The Tar Heels finished the 2012 campaign with a Final 8 appearance, a mythical ACC Regular Season Championship, and a 32-6 record. It was a year that almost every school in America envies, yet this will go down as one of the big letdown seasons of UNC history. The current group of starters leaving stands as one of the least accomplished group of talented recruits in UNC lore.

UNC entered the season as the #1 team in America, and one that should have only been challenged for the title by Kentucky’s group of Freshmen. However there were cracks in the team from the start; the most important of all being outside shooting. Shooting was not a strength in that ‘11 group of Heels that missed the Final Four by a couple of possessions. The group, largely unchanged, entered the season with the same question marks.

Harrison Barnes took about half of his Freshman season to start feeling comfortable, and hit big shots when the team needed them in most games down the stretch. So I wasn’t as concerned about the 3 spot as I was with the 2 spot. Dexter Strickland shot 46% from the field and 25% from “3” in 2011. While he is arguably the best fast-break player in Carolina history, he is a terrible shooter. His form is bad, he doesn’t jump straight up, and his shot selection isn’t good. He is a good defender and gave the team quickness, however in order to be a top shelf kind of team, there has to be a good outside shooting threat at the 2 position.

I really like Strickland’s attitude, however it wasn’t a time of panic, obviously, when Strickland had a season-ending injury on January 19. This would give ample time for Reggie Bullock to become comfortable in close games and improve his defense. Bullock, unlike Strickland, is a quality shooter that could make defending the Heels a monumentally complex task. From the point of Strickland’s injury onward Bullock shot 42% from the field, and 38% from beyond the arc. (64% of Bullock’s shots were from “3”). This is shooting that would earn Bullock Top 3 honors in shooting in the conference.

As a whole, the Heels were an excellent offensive team, however the most underwritten story about this group is that they were the best defensive team at UNC in the Roy Williams tenure. As outlined in another post, this team wasn’t flashy with their defense. They didn’t force turnovers very frequently, however they forced teams into taking very difficult shots. This is ultimately the goal on defense, and no other team in recently memory challenged as well as this one did.

The defensive skill was a good surprise. Unfortunately the bad surprise was an injury bug that no Tar Heel team in the last 3 decades has seen. A wrist injury in the first post-season game to John Henson forced him to miss several games, and upon return, he played tentatively in the interior on both ends of the floor.

More importantly, however, was the season-ending injury to Kendall Marshall in the R32 game against an unreasonably physical Creighton team. With Marshall’s backup (Strickland) out, the Heels were left to rely on a Freshman who had only totaled 137 minutes of playing time. This was too much to ask against good teams, and while the Heels played Kansas evenly for about 37 minutes, the team’s Achilles’ Heel from the start, outside shooting, wasn’t good enough against Kansas.

While most people understood the die that had been cast when Marshall went down, there was hope that this group could still get to its first (with the exception of Zeller) Final Four. What was difficult to watch was the play of Harrison Barnes down the stretch. Barnes, the nation’s 2009 Mr. Basketball coming out of high school, came in as the most heralded recruit in UNC history. Barnes was so highly regarded that he would have been a lottery pick by the NBA straight out of high school if direct entry were allowed. Barnes picked UNC because of his desire to get a Business degree, and keenly spoke recently about NBA players needing to be mindful of their “brand” as marketable products.

While players have bad games, and even bad stretches, it is extremely disappointing that this caliber of recruit play so ordinarily for more than half of his career at UNC. Nobody will argue that Barnes had a very slow start last season, however people may not realize just how poorly Barnes played since February 1. Before that date Barnes shot  49% (FG) and 45% (FG3). Since that point Barnes shot 39% (FG) and 28% (FG3).

Barnes was a player in this period that had no first step and absolutely no elevation. This led to overcompensated or underpowered shots. Without Marshall on the floor, Barnes forced shots and made repeated bad decisions with the ball.

What happened around February 1 that was so important to Barnes’ game? Barnes rolled an ankle at Wake Forest. While he and the program said Barnes was 100%, it was obvious he was not.

So, UNC returned all of its starting five from a team that missed the Final Four by a hair last season, however when it came test time for this team, Zeller was the only one of them standing. For UNC to repeat its accomplishments with so many injuries is an impressive feat.

