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Meet Justin Knox
by T.H. on May 28, 2010 2:03 AM EDT
in Basketball
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So the big news this week was Justin Knox electing to spend his postgraduate season of basketball in Chapel Hill next year, filling one of the slots left by Ed Davis and the Wear brothers' early departures. I wouldn't exactly consider it the sort of recruitment I swore wouldn't happen – Knox is the rare transfer who can play immediately, and only for one season, not a freshman you're planning on spending four years with on the spur of the moment – but if you want to think otherwise, you're more than welcome to. But what kind of player did UNC get?
That's a tough call. If you go by nothing more than the AP photos I had to choose from in illustrating this post, you'd get the impression he fouls a lot. Every single shot seemed to be Knox hacking an opponent, most notably Lucas Hargrove, the Auburn player he sent to the line with three seconds to play in January and Alabama up one. Hargrove made both free throws and the Tide lost the game, in that instance. In fact, Knox's fouls were about average for his team, although he drew whistles at a faster pace than anyone playing for UNC this past season. He didn't foul out at all this past season however, and has only done so twice in his career.
Offensively, he statistically reminds me most of Deon Thompson a couple of years ago, without the shot-blocking ability. A good rebounder and occasional shooter, he put up better numbers than the Wears this year, but nothing special. Some of that is due to playing time, which dwindled during conference play only to rise sharply in the final weeks as he took a starting job following JaMychael Green's suspension. His two highest scoring games came in his final four games in a crimson jersey, both against South Carolina, but he never had a consistent stretch of good performances. Some folks have argued that he didn't have a place in the new system when Anthony Grant took over the head coaching job; I can only hope so. He'l certainly have a chance to shine at Carolina, but I wouldn't expect much more than a competent player who can give Henson and Zeller a breather in the post.
The Wears, of course, ended up at UCLA. You can catch Ben Howland's press conference here, if you're so inclined. It's interesting that Howland is acting like they're coming straight from high school; the year spent playing at UNC doesn't seem to cross his mind.
Carolina's Postseason Woes Don't Keep Them From a Meaningless Trophy
by T.H. on May 24, 2010 10:43 PM EDT
in Baseball
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This past weekend was a little rough for UNC athletics. The men's lacrosse team exited the NCAA's prematurely with a 17-9 loss to Duke, and the baseball team's sweep of Virginia Tech wasn't enough to get them into the eight-team ACC tournament. This means that barring an NCAA bid for the Heels in baseball – not unheard of, but not particularly likely, either – the women's lacrosse team are the last Heels standing, having made the semifinals of the NCAA tournament, being held Friday and Sunday in Towson, Md. They'll meet second seed Northwestern, and should they advance then play either top-ranked Maryland or unseeded Syracuse. The Heels have already dealt both the Terps and the Wildcats the only losses of their respective seasons, with the Northwestern victory coming in Evanston; either team would be happy to send UNC packing.
But what you're really dying to know is, how does that playoff loss to the Blue Devils impact the Carlyle Cup, that wonderful all-sport tally of games between Carolina and Duke that you occasionally remember once every couple of years? And the answer is, not at all. UNC has held the lead for most of the year despite some basketball results we'd all rather not think about, and sealed the the deal by blowing past Duke in the ACC track and field championships back in April. Depending on how quick the Carlyle Cup updates their website – and I'm going to go with "not very" here – UNC losing to Duke coughs back up a half a point from the total, giving us a final tally of Carolina 14, Duke 12. The Blue Devils haven't gotten their hands on this particular piece of hardware since the 2003-04 season.
So yay, I suppose. Doesn't really compensate for basketball, though.
UNC Behind the Eight Ball in ACC Baseball Race
This weekend's sweep by UVa leaves the Heels a game behind N.C. State, vying for the final slot in the ACC tournament. The Wolfpack's remaining series is against hapless Duke, while UNC has Virginia Tech at home this weekend.
Seth Davis's When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball
by T.H. on May 16, 2010 10:53 PM EDT
in Basketball
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Way back in February, a publicity group offered to send me a copy of the paperback edition of Seth Davis's book on Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and the 1979 NCAA championship game. I jumped at the chance, figuring I'd have a long month ahead of me in March with nothing happening on the college basketball front. That, of course, turned out not to be the case, as UNC caged an invitation to the NIT and continued to play all the way to the end, while the book fell to the wayside. I did tear through it, however – it's a gripping read – and I might as well tell you about it.
As a guy who grew up steeped in ACC basketball, the 1978-79 is a bit of a unknown to me, famous primarily for Black Sunday, where both UNC and Duke dropped second round games in Reynolds Coliseum. It was also the year the airball chant was invented, in a UNC-Duke game at Cameron Indoor. Neither of these events were particularly important to the college basketball world at-large at the time, however, so I was eager to get a view of things occuring outside of the Atlantic Coast.
And Seth Davis has certainly done the work to bring that viewpoint home. He has interviews with practically everyone involved outside of Johnson and Bird, including most of the teammates, both head coaches, many of the people involved with NBC's broadcast of the game, and a fair number of people on the periphery. The fact that Bird and Johnson's words only show up in archived interviews from the time and 1999 retrospective event helps the book, I feel, as it keeps Davis removed from the star players involved and their charisma. It allows him to get across the simple fact that both players are, for lack of a better word, competitive assholes.
