Give @MattZemek a twitter follow and check out his musings on college sports at https://www.patreon.com/Zemek.
North Carolina played a relatively normal, solid first half on Friday against Iona in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. UNC scored over 50 points, which is exactly what one should have expected in both halves of that game against a badly undersized opponent without the resources to keep up with the Tar Heels.
In the first half of that game, however, North Carolina played a disjointed, groggy, autopilot pickup game. The players were running up and down the court in the fast-paced contest both UNC and Iona wanted. Roy Williams and Iona coach Tim Cluess both love 94-foot racehorse basketball. The speed of the game was there… but North Carolina’s players didn’t bring their minds to the court. Not for those first 20 minutes.
Was this an indicator of what was to come? Was this a sign that North Carolina would revert to the form shown away from home in November and December? Playing in the ACC polished this team’s habits. Would the move to non-conference play erode those same habits?
No one should have been too concerned.
Roy Williams has said it for a very long time: The NCAA Tournament is not one tournament so much as three two-game tournaments. The economy of competition — more precisely, the economy of college basketball — involves a balance in which the Thursday game doesn’t necessary represent an indicator for the Saturday game, or the Friday game doesn’t offer a good idea of what will happen on Sunday.
There isn’t too much Iona could have shown which would have prepared North Carolina for Washington on Sunday. Washington has a lot more size and length, more power, more everything. The Huskies got punched in the mouth early when Carolina grabbed that quick 14-point lead, but Washington then played this game on relatively even terms (regarding the point totals of the two teams after UNC’s 14-point lead, not the scoreboard overall) for 20 to 25 minutes before the Heels pushed their lead into the 20s late. Carolina did well on the glass, but Washington won a lot of loose balls very late in the first half and very early in the second half when it crept within single digits of the Tar Heels.
North Carolina didn’t need to scout Iona very much. Washington and a West Coast version of the Jim Boeheim 2-3 zone — via Mike Hopkins — was always the scouting priority.
Carolina’s lack of clarity in those first 20 minutes on Friday was expunged in the second 20.
Sunday, Carolina played with lucidity and purpose for nearly the full 40 — only an occasional bad sequence of 90 seconds dogged the Heels. They repeatedly regrouped and never went into a prolonged rut at either end of the floor.
This is the economy of college basketball. Get through the first game, improve in the second. This is the basis for advancement in March.
As an interesting postscript, Auburn is another example — truth be told, an even better one — of the above truth. Auburn’s ugly collapse against New Mexico State did not lead to a loss. Given a reprieve, Auburn played with the fire of a thousand suns and buried Kansas.
The economy works in North Carolina… and Auburn. We will see how the economic indicators flow on Friday night in Kansas City.
Make sure you follow the All Sports Discussion Twitter account at @AllSportsDACC and please like our Facebook Page
Leave a Reply