SB Nation User Blog: T.H.

UNC 89, NCCU 42

T.H. — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:04:31 -0000

More photos » by Gerry Broome - AP

And the long, slow march towards a respectable opponent continues.

With 12:20 to play in the first half, Central was down by only four points with the ball; they drew up a play that resulted in a missed dunk and didn't score for the next 8:12. UNC finished the half with a 30-3 run, and after that, it was just a showcase to see what various players can do.

The immediate question, of course, is how the freshmen played. But even with an entire half of the game pplaye with the outcome no longer in doubt, Williams kept the freshman on the leash. Only Dexter Strickland had more than thirteen minutes of playing time, in which he managed nine points, three assists, and two turnovers. John Henson struggled from the floor, but had 3 of the Heels' nine blocks and looked to settle in towards the end of the game, while David Wear through himself around the court with abandon, in ways that didn't appear in the box score but bailed the Heels out of more than a few situations. He was the only freshman to not have a turnover, and came back from a rolled ankle to rack up the same amount of playing time as much of the second team.

But for the most part, it was the upperclassmen who were on the court for much of big lead, with Marcus Ginyard taking a clear leadership role on his was to 17 points, and Thompson and Zeller rounding out the high scorers. Otherwise, it was the same as Monday's game – a defense that racked up the steals (10) and blocks (9) and an offense that was way too free with their own turnovers (19) as they ran the other team to exhaustion. There's one more of these sort of games, Valparaiso, before the opponents get serious in New York. There we'll be able to get a truer measure of this team.

Game Thread: North Carolina Central

T.H. — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:39:24 -0000

by Gerry Broome - AP

2 days ago: North Carolina's Tyler Zeller, left, blocks a shot by Florida International's Phil Gary as North Carolina's John Henson assists at right during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Nov. 9, 2009. North Carolina won 88-72. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

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The second game of the tournament-that-is-not-a-tournament.

Roy Williams' Hard Work: A Life On and Off the Court

T.H. — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:18:52 -0000

A little while before last week's release date, I got an e-mail from Algonquin Books asking if I'd like to review Roy Williams' biography. I said sure, and soon enough I was taking a copy out of my mailbox and placing it on the bedside table. It promptly sat there for a week and a half, as my free time was taken up with the Duke game and the start of basketball season, but with those behind s and the day off work I was able to read through it and put together some thoughts.

First of all, I don't know how much of the writing fell to co-author Tim Crothers, but the voice of the book perfectly captures Roy Williams. Which means if his folksy press conferences annoy you, so will the book, peppered as it is with dadgums, goshes, and blesseds. And if that Coke commercial of a few years back grates on you, than you really should put the book down. Coca-Cola, always spelled out in full, is almost a minor character in the book, from the dimes his mother would give him on through his drink of choice on the recruiting trail.

If that doesn't keep you away, however, the book's a great read. It's not a bid to launch Williams on the corporate motivational speaker circuit, like so many coaches' books are. Beyond the constant theme spelled out in the title, there are no lessons to take back to middle management. It's just a few chapters of his childhood in Asheville and his college life in UNC, followed by scenes from twenty-six years of coaching. There's one chapter on his coaching philosophy, titled matter-of-factly Philosophy sandwiched between his to UNC championship teams, but other than that it's just talk about games that stick with him, moments on the recruiting trail, and points in his life he finds particularly amusing, important or difficult. Entire seasons pass by in the course of a page or two, followed by pages devoted to a single player. And Williams remembers every player, listing them in an appendix at the end of the book not unlike the old Carolina media guides use to do for Dean Smith's players. And as much as he oves them he has no problem being hard on them in print:

My second day back at North Carolina, I wanted to watch the players work out for a few minutes, just to see what they had. I brought them in to do a little run-and-shoot workout. It lasted 28 minutes. That's all it was. Two guys threw up. I mean the were pathetic. Damion Grant got a rebound and was supposed to make an outlet pass, but the first time he tried it he threw it 10 feet over the guy's head. The second time, he was standing 10 feet in front of the backboard. He was supposed to throw it off the board to rebound it and he missed the backboard.

I walked through the locker room and I overheard Byron Sanders talking to a teammate. "I know one thing," he said. We're going to be in shape because he tried to kill us."