If you were offended my Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame acceptance speech, you're really going to hate Johnson and Bird. Both are extremely competitive my nature and could be more than a little cruel to their teammates. When the Indiana State coach is forced to retire for health reasons, Bird demands that the senior assistant and administration favorite be passed over in favor of a relatively junior member of the staff, Bill Hodges. (Davis follows both coaches to the present day, and neither finds much success.) Johnson enjoys putting other players in their place, behind him, while Bird is fond of men practical jokes and has an outright refusal to give interviews. Davis weaves their two stories together well over the course of the 1979 season, as each team suffers setbacks and the increasing pressure as the college basketball world focuses solely on them.
The one place Davis falters is truly in supporting the second half of his title – proving that this game did indeed transform basketball. He credits ESPN with helping to explode the game's popularity, but ESPN had already signed the deal to air the early tournament games NBC wasn't going to broadcast before Bird and Johnson took the floor. The tournament wouldn't become a spectacle until CBS obtained the broadcast rights, but that was a full three seasons after the Johnson-Bird game. (CBS had the NBA rights at the time, and they didn't even air Johnson's first championship with the Lakers live.) CBS and NBC's battle for the tournament also, with ESPN, drove the increase in the number of regular season games aired, but that too commenced with the '81-'82 season. Did that the 1979 championship truly change the game, or was it merely a big game in the midst of evolutionary forces that were bringing college basketball to the forefront?
(As an aside, a much stronger case could be made that this game irrevocably changed the NBA, who were pretty much saved by the Johnson-Bird rivalry and the respective dynasties of the Lakers and Celtics that defined the eighties. This being a college basketball book, however, Davis only briefly touches on this.)
That aside, this remains an excellent read and a good insight into the minds of a couple of the greatest basketball players in the NBA. UNC makes a brief cameo, when the Tar Heels beat Michigan State in Carmichael in November, but otherwise are just a potential championship threat that fades away as the season progresses. Penn, the team that knocked out UNC on Black Sunday, was MSU's sacrificial lamb in the Final Four, but that was it for Carolina that season. There's also a fair amount of Billy Packer, as curmudgeonly then as he is today, but as someone who never hated Packer, I enjoyed his insights, and where he was willing to admit he was wrong at the time. Also, Larry Bird really disliked him, so you can read about his mistreatment of the play-by-play man and get a bit of a warm, fuzzy feeling if you so desire. All in all it's a god book; pick it up.
Men's Lacrosse a Four Seed in the NCAA Tournament
by T.H. on May 10, 2010 8:28 AM EDT
in Miscellany
1 comment
UNC's men's lacrosse team was named the fourth seed in the sixteen-team tournament yesterday, with an opening round matchup against Delaware on the 16th. Provided they win that, they'll meet either Duke or Johns Hopkins in the second round, both teams the Heels have already defeated his season. The top-seeded team is naturally the ACC champions Virginia, who have lately been in the news for more tragic reasons. Syracuse is the second seed and Maryland the third. All and all a favorable draw for Carolina.
Don't Expect Quick Recruiting to Replace the Wears
by T.H. on May 7, 2010 8:44 AM EDT
in Basketball
7 comments
A lot of the commentary on the Wears' transfer has touched on the question of who can be recruited to fill the hole in the post on short notice. Terrence Jones, already committed to Washington, is being mentioned, as is undecided Kadeem Jack. Don't hold your breath, however.
Roy Williams' recruiting style is to slowly build up a relationship with a kid and their family before an offer is made. He doesn't impulse shop, he doesn't poach, and he doesn't keep a large number of players on the line in case of emergencies. This is what you want in a coach, and if it means he's occasionally left in the lurch by unforeseen events, so be it. I'll point you to some of the reported comments from the Tar Heel Tour of coaches a few weeks back in Charlotte:
Asked about a backup center…Roy talked about the Kanter (sp?) kid that committed to Kentucky. He got a call about him a while back from a connection in Europe telling him the kid was going to decommit from UW. Roy said they were interested but at the time did not have a schollie. In the 8 weeks or so that they heard about the decommit until Ed decided to go pro, it was too late, as UK was all over him. The team we have is the team we have at this point.
If there was no one available to replace Ed Davis, there's no one available now to replace Davis and the Wears.His 2011 recruiting focus may change a bit, but this is what the Heels have for next season. Which might not be too bad, if it involves shifting Graves to more of an interior role, which could mitigate his shooting streakiness and play more to his strengths. The team may resemble the Duke squads of the two seasons prior to this one actually, except with a center more likely to stay home than the wandering Kyle Singler (and therefore better rebounding). I'm rather excited as to how this could play out.
UNC's Athletic Endowment as Successful as the Basketball Team
Old news, but in November Bloomberg reported that the endowment had portfolio losses of 52 million, (over 25%) from June '07 to '09. Chances are, they made a lot of that back in the last eleven months, however, considering the way the market (if not the economy) has rebounded.
Wear Brothers to Transfer
by T.H. on May 6, 2010 9:10 AM EDT
in Basketball
5 comments
So yeah, this just happened. Travis and David Wear are leaving UNC for parts as yet unknown. If I had to speculate, it would be to go to school closer to California – a lot of big men seem to be lured back to the Golden State after some time in Chapel Hill don't they? – but this leaves UNC the weakest in the paint since, what, Doherty's final season with May injured? I don't expect the same catastrophe in 2011, but it'll be interesting to see WIlliams' offense run with so little in the paint. The shooting will have to improve a lot over this past season, if nothing else.
Needless to say, UCLA fans are excited. Lance Stephenson didn't end up there however, and I'm not sure the Wears are what the Bruins need now, either.
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