Everything is bigger in Texas, including the Team

Dallas Stadium

As the Carolina web boards keep finding culprits for the third loss suffered by the Heels I am going to give you my recap of the game, trying not to be a homer as I been accused of lately. Sure, it was tough to watch #10 North Carolina (8-3) give up over 100 points for the first time in six years, but it did so to the second best team in the nation (and having watched Kansas I would not be surprised if it was the best), Texas (10-0). In the end the final was 103 to 90, but once again the score never does tell the story of a game like this one.

I said it in my preview that this game was going to be a major problem if the Tar Heels gave up a run to the Longhorns, and that is exactly what happened, as UNC went from being down seven with less than a minute to go, to going into halftime down 13. All it took was some bad defense, a couple of mistouches that became turnovers and that was it. Watching it on television it was shocking, since it just isn’t Carolina basketball.

Of course head coach Roy Williams’ team had the whole second half to come back from this deficit, which to be honest they did come within four of the Longhorns until bad D and giving up offensive rebounds (26 to 9) and committing turnovers (16 to 13) cost the Heels a chance to maybe not win the game but stay within reach. It felt that for every time UNC did something good, be it a small run or a defensive stop or anything else, they would then turn around and do something not so good, an ill advised shot, a dumb turnover, or giving up an offensive rebound for 2 easy points. I counted three times that on a missed free throw Texas got the rebound and it combined for seven points. Those types of plays can not happen, not if Carolina wants to play with the top dogs of this year’s edition of college basketball.

Talking about the turnovers some more, while the Heels were close with the Longhorns in that department, what killed UNC is that 11 of them were steals by Texas that led to many points that could have been avoided. More than anything else it’s a shame to have wasted some good performances such as 7 for 13 from beyond the arc, nine blocks as a team and 21 points/9 rebounds by Ed Davis, Tyler Zeller’s 16 or Dexter Strickland (who most thought would not play) and his 12 points. But in the end, in order to win a game you have to win most of the battles, not just some of them. UNC today, against another tough opponent was not able to do that.

In my preview I talked about four keys to this game, let’s see what they were and how the Heels did with them:

First I said that UNC needed to find a solution in stopping Damion Jones. Unfortunately, as you can see by his 25 pts/15 boards night, the answer to this problem was not found. Secondly I talked about Carolina using all their bigs to try and beat down on Texas’ front court. While coach Williams utilized all of his players that are 6’9 and above it just was not enough, and that too went the Longhorns’ way. My third key was that Texas had a lot more guard play and that UNC needed to stay as focused as possible. While I can’t blame the back court for this loss, there were several turnovers (from Larry Drew to Marcus Ginyard) that were just bad plays. Last was my theory that North Carolina had played in venues like this and against tough teams this season and Texas hadn’t. Maybe that could have been a factor if the Heels took control of the game, but since they didn’t the Longhorns found their groove and the rest was history.

From now until the beginning of the ACC schedule this team has four teams that should not be a problem, and those games need to be all about working on the problems at hand: turnovers, rebounding, team play. I still fully believe that this team is going to be totally different by the end of the season, but on the other hand, if they have to face teams such as Kentucky or Texas you have to believe that the ghosts of games past will come back. I am truly curious to see what the coaching staff has in mind for the team in these two last weeks before conference play, most likely it won’t be as pleasurable if the Heels had won this game.

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