It was 28 minutes. I was just dumbfounded that kids who wanted to be good basketball players were that out of shape. I was thinking, "What in the world have I gotten myself into?"

The book makes an interesting companion piece to Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame acceptance speech as well. Williams and Jordan have the same ultra-competitive streak driving them; the book even makes an explicit connection between the two. And like Jordan, Williams remembers every failure and every time someone thought he wasn't good enough, and it eats at him. He's annoyed that he didn't get the ball for the last-second shot to win the district finals in high school, like the play was drawn up in the huddle. He remembers no one thinking he could beat LSU and UNLV in the fall of 1990, he can tell you why his teams lost every game, big and small over the last twenty years. It's the type of mentality that wins championships, and somehow I don't think Williams will get the media grief Jordan did.

Overall, the book is an entertaining read, peppered with observations like this on the Heels loss to Maryland last season: "We turned the ball over. We took stupid shots. We had to make five dumb plays in a row to give them any chance to win, and we made all five." The coach, come to think of it, has a future in blogging.

As someone who doesn't really like coaches biographies (see the previous motivational speaker comments) this book sat on a table longer than it should because I didn't want to have to say bad things about it. Happily, it turns out I don't. It's a fun book to read, filled with self-deprecation, good quotes, and the kind of stories you'd like to stay up over a beer listening to. It's packed with asides – Williams has been offered 12 NBA gigs, including the '04 Lakers job before Krzyzewski – and eminently quotable. I've resisted overexcerpting it in this post, but I'll leave you with this little bit of advice Coach Smith gave Williams: "Don't quit as early as I did."

There may be a second book in this after all.

"After the game, I had a real sharp pain in my chest and it was kind of hurting me. I don’t know if ...

T.H. — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:02:31 -0000

"After the game, I had a real sharp pain in my chest and it was kind of hurting me. I don’t know if it was an after effect of me being hit so many times or me just being worn out."

Ryan Houston, on the downside of 37 carries straight into the opposing team's defense.

What the Football Polls Tell Us

T.H. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:25:55 -0000

The start of basketball season naturally brings on thoughts of the postseason and polls. Basketball polls are pretty close to meaningless, of course, as the sport has a sensible way of deciding a champion; what number is tacked on the front of a team name as the season progresses only serves to tell you how exciting the game you're about to watch is likely to be. Football, on the other hand, lives and dies by their special little votes, so it's worth taking a look at the important lessons this week's poll has to offer:

Florida, Texas, and Alabama... were ranked in that order in the preseason. You may think that the top of the polls would get the most scrutiny, but no. Florida, Texas, and Alabama are in that order because back in August they were put in that order. That's not going to change until one of three teams drops a game.
The Big East is actually less respected than the Mountain West. TCU and Cincinnati have similar resumes. Each scheduled one decent non-conference opponent and then waltzed through their respective conference slates to date. If enough people held the Bearcats in esteem, they'd have jumped TCU (they did Boise State). The fact that they didn't tells you everything you need to know about the coaches' and sportswriters' opinions on the Big East.
Oddly enough, folks do respect the ACC. Which is why Georgia Tech is the top one-loss team in the polls. True, the next highest one-loss team is Pittsburgh, of the same blighted conference as Cincinnati, and whose loss came at the hands of N.C. State, of all teams. Still, a good case could be made to put Tech behind two-loss LSU, and the pollsters also felt the need to put Miami, Virginia Tech, and in one poll Clemson all in the Top 25. That's one more than the SEC, and two more than the Big 12.
I really wish the coaches poll still published ballots. UNC gets seven votes? And that's a drop of a vote after beating Duke? Maybe there's no rhyme or reason to these things at all.

UNC 88, Florida International 72

T.H. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:05:10 -0000

by Gerry Broome - AP

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Let's face it; these early opponents, Florida International and N.C. Central are not good teams. They both had 20 losses or more last year. The only way these games will be particularly noteworthy is if Carolina stumbles and flails. With a comfortable sixteen-point margin, that obviously didn't happen. So what can we learn from this year's debut?

First of all, UNC is tall. FIU played two players 6'5" or taller outside of garbage time. Carolina played only three people smaller than that. And yet the Heels were driving the tempo, as anyone would expect after watching a Roy Williams team, nabbing 10 steals and generating 20 turnovers, all in the course of 86 possessions. The basic philosophy hasn't changed.

