The reason North Carolina got blown out by Kansas
Mar 30, 2009
Tags: ACC
In light of WRAL's Dane Huffman writing about last year's loss to Kansas working as motivation for the Tar Heels this time around, I thought I would ask former player Eric Montross about that game. The way I see it the Tar Heels rolled into that game playing very good basketball, was a one seed like this year, and all of the sudden got destroyed. What will be different this year? Why did that happen to them last year?
"I think the team was still hit by a little bit of the overwhelming sense of the Final Four and it's easy to have happen," Montross said Monday on 99.9 The Fan's Sports Lunch. "When they get there Wednesday night it will start again with the onslaught of media......once you get on the court things become more calm and you have to be able to turn that focus directly to the basketball portion of the event and I think they did not do that last year and Kansas did."
Montross also said that the Tar Heels have shown this year that they are more pointed in the effort at the beginning of the game to set the tone. That couldn't be more true as the Heels just jumped out to an 11-2 lead on Oklahoma in the last room and then never led the game by less than five en route to an easy 12 point win.
Ty Lawson and his right big toe certainly have been the talk of this tournament, though he's playing pretty well with one that's not 100 percent healthy. Lawson has 20 assists to two turnovers in three games and is averaging a shade over 20 points per game. Montross talked about how the ACC Player of the Year is more ready for this run than he was last year.
"For him the experience plays a big role in this tournament, and he was a little bit nervous the past couple of years," Montross said. "Now he's taken more of a leadership role and feels more confident in his abilities and in the abilities of the team and how he's going to run this ball club on the floor."