However Tar Heel fans will always wonder what would have happened… With a fully healthy squad, would the Heels have had the outside shooting they needed to win it all? Without Strickland, would the Heels have done it? How about with a healthy Marshall? Could the Heels overcome Kansas or even a well-oiled Kentucky team? It’s hard to confidently say “Yes”. This squad was only 8-5 vs. the Top 50. Despite being the Vegas’ favorite, this squad might not have gotten it done anyway in the single-elimination tournament. Better, healthier UNC teams have certainly stumbled along the way.

* * *

I completely agree with Coach Smith that players aren’t different than any other student in that they approach college with job placement in mind. If the NBA wants to hire a player before their maximum time allotted to play has expired, then the player would be foolish to not take the opportunity. A financial planner I know sat down and figured that in order for a 50 year-old to be financially independent and live a nice lifestyle in Raleigh, they need to have at least $6 million invested to spin off enough passive income to pay bills and have realistic, enjoyable experiences. The top 5 picks in the lottery will get that amount, guaranteed, in their first two years of play. The Top 23 draft picks will get at least halfway there in just 3 years.

So, it is tough to blame Marshall, Henson, and Barnes for joining Zeller in the NBA Draft this season, but damn! That’s a lot to lose, isn’t it?

If these players leave (they all are currently eligible to return) they definitely were more hungry for money than they were for championships. I don’t blame them for that given how hard it is for the typical American to get up and go to work for more than 11,000 days of their lives. However, just be honest and don’t tell us you are “coming back to win a championship”. If you are serious about winning it as an 18 year old, you can’t be much less serious as a 19 year old.

Zeller won a championship in 2009 with another group and has no option but to leave. However this great cluster of Barnes, Marshall, and Henson is choosing to walk away with their accomplishments as the final story in their chapter in Tar Heel history.

Just what did this group accomplish? They finished First in the ACC Regular Season in both seasons. This allowed them to get an advantage in the ACC Tournament by virtue of a better seeding. In the NCAA Tournament both teams were able to reach the Final 8 and were a handful of possessions away from getting to the Final Four, but so was Cincinnati in 1993, right? The reason for missing the Final Four is irrelevant. This group will forever be evaluated by their post-season accomplishments.

So that’s it. The group won a lot of regular season games and got the furthest of any ACC team in the NCAA Tournament both years, however in UNC Basketball history, these are fairly ordinary accomplishments.

While there have been up and down years, every cluster of recruits since the Wolf/Popson/Smith era 25 years ago has made a Final Four trip or been ACC Champions.

If we look at the greatest UNC teams to not win it all, this team doesn’t even scratch the Top 10. Here are the best since 1980 of that crowd:

1. 1984 – Four future NBA All-Stars: Jordan, Perkins, Smith, Daugherty
2. 1995 – Wallace, Stackhouse, Williams, McInnis.
3. 1998 – Carter, Jamison, Haywood.
4. 1994 – Montross, Stackhouse, Wallace, McInnis
5. 2008 – Hansbrough, Lawson, Ellington
6. 1997 – Carter, Jamison, Williams.
7. 2007.  Hansbrough, Lawson, Ellington
8. 1987 – Reid, Williams, Fox, Chilcutt.
9. 1986 – Reid, Smith, Chilcutt, Williams, Wolf
10. 1989 – Reid, Fox, Chilcutt
11. 2012 – Zeller, Barnes, Marshall, Henson, McAdoo

That is some pretty tough company for sure and outside of Duke, this group would be one of the five All-Time greatest teams at any other ACC program.

Now, the history book isn’t written on what types of pros these guys will be. Ed Cota was an incredible passer. Dante Calabria was a phenomenal shooter. Donald Williams carried the Heels to a championship. However players like Scott Williams, Pete Chilcutt, Rick Fox, and Brendan Haywood are the ones who got to play in the pros for many years.

We’ll have to wait and see how this group fares in the NBA to really know how much substance was really there…or could it be that this group may have been overhyped given the names on their jerseys…or was it the 4 key injuries to the group’s Starting Five…?

Apparently there are some Wichita State fans who think that UNC’s defense is poor. It is worth noting that this UNC team has held opponents to 0.80 points per possession, which is the lowest average of any Roy Williams-led UNC team.

UNC forces turnovers on 16.0% of opponents possessions, which is the second-worst rate in Roy’s tenure. So, the PPP number is coming because of UNC’s outstanding interior defense. UNC doesn’t force turnovers much, but it you’re going to beat them, you better do it from the outside, because you won’t get it done inside against a healthy UNC frontcourt.

