Carolina hosts Rutgers tonight at the Dean Dome

UNC BB Schedule

They say that numbers are fun to play with because when used right you can win any good discussion against anyone. When I look at the game between Rutgers (9-2) and tenth ranked North Carolina (9-3), to be played tonight at the Dean Dome (tip off at 8:30 p.m. EST ~ televised nationally on ESPN2), two numbers pop up at me. The first one is ten, which is the number of times that Rutgers as played Carolina and lost to them. While the other number is eighteen, which is how many blocks the Scarlet Knights had against St. Peter’s last week. And why do those two numbers mean a lot to me? Well, because UNC has been taking care of business against Rutgers, but the Heels have to step it up in the “toughness” department if they don’t want to see another double digit performance by the Knights when it comes to blocks.

But while the fact that UNC is going to meet up with a top notch blocker in Hamady Ndiaye, a 6-foot-11 senior center who is averaging 5.7 blocks per game, the team from northern New Jersey also has a guard, Mike Rosario, who last season scored 26 points against the Tar Heels. Maybe my memory is too long for my own good, but anytime the Tar Heels face off against a guard that can go off I get an uneasy feeling that won’t go away until the end of the game as arrived and Carolina has won. With a good guard, some proven power in the middle (even if Rutgers lost their starting center for the year), and a good record I still don’t think that the Knights have a chance of winning this game. Why do I think that? Because Rutgers just does not have the wear and tear coming into this game to face off against six players that are 6’9″ or taller. And please do not say “neither did Texas”, because there is no comparing those two programs!

I think that head coach Roy Williams is going to stress to his team that they need to go inside and get fouls on Ndiaye and get him out of the game. Or at least wear him down by having to work a lot harder than he has ever done this season (or in his college career). And if we look back just one game, North Carolina has already had to deal with one of the best shot blockers in the nation, when they faced Marshall’s Hassan Whiteside, who is averaging 5.1 blocks (3rd in Div I). Against the Heels Whiteside had 3 blocks in all and had a sub par performance overall. Again, I put that on the opponents that Marshall had faced. Same thing goes for Rutgers, which has Florida has the only team I can truly think can be called an “above average opponent”, and the Scarlet Knights lost that one by the final of 73 to 58.

And while this is all fine, what about the tenth best team in the nation? What do the Tar Heels need to do in order to win this game not just on the score board but also in the fundamentals and in a way to improve this young squad? I think that sophomore forward Ed Davis says it best in one sentence:

“We just have to be aggressive at all times. We have to box out, especially against a long, athletic team,” Davis said.

In other words, be it a starter or a sub (that is for you Will Graves), be it if you play 25 minutes or 5, you have to go out there and play like you are losing by a bucket and need to either score to tie it up or make a stop to get the ball back. Which basically means that this team needs to avoid the turnover bug and has to get shots up that are the proper ones and not just thrown up without thinking about it. Coach Williams seems to tend to agree with me about playing for the fundamentals and not just the W’s:

“Any time around here where you lose a game, people tend to overreact – particularly when it’s very good teams,” coach Roy Williams said. “I overreact because I want us to play better. It’s not just the outcome of the game.”

Rutgers guard Rosario said this of the match up against North Carolina:

“I really think we can go out there and run with those guys this year because we have a team that loves to run,” sophomore guard Mike Rosario said, “and that was one thing that was holding us back last year.”

Yes, there is no way you can not say that this season the Heels are less likely to run anyone out of the Dean Dome as they could have last season. On the other hand, if you watched the game between North Carolina and Marshall it looked like UNC began to find its groove when it came to fast breaks in the second twenty minutes. Am I saying that Larry Drew or Dexter Strickland are going to go Ty Lawson on the Knights? Not at all, but let’s not make this Carolina team into a slow moving one, because they aren’t.

The insiders in Las Vegas are saying that North Carolina is a 21 points favorite, which I think is going to be pretty close to how much they win by. ESPN’s game prediction gives the Heels a 92.4% of winning the game, with the final score being 83.1 to 64.4. I look at it as Carolina getting a good game in, even if the first ten minutes they might be rusty from the holiday break, winning it by the final of 85 to 63. ESPN’s prediction has Rosario being the game high scorer (17.6), Ndiaye only getting 2 block, while on the Heels side four players having double digit scoring, Larry Drew getting 5.6 assists and Ed Davis getting 10.5 rebounds.

With just three games before the ACC schedule begins I am sure we are going to see this team work on the things that divide the good teams from the great ons, the small things that just make teams win games that might have been lost. For those of you that don’t follow the Heels all year this is the time to jump on board, because you are going to see good games by players that are going to make an impact both in Chapel Hill and some will do the same at the next level as well.

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