Decade Dominance

Boom! Decade of Dominance is over. Sports Illustrated is doing their decade recap of different sports and in the process, they named Tyler Hansbrough player of the decade and Coach Williams coach of the decade.

I can't say this is a huge surprise as no other player put together quite a storied career or stay in school for four years, or won a national player of the year, or set the ACC scoring record, or won a national championship. Hansbrough is absolutely deserving and I can think of no other player in the running, let alone deserving to win.

Williams is a bit of different story because it depends on how you want to base this on; whether it is on national titles, final four appearances, NCAA tournament appearances, program success. I do think Williams is deserving because he did go to 5 final fours, won 2 national titles, and has been a recruiting genius. Sure, Billy Donavon won 2 titles with Florida, but fell on the national stage for a year or two after the titles. I'm not in anyway saying that Williams is not deserving, but I can see critics arguing this more than the player of the decade.

Interesting enough, Michigan State was voted team of the decade because they made the tournament every year and won a national title as well as a number of Final Fours.

And another piece of information from this is biggest bust of the decade and it goes to Shavlik Randolph, shocking that we have another Duke failure.

Slow week again, but it should pick up again soon. Go Heels!

Ho Hum

Well, at least UNC got a tougher practice out of the way. Seriously, Presbyterian had no business being on the floor with North Carolina and Coach Williams said in his post-game comments that they had had some bad practices and challenged the players to get more out of this game then in practice the last few days.

Not a lot can be said about this game. With Marcus Ginyard out, as well as Dexter Strickland, the backcourt was even smaller, but players who normally don't play much stepped into some bigger shoes and was able to get the job done. I was pleased with John Henson's effort in the box score and hope this is a sign of things to come.

With Texas looming on Saturday, I hope the Heels come to play and that Ginyard and Strickland are good to go. Strickland apparently felt better last night then he did yesterday morning, so I would expect him to go at Dallas Cowboys Stadium. Ginyard's foot problem is supposedly unreleated to last year's injury, but only time will tell.

Just a Reminder

UNC has beaten Michigan State 3 times in a year.

Challenge Answered

Well, I was proven wrong and boy, am I happy to be wrong! This was easily the statement game of the young season.

I look at this game as a tale of two halves and two teams: potential team vs inexperienced team. The first half was amazing and proves that this team can hang with anyone in the country. Michigan State was picked to win the Big Ten and was supposed to be one of the front runners for the national title in April. But after a Dexter Strickland dagger at the end of the half, there stood the young Heels up 16 points, proving that North Carolina has the potential and ability to play with anyone. This game was especially encouraging with some big games looming against Kentucky and Texas. Neither one of these is a guaranteed win, because we have the second half to talk about.

The second half represented the inexperienced team. I say inexperienced because of the silly mistakes like not getting back on transition defense, missing free throws, and Deon Thompson for three?!?! Part of this inexperienced is the fact that MUS is a good team as noted above and you knew they would make a run at some point and North Carolina could not shoot 64% for the whole game. The whole half wasn't awful, just a little sloppy because UNC started off strong, pushing the lead up to 19 points before the sloppiness began.

Things I didn't like:
1. Transition defense. I can't recall a team beating North Carolina down the court for easy buckets. Sure, a team will get an occasional basket, but MSU was doing more times in this game than I can recall all last year.

2. Turnovers. Yes, shocking, but it wasn't the number of turnovers, but it was the fact that of the 17 turnovers, 14 were from the starters, the more experienced of the team, but also Michigan State had 15 steals off of those 17 turnovers. I can handle the turnovers, but lets not give up the ball off steals.

Things I liked:
1. Freshman domination. If the freshman were waiting to show up, they picked a good time. I was very pleased with all of them. Even if Dexter Strickland was the only one who scored over two points, they all contributed in some way, with John Henson blocking 4 shots - all coming out of nowhere, and The Wear Twins chipping in with solid defense. Dexter Strickland was awesome. He was aggressive, poised, and played some solid defense.

2. Super Sophomores. The freshman were good, but the sophomores were outstanding. Larry Drew II, in his last two games has almost made me forget about Ty Lawson. Ok, not quite, but he has been pretty Ty Lawson-like. He is shooting the ball with confidence and finding open teammates for easy buckets. Ed Davis played how every major broadcaster thought he would and showed more of his potential and why he was projected as a top 5 pick in the draft. I still think Deon Thompson is the man for this team, but Ed Davis is a pretty good sidekick.

Overall, great game for the Heels and we see what they can be. Hopefully, they can keep up the pace.

UNChallenged

That's a nice picture and it's hard to believe that it was nearly 8 months ago, but it has been and tonight is the rematch in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge against the National runner-up, Michigan State Spartans and your North Carolina Tar Heels.