The 2012 NCAA Basketball Tournament is upon us, and all three Triangle teams are in the field. The games begin tomorrow night, however all of the ACC teams in the field play on Friday at these times:

• 12:40 – NCSU/San Diego St. (TruTV)
• 2:10 – UVA/FLA (TNT)
• 2:45 – FSU/St. Bonaventure (CBS)
• 4:10 – UNC/(Lamar/Vermont) (TBS)
• 7:15 – Duke/Lehigh (CBS)

Time Warner Cable in Raleigh carries these networks on the following channels:

• CBS (1105, 3, 105)
• TBS (1302, 34, 302)
• TNT (1301, 26, 301)
• TruTV (1313, 44, 313)

As usual, gogoraleigh has all of the materials you need for catching the action.

• Printable Brackets (pdf, via ESPN)
• Printable Schedule (Thursday)
• Printable Schedule (Friday)

The printable schedules are inverted for optimal black & white printing. They are an outstanding layout of game times. Read left-to-right, the games are in chronological order. Read top-to-bottom, most columns are venue-consistent. Television network assignments are also shown.

Finally, all of the games can be easily added to your Android phone, iPhone, Outlook, Google Calendars and more! Simply visit gogoraleigh’s Calendars tab, and use the links provided in the “2012 NCAA Tourament” line.

John Swofford, the UNC football letterman, entered as the ACC Commissioner with a grand plan for ACC football that began with an enormous expansion of the ACC’s population. The process has completely destroyed the ACC Tournament. This tournament USED to be a hot ticket, even in Atlanta and Landover, however now it is a joke of an event played in front of scores of empty seats.

Expansion cut each school’s ticket allotment by 1/3, so that people from Boston, Miami, and Blacksburg, VA can take the rights to our seats, not show up, and sell tickets on eBay.

The 8 teams, 2/3 of the league, that play today, have NO CHANCE of winning the tournament. Their fans realize it, and they don’t bother to come. With 1/3 of the league eliminated before the first Friday game begins, it’s no wonder that the arena will be full of empty seats on Friday, too. It never USED to be like that. For those of you who say that the increase of NCAA tournament berths has had a greater effect, keep in mind that ALL of the bubble teams, the ones that need this tournament the most, play today, but where are their fans?

The elimination of the double-round robin in the regular season has not only destroyed rivalries, it has made an understanding of all of the players in this event far more difficult. We not longer have two shots at every team where we get to know the Sharone Wrights, Ricky Stokes, Kenny Andersons, and Herman Veals of the world. Of the league’s Top 15 players, three are on the UNC team, and we only played the league’s #4, #6, #8, #11, and #13 players ONCE this season. That’s almost HALF of the remainder of top tier of players! How are we supposed to build value in the product if we never get exposed to it?

It is time for John Swofford’s reign of terror on ACC Basketball to END!

It was a weekend of stunningly bad performances. I can’t figure out who was the worst:

• Wake Forest (lost by 36 at home to NCSU),
• Jacoby Jones (Texans PR who gave Baltimore a free 80yd TD),
• Lana Del Rey (internet sensation who bombed on SNL), or
• Our beloved Tar Heels

UNC’s loss at Florida State on Saturday was the largest loss for UNC since 1962 and the largest in the Roy Williams tenure. After what was their worst half of the season to that point, the Heels found themselves down 8 points at halftime. Shots were not falling for the Heels, and the team had not found an answer for stopping Deividas Dulkys. The Heels should have stayed in the locker room, however because they came out in the second half flatter than the first. Only 8 minutes into the second half Florida State had extended that 8-point lead to almost 30 points, and the team quit.

Last week NCSU found itself losing at home to a bad Georgia Tech team. However in that game the Pack was still taking smart shots and still trying hard on defense. GT was hitting difficult shots and State didn’t hit shots they normally make. The UNC experience was nothing of the sort. UNC made bad passes, took dumb shots, and quit on defense. Once again UNC made no adjustment to stymie an opposing hot shooter, and he ended up doubling his season scoring total with his 32-point effort.

While Tyler Zeller played well for most of the game, it can’t be said for the rest of the team or the coaches’ efforts to adjust mid-game. Players will have bad nights here and there, but when it is the team coming out soft, then coming out softer after halftime, it is completely on the coaches. Perhaps Roy Williams wanted to send a message to his team. It certainly sent a message to fans.

