night. Tyler Zeller scored 17 points in his debut, but was never the same after missing so many games. And Will Graves is Will Graves. I have been relying on the fact that this year's team will probably be very balanced in scoring, but the fact of the matter is that we will need someone who can take over games in crunch time. My feeling is that it will be one of the seniors, who is asked to put on their big-boy shoes in late game situations. Remember in the 06-07 season, that team was also very young with a few upperclassman and that team struggled to close out games, which often ended up costing them in the end. Hopefully a repeat will not happen this year.

North Carolina has played in two exhibition games this year, but the first one was a secret one, which is some NCAA rule that I don't quite understand. The first was against Vanderbilt and was described as ugly. The second was against Belmont Abbey and you can read the recap here. If you look at the box score, you'll see that Thompson had 23 points, so he could be considered the go-to guy, right? Well, UNC had a superior height advantage with no one from Belmont over 6'8", but I highly doubt that Thompson will always go 11-12 from the field. I don't want to take a lot of things from this scrimmage because it is just a glorified practice as Roy Williams said about the Vandy game, but a few things stick out. The Wear twins looked good in their minutes. The rebounding margin was great, but it should be for as tall as we are. The block shots are amazing, particularly John Henson. Marcus Ginyard didn't have a great game, but filled up the box score, so it appears he is ready to be a do-all. Larry Drew had 8 assists, which I like, but the three turnovers need to be eliminated. Hopefully they were just lazy passes that can easily be corrected, because once the competitions kicks up, Drew must handle the ball with great poise.

The good news is that the defense is there and that should improve all year, we just might not see as many games in the 100's as we have grown accustomed to seeing.

Season starts tomorrow!!