To be honest, this doesn't seem like a rematch to me. North Carolina's roster has undergone an overhaul because of the departures. MSU has lost some too, but not as much.

But before we dive into too much pre-game babble, lets be sure to congratulate Coach Williams on win #600. I wish him many more because I like him around. It seemed like his 500th win was just 2 seasons ago, when it was probably more like 3 and that's quite an accomplishment for the old guy. I only say old because he looks funny with his sling on out there in his defensive stance.

Back to the game at hand and I'm just not feeling too good about this game. Quite a number of ranked opponents in the next few games and I don't think this young Heels squad are up to the task just yet, but they could surprise me because they have before.

Two obvious advantages that the Heels do have is that the game is in Chapel Thrill, so the crowd will be behind them and be cranking at tip-off time. The other advantage is our front court, as will almost always be the advantage for this year's team. UNC, if able to establish themselves in the paint and on the boards, may be able to run away with this game.

So we'll see. As I write this, I starting to feel better about the Tar Heels chances. We haven't lost as ACC/Big Ten Challenge since 06 and the ACC has never lost, so we'll look to keep the streak alive.

It's Been A While

Since we had a Tyler Hansbrough post and thankfully, Seth Davis decided he would write a nice piece about the great Heel ever and nominate him for Sportsman of the Year that SI does every year. So check it out. It's basically a recount of his career - mostly highlights and it's about the Legend known as Tyler Hansbrough.

Just for an NBA update on the man, he's doing quite well despite the fact that he's not supposed to be that good at that level. He's averaging 8.8 points per game and 4.5 rebounds in 17 minutes a night. He's not shooting the ball that well from the field or the line, but I can't think of any rookie in the association that does well shooting his first year. I think he could make a run at an all Rookie Team as the season progresses, but we'll see.

Overrated

Maybe. A little bit. That's what North Carolina is.

That is not to say they don't have the potential to be a top 5 team, but the panel was wrong giving it to them this early in the season. I was wrong for getting to caught up in the hype. This team will have some learning experiences and I know the Syracuse game will be one of them.

I live in the Syracuse area and have never truly liked the Orange, even a little bit. I was cheering for Kansas in the 2003 championship game and I was about the only one in my school, church, and probably in New York. I have been dreaming of playing Syracuse for years now and it almost happened last year, until the 'Cuse ran into a good Oklahoma team in the Sweet Sixteen. Well, the SU-UNC matchup finally happened and I didn't like the result. I only watched the second half and that was the wrong half to watch. This game brought up bad memories of the Kansas game because the collapse at the beginning of the second half was really, really bad.

North Carolina couldn't hit a shot, turned the ball over carelessly, and SU hit everything like they were throwing rocks in the ocean, which led to a 20 point lead for the Orange. I wasn't panicing at this point because there was still a lot of time left and I really thought we had it after one of the Wear's hit a three pointer to bring it within 8, but SU answered with Wesley Johnson, who played really well, and North Carolina had no answer for him.

Is all lost? No, but we will probably drop to #8 in the polls, which is fine because we should be ranked somewhere in the 10-20 range right now because we are not a top 5 team. The pollsters looked at the success that the 05-06 team had and judged them on that and that's not fair to these current edition of the Heels because John Henson, the high profile freshman who has been less than impressive to me, who is our high recruit, is not Tyler Hansbrough, who was the high recruit that could compare to him.

Things I didn't like:
1. To start the first half, we shot 2 airball three pointers, which really summarized how the next 10 minutes went - south. SU will sit in their 2-3 zone until Jim Boeheim dies. UNC needed to work the ball around more and take better shots because we can't outshoot teams.

2. John Henson has been a big disappointment to me. Maybe he's just getting used to playing on the perimeter, but he has not had that "wow" factor that Marcus Ginyard talked about. He's had some nice dunks, but I think that's where all of his points have come from. If I was 6'10" I could dunk too.

Things I liked:
1. Tough early season loss. I don't like losing, but with the way the schedule is set-up. I would rather lose the first game of the ranked set of opponents and then fix the mistakes and play better against Michigan State, Kentucky, and Texas. Earlier this week, I read that Roy said he might have over-scheduled his young team and I agree wholeheartedly now. It looked good on paper, but so did the Heels.

2. Wear Twins. They are easily my favorites on this year's team. Maybe it's because of the Tyler Hansbrough-like work ethic, or maybe it's because they are smart players. I really doubted these guys coming into the season because all the experts said they would be lucky if they saw any court time, so I took that as a possibility of a red shirt for them, but I am ever so thankful that didn't happen because it wouldn't be good. They provide a nice shot in the arm off the bench and it's a treat watching them play. Hopefully, I'll be able to tell them apart before the season is over.