UNC had just completed a 9-game home stretch where the team went 9-0 against a parade of cupcakes. Long Beach State (RPI #52) was the toughest opponent in that stretch, and the Heels found themselves in a tussle (UNC led by 6-8 points during the entire final 5:00 in a game where UNC was favored by 16 points).

The take-home lesson for the fans, the players, and the coaches is that UNC’s schedule has no middle. They have only played four games against teams in the top 50 (one of those was the Michigan St. game which should not be counted), while 10 of their 18 opponents were ranked below 130.

Not including the aircraft carrier game, UNC is 1-3 vs. likely NCAA tournament teams, and is 1-3 in hostile environments. Couple that with the fact that no National Champion in at least 30 years has ever lost a game by more than 30, and you have some real concerns about the 2012 Tar Heels.

I said before that UNC will wipe the floor with most of their opponents, but then struggle against some hot-shooting team in the tournament. That still stands. The remaining ACC schedule features four games against top 50 teams (Duke and UVA). Duke does not match up well against UNC, so I think UNC will sweep Duke for the first time in many, many years. However I do think the Heels are most likely to lose @UVA (#41) and @NCSU (#57). While the UNC team has performed quite poorly in hostile environments so far this year, the ACC as a league is so bad that I don’t think the Heels will be sufficiently challenged at VT, WFU, MD, and Miami.

After a string of cupcakes at home, the Heels will have some blowout wins at home, and fans will enter the tournaments with a false sense of security. The real question is when the going gets tough, will this UNC team have enough experience to find ways to win. Against this ACC schedule, there won’t be much training.

Local basketball fans with iPhones, Android Phones, Blackberrys, Outlook, Palm devices, and more are in luck! Gogoraleigh’s Calendars Tab is your home for free 2011-2012 ACC basketball schedules for the entire ACC in .CSV, .ICS, and Google Calendar formats.

gogo has gone all out again, offering schedules for each individual ACC team, as well as one giant calendar which includes all 281 games. Events on the calendars include not only the game time, but also links to ESPN’s team pages and the name of the venue where the game is being played. On some devices, like Android phones, the location becomes a link to Google Maps showing the venue’s location.

For those already subscribed to the Google Calendar version of the ACC Complete calendar or any of the other supporting Google Calendars from gogoraleigh, you don’t have to do anything. All 281 events have been added automatically. As event details change, you’ll see automatic changes in your calendar.

And wait….there’s more! Gogoraleigh decided that these 13 calendars aren’t enough, and added home-only calendars for UNC and N.C. State. All for the low low price of ZERO!

Outlook-Based Blackberry/iPhone/Palm Users

• After downloading the appropriate CSV file (see below), create a new folder in your in Outlook calendar (Bball11, for example). Use the File | Import and Export… to import from “another program or file”, then “Comma Separated File (Windows)”. Be sure to pick your new calendar folder as the target. This will set up the schedule in your new sub-calendar where you can make whatever changes you want.
• iPhone Users – Open iTunes with the iPhone connected and sync (you may have to specify your newly added calendar in the “Info” tab’s Calendars section.) Now you can view the basketball schedules as their own sub-calendar or as a part of all calendars.
• If you have a device which doesn’t support subcalendars (like Treos and older Palm devices), you’ll need to copy the imported basketball events into your main calendar. When you are happy with the way the subcalendar looks, change the calendar view to “Events” (instead of 7-day or 31-Day or whatever view you’re using). “Select All” from the list, and drag them over to your main “Calendar” (The Treo and other Palm Handhelds only sync to the main calendar – time for Palm to get with the program on that one!). If you want to keep your sub-calendar intact, use Ctrl-drag instead of plain drag. That will create a copy of each event to the main Calendar and keep the Bball08 calendar in place. Sync your handheld to copy the events to the handheld.

Google Calendar/Android Users

My favorite way to follow the ACC’s basketball calendar is to add it to my Google Calendar set. The Google Calendar is a dynamic, subscribable calendar that offers much flexibility. For instance, several game times have not been announced. As soon as they are set, actual game times will magically appear in your calendar. Also, Google Calendar offers a map link for quick viewing of the game’s venue location.

