UNC gets the win vs Wake
UNC vs Wake
Somehow, someway, it was time for me to say this again: “it is what it is”. This time it was a great effort by a young team that truly needed a win and got it against a team that had taken them apart in the first meeting. So what happened to make this game so much different? Was it the players? Was it the coaching staff? Was it the fact this team has gotten around the proverbial corner? Was it a mix of it all? Or was it just pure luck? Honestly I do not know and honestly I am not going to try to figure it out. What I think I know that is different is that John Henson is getting better by the moment and that there was something with the Tar Heels yesterday that there hasn’t been in a while: a big smile. If you didn’t see that you must not been paying too much attention to it!
But before we get up and begin the chant “NCAA” or something like that, let’s make sure to remember this, the team still has big time things to fix. Larry Drew, who was part of the “breaking news” from Buster Sports, went 2 for 10 from the charity stripe, and that just can’t happen if you want to be handling the ball for Carolina. Going 6 for 16 from beyond the arc (.375) and 19 for 33 from the free throw line (.576) just isn’t going to help much. And while the turnovers were 12 for the game, they were eight for the second half, and that too needs to come down. Will Graves, who I was not sure if he would play after spraining his ankle, scored 13 points, but a 3 for 8 performance needs to get a bit better in the closing stretch of the season. Senior Deon Thompson just can not disappear in a game like this, where he just scores six points and 5 rebounds. All of these problems have been there all season, but the fact that the team came out with a road win makes the problems just a bit lesser, for today at least.
On the other hand John Henson (9 pts/12 boards/ blocks) and Leslie McDonald (16 pts/4 boards) had great games for head coach Roy Williams and there were times on the floor where this UNC team reminded me of the ones from years back. What does all of this mean then? That I am pretty excited about the last few games of the year, but that I am even more excited about what could happen next season if these players develop and the ones coming in can gel with them from day one. But there is still a couple of games to go in 2009-10 before we look at next year, beginning with Miami, then at arc rival Duke and finally at least one game in the ACC Tournament. While a .500 season in conference play can not be achieved, while the NCAA Tournament is almost out of the question, being able to finish in a positive way is something that will help this team out immensily.
The interesting this in all of this is the fact that Carolina, with all of its problems this season, is the first Atlantic Coast Conference squad that left Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum with a win. Say what you will, but you know that for a team like the Heels, that weren’t winning on the road, that has to be some sort of success when it’s all said and done.
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