UNC hosts Ga Tech after a week off

Hansbrough against GA Tech in 2008

It’s been a week since UNC has played a game. That means that since the crumble against Maryland the whole squad has been just practicing, probably a bit harder than usual. In a couple of hours, as a team, they will once again re-start their season, heading into the final stretch of conference play, the ACC Tournament and then the Big Dance. In a short while this team will once again face an opponent, and hopefully they will do it as a team, united, with one goal in mind. With tip off at noon, at the Dean Dome, televised by CBS, it’s going to be Georgia Tech (10-16, 1-12 in the ACC) facing off against fourth/fifth ranked North Carolina (24-3, 10-3 in the ACC) coming back to show if they are going to be the team we thought or something else.
 
If you look at the record of the two teams, even with the Heels losing the last game, this match up should be pretty much a glorified practice. It’s the top of the conference against the bottom of it, it’s a team that, if they play as they should, is headed to the Final Four against a team that is nowhere near having a shot at the big dance. But what we sometimes forget, and not because we don’t care, but because we are just fans and not players or coaches, is that the pressure in this game, as it was in the Maryland one, and many other matches for this seasoned team, is all on Carolina. How many of us fans thought that Roy Williams’ club was the team to beat at the beginning of the season? How many analysts thought the same? Yes, as the season progressed some of the so-called experts have changed their view, but the majority is still looking at the Heels to win it all. This more so with UConn losing Dixon and Oklahoma not knowing when Blake Griffin will come back.
 
As I have said many times over, this North Carolina team is in contention to win it all with one starter gone for the year and one fill in player suspended. Look at the other contenders now that they have a piece missing from their arsenal, not looking as strong as before, are they now? Reading an article online I came across this paragraph:
 

The Tar Heels on paper are the best team in college basketball. From Tyler Hansbrough to Ty Lawson down to the last man on the bench, North Carolina is the deepest team in the country. But just like last year’s team which went into a huge lull against Kansas in the national semi-finals, this squad suffers from lapses where it fails to put the ball in the basket.

 
As you read that you see it talks about how deep this team is, and that is with two members of this squad not being able to play, one of them a starter. That is how truly deep this team is. So, once again, one would say why so much pressure on the Heels in a game against a team that is 1-12 in the conference? Because their one win, that lonely single win, is against Wake Forest. Meaning that this team, as was also written in that article, can ill afford another lapse or they might end up on the wrong side of the score. See, that to me is some of the pressure that this squad, even if veteran, has to face.
 
Add to all of this the march for Tyler Hansbrough to surpass J.J. Redick for the all time scorer crown, the senior forward is 120 points behind the ex Duke player, and should pass him either late in the ACC Tourney or in the first round(s) of the NCAA’s. Also, both Hansbrough and Ty Lawson are listed among 15 finalists for the Oscar Robertson Trophy given by the United States Basketball Writers Association to the National Player of the Year. The senior from Poplar Bluff, Mo. and the junior from Clinton, Md. are also among the mid-year 30 candidates for the Naismith Award and Wooden Award, which also are given to the National Player of the Year. Last season all three of these awards were won by Hansbrough. But there isn’t just the outside stories on the positive side to this squad. Graves’ suspension, Bobby Frasor trying to get another year of elegibility, all of this weighs on players and teams.
 
These guys are young, all of this commotion, whether or not they are seniors, juniors, sophomores or freshmen, has to get to them at some point. The thousands of questions by reporters, friends, family, strangers on the street about “winning it all” or “the poor D” or whatever else must get to them at some point. Imagine now, having had a week to mull over the loss, gotten asked about the loss over and over and over again, and furthermore working your butt off at practice because of the loss, it’s a fine line between keeping it together under pressure and blowing up. In the real world when you blow up you might have a bad day at work, or have a fight with someone that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, or many other things. In college basketball when you blow up you have a bad game, one that could be bad enough to lose to any team.
 
In my opinion this team is talented, and we haven’t seen the best of them yet. The talent is there, the defensive set can come out (and it has), the offense can play as good as anyone in the country (and it has) and altogether this team can be a compact unit. What it needs to do is to shut off all the stuff surrounding them and just focus on one thing only, playing basketball. Let the journalists, experts, fans, heck even bloggers, worry about what they should and shouldn’t do, and just focus on the game at hand. I am sure that we will see this squad at the Final Four, and it is going to start with a positive game against Ga Tech, a team that is a 23.5 point underdog in this game.
 
So, as is usually the case, this game is about what the Heels can do, along with what they will do, in this game. UNC hasn’t lost to Ga Tech in the last five meetings at the Dean Dome, while it has won six of the last 10 games against the Yellow Jackets. I think that the game will be close to being sealed by the first twenty minutes, however, in the ACC & SEC Blog, they see it as Carolina and Georgia Tech being close at the half and then UNC pulling away and winning by 15-25 points.  Tune in and see for yourself !