Additionally, Google has created a simple interface through mobile phone browsers. It allows one to view and implement ACC Calendar events. It also recognizes hyperlinks in the event’s description, so easy access to the team files is achievable by using the online Google Calendar app. To view these add the calendar using the link below, then visit http://calendar.google.com from within Safari on the iPhone or your Android browser.

(Note: Gogoraleigh will also carry the home-only calendars as an integrated feature of its normal Gogoraleigh Do-It Calendar).

To view a Google Calendar, go to the gogoraleigh Calendars page and click on the appropriate calendar link. Once the calendar is displayed, you can add it your set of Google Calendars by clicking on the “+Subscribe” bottom on the bottom right.

iCal Users

There are two options:

• Use iCalTextImport to import the .CSV version (linked above) of the schedule.
• Download the .ics file from the Calendars page and import it into iCal.

Palm Desktop and Yahoo! Calendar Users

My brother-in-law taught me a neat trick. In order to get a CSV calendar into Palm Desktop, one can use Yahoo! Calendar as an intermediary. After downloading the .CSV file from gogoraleigh, open Yahoo! Calendar and click “Options” in the upper right. Then select “Import/Export”. Go to “Import From Outlook”, selected the filename, and click “Import”. Yahoo! Calendar users are done at this point. Palm Desktop users need to verify the import, then return to the “Export to Palm Desktop” section. Pick your target and hit “Export”. The resulting .DBA file should then be ready to import into Palm Desktop.

Beware! It appears easy to lump Yahoo! Calendar events that are unrelated into one calendar. If you are simply using Yahoo! Calendar as a conduit to Palm Desktop, verify that your calendar is clean before originally importing the .CSV file, otherwise unrelated events will get lumped with basketball dates in your resulting .DBA file.

RSS

Each of the Google Calendars carries an RSS feed. This might be an interesting addition to your RSS Feed collection because each calendar change will appear in the feed. This is most useful as an alert to a game time changes in the schedule. The RSS Feed for each calendar can be found when viewing each individual Google Calendar.

Notes

Calendars are apt to change, so check back occasionally for updates. To determine the version of your schedule, open the note associated with any event, and look for the version number. If your calendar is older than those listed above, simply delete the events in Outlook in your old one and import the events of the newer file. Google Calendar is dynamically updated on the back end, so you always know you are up to date when using Google Calendar.

Use at your own risk. I do not accept responsibility for any consequences resulting from errors in the schedule.

Link to Gograleigh Calendars

Wanna see my brackets? Wanna see a bracket that will always come in in the middle of the pack? Alright. Here they are.

What you’ll notice is my pick for UNC to lost the Sweet 16 game against Syracuse. Why is that? See my previous post about chicken counting. While UNC won the ACC regular season, they feasted on bad teams. There were 6 game-winning shot games against a field of teams mostly at the NIT level. We saw the Heels enter the Greensboro coliseum not adequately prepared to play not once, but three straight times. This is a young team that is quite prone to lapses. So it is difficult to see them run off 6 straight against increasingly better teams.

Consider the Heels’ likely opponent in the Sweet 16: Syracuse. The Orangemen are the best team at executing the zone defense there is, and what is Roy Williams’ Achilles heel (besides his emotional attachment to Kansas)? It’s the zone defense. UNC does not have the shooters or the penetrating ball handlers to attack the zone, so I think that UNC will have more than normal offensive troubles against Syracuse.

It is imperative that UNC fans pull for Indiana State on Friday, and the Xavier/Marquette winner on Sunday. Xavier is a tough draw, but they aren’t even close to Syracuse, especially given the style of play that mitigates UNC’s weak offense.

While I am elated with the way this team has responded to the loss of the experienced PG, I am worried when I hear people talking about Final Fours, etc. with this team. I still stand by my goal for this team being to reach the Sweet 16. A Round of 32 exit is not a failure, but a 1st round exit is.

As I said in early December, this team doesn’t have defensive problems, but has severe offensive problems. While the removal of Larry Drew II passes the eye test, the team is still performing poorly on offense.

The goal is to score more than 0.95 points per possession. For us to find the last 5 occurrences of the team surpassing this goal, we have to go back _19_ games (Long Beach St.). The team has missed the mark for 6 straight games, now, during a period where they have only played 1 tournament lock (Duke), 1 bubble team (BC), and one of the worst teams in ACC history (WF).