Deon Thompson has though, putting together his best overall game with 20 points, 10 rebounds, and 3 steals, while putting in a level of effort I don't remember seeing from him last year. For this team to succeed, he's going to have to take on more of leadership role on the court, and tonight was a good start. Larry Drew and Marcus Ginyard also had good games in the backcourt, and Ed Davis had an impressive four blocks.

And the bench? The five freshmen, along with Tyler Zeller and Justin Watts, who got the most playing time combined for 12 made shots, 9 rebounds, and 11 turnovers. It was sloppy, nervous play you'd expect from a bunch of young players put on the court to run at the speeds UNC prefers to play at. Their games will get better, in the meantime they get to leave the Smith Center with their first win.

And since the comparisons will be inevitable, let's briefly flashback to the opening game of the 2005-06 season. David Noel, Reyshawn Terry, and some goofy-looking kid named Tyler eked out an 83-80 win against basketball powerhouse Gardner-Webb. The style of play was similar, heavy on steals and their own turnovers. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...

Game Thread: Florida International

T.H. — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:04:36 -0000

by Gerry Broome - AP

5 days ago: North Carolina coach Roy Williams, left, talks to his team during the first half of an NCAA college exhibition basketball game against Belmont Abbey in Chapel Hill, N.C., Friday, Nov. 6, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

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It's basketball season!

Women's Soccer Wins Their 20th ACC Title

T.H. — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:01:52 -0000

Women's Soccer Wins Their 20th ACC Title

Tournament selection at least a week away.

Druaghn's Gone

T.H. — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:56:05 -0000

Druaghn's Gone

Out for the season with a broken scapula. All that's left in the cupboard are the two fullbacks Houston and Elzy and occasional RB Greg Little. Expect more attempts with Little despite most of the work going to Houston.

A Brief History of the Debuts of Isiah Thomas

T.H. — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:24:14 -0000

More photos » by Lynne Sladky - AP

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So apparently, Florida International's new coach is a man of some renown. And he may just suit up and take the court, judging by the advance coverage of the game. But on the bench or on the court, this will be a first for Thomas, so I figured it was worth seeing how he managed previous hardwood debuts.

First Game with Indiana (1979): In Thomas' first exhibition game, the Hoosiers beat the Soviet National team 78-50. Bob Knight was pleased. They also won their first regular season game, over Miami of Ohio 80-52, and went on to a 21-8 record and a Sweet Sixteen appearance. I can't find the details of Thomas' performance, but we can assume it was pretty good.

First NBA Game with the Pistons (1981): An unqualified success. Thomas had 31 points and eleven assists as the Pistons beat the Milwaukee Bucks 118 to 113. Detroit would go on to a 39-43 record for the season, a significant improvement over the previous year's 21-61.

First Draft with the Toronto Raptors (1995): The Raptors took Damon Stoudamire with the 7th pick, and Jimmy King with the 35th. Stoudamire was Rookie of the Year and had a long, if often unnoticed career, which included being pulled over for driving under the influence of marijuana with Rasheed Wallace in Portland. King was out the league after two seasons. Looking at the draft, there wasn't any obvious superstars he overlooked.

First Game as Coach of the Pacers (2000): The Pacers lost to the San Antonio Spurs 98 to 85. They'd go on to a 41-41 record and lose in the first round of the playoffs to the 76ers.

First Draft with the New York Knicks (2004): The Knicks only had a second round pick, where at 43, they took Trevor Ariza. Ther first round pick had been traded to Phoenix two weeks into his tenure as part of a nine-player deal that brought Stephon Marbury, Penny Hardaway and Cezary Trybanski to New York. Ariza played all eighty games his rookie season for the Knicks, who went 33-49.

First Game as Coach of the Knicks (2006): The Knicks needed three overtimes to make it past the Memphis Grizzlies, winning 118-117. The team went 33-49 that season as well, and it was the better of his two seasons at the head of the bench.

All in all, a workmanlike record, but nothing UNC can't overturn. Although there's one more first worth noting; Thomas's first game against North Carolina, in December of 1979. UNC won, 61 to 57. Thomas wouldn't get a win against the Heels until his third and final matchup, a game of some importance, if I recall.