UNC-G-town Post Mortem
Well, after being harassed by all four of my loyal readers, I'm finally raising the curtain at the Theater after a rather long intermission. I hope you all got to stretch your legs and enjoyed your popcorn.
The beginning of Act 2 might as well start with an explanation as to why I wasn't surprised the Heels lost on Sunday, and why they would have won had David Noel been on the team instead of Reyshawn Terry.
Throughout the year, we've seen the Heels demonstrate an inability to close out games. At times this manifested itself in a closer than necessary victory (see entire ACC tournament), while other times it resulted in a loss (see MD, G-town). Each time the ingredients were identical. The team pushed out to a solid lead, lost just a bit of its defensive intensity, which allowed for some easy buckets by the opponent and simultaneously decreased opportunities to score via the transition game and forced the Heels to play in a half-court set.
Exasperating this problem, the team often failed to properly execute its half-court offense. Too often certain players, most often Terry, and occasionally Green and Ellington demonstrated horrible shot selection, taking a contested 3-pointer with too much time on the clock.
I think the problem stems from the fact that this team's only upperclassman leader (Terry) is the only player who has never fully bought into Roy's offense, and consistently forces ill-advised shots instead of running the offense to find the correct shot. This leaves him poorly suited to serve as a floor-leader and steadying influence late in the game. I suspect if David Noel was still around, his willingness to buy into the system and natural leadership skills would have given this team the confidence it needed to close out games.
My hopes are high for next year if one of Lawson, Hansbrough, or Wright return, this team should challenge for the title. We should be 8-9 deep, and everyone back will have another year of experience. I expect especially big things out of Ellington.
Next year's rotation could look something like this:
- PG: Lawson, Frasor, QT
- SG: Ellington, Ginyard, Frasor?
- SF: Green, Graves
- PF: Thompson, Copeland
- C: Hansbrough, Stephenson
If Frasor can develop into a reliable 3-point threat, that's a pretty good team. So, we've got that going for us, which is nice.