NC State and Carolina are meeting this Saturday at 2:00PM in Chapel Hill on ESPN, no doubt, for their 218th basketball game. This will either be more of the same against an opponent that it completely sucks to lose two, or it will be a Les Robinson moment where despite fielding an underwhelming squad, the head coach is able to pull out a win against arch-rival Carolina. Either way, this is how we stack up.
Carolina is currently 14-5 (4-1 in the ACC) and 3rd in the ACC. I hate to dissect wins because… well… a win is a win, but of Carolina’s ACC games, the loss came to a fairly unimpressive GT squad and none of their wins have shown any form of dominance. In reality, UNC’s last win against Miami only came after trailing the majority of playtime and was only assured in the last second of gameplay when Barnes decided to actually act like he is a recruit worth his ranking and hit a 3.
God, I hate Carolina so —-ing much.
Carolina, in true Roy Williams form, relies on hard-hitting Forwards to score the bulk of their points. The only players Williams has scoring double digits are Tyler Zeller, Harrison Barnes, and John Henson, all playing Forward. It’s also worth noting that Tyler Zeller is by far Carolina’s hardest player to match-up. He is 7 feet tall and 250 lbs. The only player we have that physically matches up to Zeller is Vandenburg. I am not a fan of our Aussie migrant player, but he does manage to get a few good rebounds every game he plays and he is one of our better blockers. He would be a good defensive asset against Carolina’s Forward offense, but don’t plan on NC State jacking up the score with him on the court (only 1.5 PPG).
Bottom line, if NC State is going to beat Carolina, we must stop the run. We have to force Carolina to slow down and deny them the paint. This shouldn’t be a problem with NC State’s stellar defensive skills, right? …right?
So how does NC State win? Keep the ball where WE want it and let Scott Wood take some damn shots! If Lowe hasn’t been working specifically with Wood on taking highly contested shots, than NC State basketball coaching will have hit a new low(e). NC State is statistically worse than Carolina in every aspect (points per game, rebounds, assists, blocks, et al) except for one: we shoot better from the line and behind the arc. Basically, we are a more accurate team. Carolina’s FG% is high because their strategy is to get the ball to the forwards and use Zeller’s fat ass to beast some 2 pointers. So far, it’s been moderately effective.
The one thing NC State simply can not continue to do is not move the ball. I spoke in a previous blog post about the importance of NC State and getting assists. In order to dominate from the field, which will be our key to success, we will need to be looking for those opportunities and kicking the ball out once the lane has closed.
Bwaaaaaaaaah! Take that, Hansbrough, you little prick.
Carolina has 3 players with double-digit points per game. NC State has 4. Carolina’s top 6 players are bringing in an average of 8.6 PPG. NC State’s top 6 bring in 10.7 PPG. We can outshoot Carolina, but we are going to have to get our players to move the ball and avoid defense giants on Carolina’s team like Henson (2.9 BPG) and shut down Carolina’s ability of their guards to feed the ball to Zeller. Carolina’s guards, Drew and Marshall, are averaging around 4 assists per game.