I said in December that we would hit the ACC season and get a false sense of security because the league is at an all-time low. That has happened. Outside of Duke and UNC, I have not seen a team that is very good at all. Who knows how many teams the league will get into the tournament. With a year of weak mid-majors, it is possible the ACC might get a lift, but our eyes don’t fool us: the quality of play in the conference has been the worst in memory.

Let’s be careful about beating our chests. I will be the most excited person should we beat Duke on Saturday. However don’t be surprised to see us lose on Saturday in the ACC Tournament. Just like Roy Williams has never given any hints that he teaches the zone well, he also has shown no fire for winning the conference tournament. This year there really is something to play for, however: a high seed and a good berth.

In the NCAA tournament the #4 and #5 seeds likely play in the second round, while the #3 seed likely gets a #6 seed. In an article posted 5 yrs ago by ESPN, it almost appears that all 4 of these seeds have about equal chances to get to the Sweet 16. The lower seeds have been upset earlier more than the higher ones have. However the #2 seed (usually ranked #5-#8 in the AP Poll) has a 67% chance of beating a #7 seed. In order for the Heels to get a 2-seed, however, they will need to beat Duke on Saturday and win the ACC tournament.

The other thing the Heels have to play for is a berth in Charlotte. In all likelihood Duke, UNC, and Georgetown are all vying for "host" spots in the Charlotte pod. Georgetown had a bad week last week, so UNC currently is in. It’s no secret that UNC wants to play in its second home-city, Charlotte, and it’s no secret that’s the scenario Duke abhors. 

Whatever happens, it has been a good, fun season. I am just not quite as boastful as some on the board given the way our offense has sputtered. Until we can get some consistent outside shooting, we are sitting ducks for a hot team.

This week feedmyego at Inside Carolina posted a phenominal set of statistics. It shows UNC’s 3-point attempts and the situations surrounding them for 2011 vs. 2009. There are a few interesting conclusions from the stats:

UNC is taking way more 3’s against a zone defense this year. It appears coaches have finally discovered Roy Williams’ biggest weakness, teaching his team to play against a zone.

UNC is shooting 38% from the left corner and 25% from the right corner. It isn’t a shot they attempt a whole lot, but is one they should avoid.

The Heels are better shooting while lightly contested (38%) than they are wide freakin-open (26%). The worst offender is Reggie Bullock who shoots 42% when lightly contested, but 21% when wide open. I propose that we rotate one of our own guys over to guard Reggie if he gets open; not too much, however. Reggie is only 8% when “contested”.

While the improvement of the UNC team since the removal of Larry Drew II has certainly been noticed by everyone everywhere, there still are problems that this team needs to work out with its offense before they can be a team that really does some damage next month.

Against Wake Forest, a team that has hung it up for the season, the Heels had trouble pulling away 3/4 thru the game. The problem wasn’t that they fell asleep on defense. They quit scoring. The Heels finished the game scoring 0.85 points per possession. That marks the third straight game where they have missed the mark offensively. Wake Forest scored just slightly less, so the game was won on rebounding (Heels had 92 possessions to Wake’s 79).

A good team would have scored 10 more points than the Heels did in this game. Turnovers were not a problem. In fact the Heels only coughed it up on only 9% of their possessions. The problem lay at the 3-point line, where UNC shot a dismal 19%. As a team they are only 32% for the season and are now shooting worse than their opponents from behind the arc. To compound matters, UNC took 38% of their shots (3 out of every from a spot where they don’t perform well. Their offense usually takes that shot 26% of the time. However the Heels opened up an early lead and got complacent against a bad team.

The Heels have a good transition game and an excellent inside game. However in order to be a team that can overcome some adversity in tournament play, they have to have some outside threats. The four players attempting to strike from “3” are Strickland, Barnes, McDonald, and Bullock. They shoot 27%, 32%, 37%, and 31%, respectively. Perhaps it is time to shut down Strickland as a “2” guard. Not only is his shooting form badly off-balance (a signal of bad days ahead), he isn’t even getting it done currently. Perhaps it is time to give the job to McDonald and Bullock, and let them rotate with Barnes in the 2/3 positions while Strickland backs up Marshall at 1.

* * *

Luke Winn at SI did a great analysis of Marshall’s distribution. It shows that when Drew was on the court, Zeller and Strikland were the most common beneficiaries. However with Marshall on the court, the ball is getting distributed much more evenly and much more unpredictably. Scroll down to the #12 team on the list for more.