WRAL Sports Fan

North Carolina

Reality check for UNC

By Sam Rosenthal

Jan 12, 2009

Winston-Salem, N.C. — Talk about a reality check for the North Carolina Tar Heels.

Not long ago, coach Roy Williams’ team was 13-0 and ranked No. 1 in both major national polls. Fans debated the Tar Heels’ chances of finishing undefeated, of this UNC being compared to some of the best collegiate teams ever.

Now, this team faces a steep uphill battle for the ACC regular-season title, let alone the national championship. After losing to No. 4 Wake Forest 92-89 Sunday night, North Carolina finds itself tied with Georgia Tech for dead last in the ACC standings – from first to worst, just like that.

UNC (14-2, 0-2 ACC) has lost two of its last three games, as well as its aura of invulnerability. First, Boston College stunned Carolina in Chapel Hill, 85-78. Then, after Carolina beat College of Charleston, the Tar Heels traveled to Winston-Salem to meet the Demon Deacons in a heavyweight slugfest of a game.

And Wake Forest prevailed In front of a record crowd at Joel Coliseum – a crowd so raucous that it rendered the Tar Heel players’ names during pre-game introductions inaudible.

One fan – R. Steve Bowden, a Greensboro attorney and a member of the UNC Board of Governors – cheered so passionately that it seemed as if his own son were on the court. Right before tip-off, Bowden predicted: “Carolina’s gonna get it tonight.”

He was right. Carolina got a healthy dose of star guard Jeff Teague and a tall Deacon lineup that included three players who stand at least 6 feet 9, including 7-foot center Chas (pronounced “Chase”) McFarland. And that doesn’t include the pair of 6-11 bigs on the Demon Deacon bench. “We’re taller at every position,” Bowden said. “They’ve got to beat us at guard. They can’t beat us if they don’t beat us at guard.”

And Carolina couldn’t beat Wake Forest at guard – not with Teague in the backcourt. The player whom Wake coach Dino Gaudio referred to as “our lion” scored a career-high 34 points in 39 minutes. Teague knocked down shots in the paint, from behind the arc and at the charity stripe – and he opened up opportunities for his teammates.

Williams said he told Teague, “'That’s about as good a performance as I’ve seen in a long time against a team that I’m coaching.’ I thought he was sensational.”

But as much as Teague, Wake Forest’s height, length and tenacity hampered Carolina all night. UNC had no answer for McFarland, who scored 20 points, grabbed nine rebounds and troubled Tyler Hansbrough in the post like a bad habit.

Wake Forest limited UNC to 35 percent shooting for the game, and 6-for-23 on three-pointers. Carolina and Wake Forest exited half-time locked in a 44-44 tie (a situation Williams said the Tar Heels were lucky to be in), but the Demon Deacons knocked down 54 percent of their second-half opportunities while the Tar Heels’ converted at a 28 percent clip.

Adding to its shooting woes, North Carolina turned the ball over 18 times and registered only nine assists. “We didn’t make enough shots, turned it over too much, and the best team tonight won the basketball game,” Williams said. “That’s the bottom line.”

The Demon Deacons dictated play the entire game. They led the vast majority of the time, and when the Heels tied the score or took the lead, Wake Forest led again by the next time you checked the scoreboard.

“You know, there’s a reason we shoot 35 percent,” Williams said. “It’s because of their defensive play.”

According to one fan, “It’s been a few years since we’ve seen good D in Winston-Salem, but we’re seeing it this year.” And Wake fans saw it Sunday night, along with what you might call "the blueprint" for beating Carolina.

Teague said that a few hours prior to the game, his team watched footage of Carolina’s loss to Kansas in last year’s Final Four, and he said the Demon Deacons also studied UNC’s recent defeat by Boston College. In each of those two Carolina losses, UNC’s opponent attacked Carolina from the start, and Carolina helped its opponent’s cause by missing shot after shot.

“That’s a big key,” Wake Forest guard Harvey Hale said. “That’s what Boston College did. Boston College got out ahead, was in control of the game. NC made some runs, but (BC) was still ahead. … From the gate, we tried to attack them, instead of them being the aggressors. Jeff Teague did a great job of it, Chas McFarland established great post position, and everything went from there.”

Wake Forest stopped UNC from breaking out in transition and forced the Heels to shoot contested three-pointers, which they missed. Or, when UNC tried to dump the ball down low, Carolina couldn’t shoot over the Deacon’s behemoths. And the Deacons got UNC into foul trouble en masse as Danny Green fouled out; Thompson, Hansbrough, Will Graves and Ed Davis each had four fouls; and Lawson and Ellington had three apiece.

Not that the Demon Deacons stayed out of foul trouble – the two teams combined for 55 personal fouls – but with Marcus Ginyard and Tyler Zeller on the UNC bench with injuries, Wake Forest had more bodies for the front lines. “We thought it was going to be a dogfight, and it was,” Teague said.

When asked if Wake Forest is a better team than UNC, Teague said: “I mean we won tonight, but any given day they can be better than us, and any given day we can be better than them. The ACC is like that.”

That should put UNC’s worst conference play start since the 1996-97 season (when the team started 0-3 in the ACC but eventually reached the Final Four) into perspective.

Carolina may not be as good as some once thought, but, as Gaudio put it, “The guys in powder blue are pretty good.” Really, what fans learned from Carolina’s games against B.C. and Wake Forest is that the ACC has a number of terrific teams. Heck, the two still-undefeated teams in the conference aren’t named “Carolina” and “Duke” – but Wake Forest and Clemson.

With that in mind, coupled with UNC’s 0-2 in-conference start, Williams’ squad has its work cut out for it the rest of the regular season.

“It’s what it is,” Williams said. “I told the kids – Tyler, and Bobby, and Danny – their freshman year we were 3-3 at one time and ended up 12-4 I think … I’m still looking at the big picture and know we can get a heck of a lot better. There’s no question that the conference race is always our No. 1 goal, but it’s not over after two games.”

But it sure is a reality check.