Dear Old U.Va.

A Nationally Televised Game from JPJ

Wednesday, January 14 2009 by Tiki

This Thursday night, the 1-1 Hoos take on the 0-2 Tar Heels on ESPN.  Yep, you read that right.  We’re still ahead of them in the ACC standings. 

The Heels got beat by Boston College at home, and then by Wake Forest on the road.  Both of those teams shot the hell out of the ball.  BC shot 46% for the game, including 38% on 3s.  Wake shot 48% for the game, and 43% from downtown.  In both games, UNC shot under 40%.  UNC also lost the turnover battle in both games.

Basically, those two games are outliers for UNC.  They usually force a lot of turnovers, (76th nationally), and they are very efficient.  In fact, they are the 2nd most efficient team in the nation, behind Arizona State. 

They also play a very fast game.  They are the third fastest team in the nation, behind VMI and Texas St.  The Heels are also a very good rebounding team (20th nationally in offensive rebound rate), led by Mr Bloody Nose and freshman big man Ed Davis.

If we want to be competitive, we’re should mimic the BC and Wake game plans.  Both teams play fast paced games, so the tempo doesn’t surprise them.  Same with the Hoos.  Both teams have quality point guards play who can run the offense and also score.  Tyrese Rice had 25 points and 8 assists for BC, while Jeff Teague had 34 points and 4 assists for Wake.  Obviously, we could use a big game from Zeglinski.  However, he is not the same player as those two.  Both Rice and Teague dominate the ball for their respective teams.  Sammy does not. 

The Heels are going to game plan around Sylven Landesberg.  He is the best player on the team, he leads the team in minutes player, and he takes almost 20% of the teams shots.  UNC’s best perimeter defender is Marcus Ginyard, but he has played only 3 games this season, and sat out the last 2.  If he is unable to go, Danny Green and Wayne Ellington figure to spend most of the game on Landesberg.  Landesberg should be able to score on both of them, and will likely need to have a big game for the Hoos to be competitive. 

Once again, I’ve managed to write an entire piece without once mentioning Mike Scott.  However, despite being a small part of my thought process, he is a huge part of the team.  He will likely spend large amounts of the game defending Hansbrough in the paint.  Sene, Soroye and Tucker will also probably see some time guarding him, but it will be Scott’s responsibility more often than not.  Hansbrough has a size advantage over Scott, so Scott will have to be careful to avoid early foul trouble.  He will also need to work hard on the offensive end, to keep Hansbrough busy. 

Everything I’ve written so far is nice, and has some merit.  But the key to this game is going to be defense.  UNC shot a combined 36.7% in their two losses.  Both BC and Wake are better defensive teams than we are, but if we can hold UNC to a similar shooting percentage, we can beat them.  If UNC shoots near 50% as they have on the season, they will win. And win big. 

(Thanks to kenpom.com for most of the stats in this piece.)