Another season has come and gone here on Tobacco Road. No day of the year is worse than the day after your team gets knocked out the Tourney. You can't listen to sports radio, or talk with your friends without being painfully reminded of the shortcomings of your team and your season. Days are spent ideally wondering what went wrong and what could have been. (Well, maybe not days, but you get the point.)
So it is with an eye towards closure that we look back on two successful, yet ultimately less than fulfilling seasons for Duke and UNC. The goal every year for both of these teams is a National Championship, and really anything less than that is falling short. That's what makes it great to follow them.
(for those of you that are of the impression that not making the Final Four is o.k. for these two teams, I'd like to point out the fact that both VCU and Butler made the Final Four. Both these teams should have made it this year given the fact that the field was so weak. And if either Duke or UNC had earned a trip to Houston, they would be prohibitive favorites, so yes it is a disappointment neither made it.)
We take a look at UNC first. Duke comes tomorrow (or the next day)
UNC
Unlike most years, UNC came into this season with less than lofty goals. After an offseason spent fending off the slings and arrows that come with an NIT berth and a decided fall from grace, UNC faithful were just hoping for sanity to be restored in the form of an NCAA Tournament invite. Maybe, just maybe they'd beat Duke a time or two. Maybe, just maybe, the anointed savior Harrison Barnes would drag the Tarheels back to prominence.
Given that start, its hard to imagine that any UNC fan would be disappointed with an Elite 8 exit this year, but the truth is they should be. UNC played as well as any team in the nation after Larry Drew's mother decided to tug her son back to Cali by the umbilical cord that is obvious still attached. They had two lottery pick big men, a lottery pick on the wing who showed a penchant for hitting big shots in the clutch and they had a competent point guard for the first time since Ty Lawson started cashing his NBA checks. They were legitimately a contender for the title by the time the season ended. For a team with that pedigree, not getting to the final weekend is a disappointment.
What Went Wrong
UNC feel victim to two critical shortcomings, (1) a lack of front-court depth and (2) a lack of a consistent quality shooter. Lets look at each in turn:
Front Court: At the start of the season I thought this was UNC's biggest weakness. John Henson and Tyler Zeller were unquestionably talented, but neither had really reached their full potential.
Henson had been miscast for much of his first year as a semi-perimeter player. At the end of last year he came around as a shot blocking, ally-op catching beast. But he still looked like an Ethiopian refugee, and the thought of him holding up down low all season scared me.
Zeller on the other hand had shown flashes of potential as a deadly low post scorer and a defensive stopper. But it was incredibly reasonable to assume that he wouldn't make it through the season without a stint in street clothes, you know seeing as how he hadn't done that yet in his two years at UNC.
And after the Wear Twins’ unexpected departure, the only back up was a graduate student transfer from a football school who only averaged 6 points a game the year before. Suddenly, UNC’s biggest strength (arguably) from a year before was now a glaring weakness.
As it turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Zeller played an injury free year logging more minutes than at any other time in his UNC career. His low post scoring was an unsung, but major, factor in UNC’s run to the elite eight. Henson also flourished this year, showing exactly why he was such a highly rated recruit. His defense alone had an immeasurable impact on UNC’s team. The fact that they were one of the top defensive teams in the country is a direct correlation from Henson’s ability to protect the rim.
The unsung hero of course was Knox, who came in and gave UNC exactly what it needed, a tough minded, hardworking low post player who had just enough offensively to be able to spell Henson and Zeller for long stretches without UNC having to change their style.
But the fact that Henson was so important, such an x-factor, really showed in UNC’s loss to Kentucky. With Henson on the bench, UNC’s chances at winning dramatically went down. If not for Harrison Barnes’ late game run, UNC probably loses that game by double figures. That’s how important Henson was, and that’s how glaring UNC’s lack of front court depth was in the end.
Lack of Shooters: UNC desperately needed someone to step up and nail a big three in the Kentucky loss. They needed it in plenty of other games as well, particularly the loss to Duke in the ACC Tournament. They never got it because they never had one guy who could just flat out shoot.
Here’s a list of UNC’s options on the wings this year: Dexter Strickland, Harrison Barnes, Leslie McDonald and Reggie Bullock.
Strickland will never be confused with a shooter, except by Dexter Strickland. His awful shot selection was a thorn in many a UNC fan’s side, and it hurt the team. He was a ball stopper many nights, and while he’d turn in a good game here and there, they were outnumbered by the games where he disrupted the offense’s flow with his poor decision making.
Barnes definitely has a good shot, but that’s not his game. His value was his ability to do a lot of things; slash to the hoop, rebound, and hit shots. But a spot up three point shooter he was not, and UNC never really ran him off screens to get him those looks.
Bullock and McDonald were actually pretty similar players this year. At times they looked like the missing piece, nailing three after three and propelling UNC to new heights. Other times you didn’t even know they were on the court. Just too inconsistent for what UNC needed his year.
The fact that UNC didn’t have that one guy who could knock down the run stopping, momentum shifting three was going to catch up to them eventually. It just so happened to catch up to them against Kentucky.
What Went Right
Point Guard: Two things went right here. First, Larry Drew II left the team. I could go on ad nauseum on how this helped, but the most important thing it did was it cleared the air. Drew leaving the team was like taking a shower after your hot water heater has been broken for a week. It was just needed, and everyone knew it, and after it was done all that was left was a refreshing feeling that is difficult to describe.
Second, UNC has found its next really good point guard in Kendall Marshall. Time will tell if he goes down as being near as good as Felton and Lawson, but he's off to a good start. I'm not 100% sold on him being great, but he's really good and you can win a national title with him as your point guard.
Side note: Funniest comparison I've heard, courtesy of Bomani Jones: Marshall is the Chad Pennington of point guards. I think that's not a knock per say, but it speaks to my reluctance to label him the next great thing. His ceiling just isn't that high. He's got unparalleled court vision, and he seems to be a great leader, but his game has far to many holes (outside shooting, finishing at the rim, defending the point of attack) for me to think he will be dominant.
Harrison Barnes: No he wasn't an All-American. No he didn't score 40 points a game. But he did give UNC something it didn't have last year: swagger. UNC wasn't going to be punked this year, not with Barnes on the floor. He would WILL them back anytime they started to let games slip (like against Kentucky). The 09-10 Tarheels never had that guy, and it was sorely needed. Barnes made clutch shot after clutch shot. He even spawned the second best fake UNC twitter account this year. In short, he was exactly what UNC needed.
(And he did all this while being saddled with the dumbest nickname ever. Black Falcon? Really? That's the best you could come up with? We should have a contest, if he comes back, to get him a proper nickname. Something worthy of his talents. Because Black Falcon really isn't. It sounds like the token black guy/gay guy in the super friends fortress or something. I would have settled for the "Ames Assassin" or some other cheesy alliterative nickname over the Black Falcon.)
Front Court: I talked about this a lot above, but Henson and Zeller really were the cogs that made this UNC team go. Once Marshall started running this team you really got to see exactly why UNC was so scary with those two guys running the court. It makes you wonder where this team would be if Coach Williams had let Marshall start from day one.
All in all it was a good year for UNC. Not a great year, and not really a successful one by UNC standards. But a good one. I won't talk now about what next year holds. Once we know who's coming back and who's leaving, we will delve into what next year may look like for this team.
Stay tuned for Duke's end of season critique coming up in the next couple of days.
