UNC has certainly proved it is a formidable opponent in the Smith Center and on neutral court. Questions marks, however, lie on the road. This Junior class (Felton, May, McCants) was 1-7 on the ACC road during their Freshman season. Last season they only tallied a 2-6 record.

If all other things are equal, it looks like this team has made a massive improvement on the road. The Heels are 3-1. Those three wins were impressive with margins of 34, 19, and 34 points. The one loss came by 13 points to a good Wake Forest team that was able to get back on defense and nail all 32 of their free thow attempts.

The remaining road ACC opponents are FSU, Duke, NCSU, and Maryland. Given that 3 conference losses will most likely put any team in the ACC driver’s seat, the Heels can earn a cushion by winning 3 out of those 4 road games, which is doable.

Live By The “3″; Die By The “3″

Three of the four road opponents rely heavily on 3-point shooting in their offense. Here’s a list of the percentage of all shots that were taken from 3-point land (in parentheses is their 3-point shooting percentage):

FSU 40.2% (39% made)

Duke 37.0% (38% made)

NCSU 31.4% (35% made)

Maryland 25.7% (31% made)

Stopping the 3-point attack is the key to stopping FSU, Duke, and NCSU. Pushing tempo is the key to beating Maryland. It will be important for the Heels to focus on their game plan in these hostile environments. At Wake Forest we saw many old bad habits arise: McCant’s forced the issue (on both sides of the ball), shots missed were short (the guys were scared), and Felton took too many shots before running the halfcourt set.

The game at Duke will be a major step for this ballclub and for this program. In spite of their recent success, their 3-year road ACC record is still only 6-14. If they can pull out a win at Duke, the most hostile ACC environment, their confidence will soar and they will finally be past the black cloud that enshrouded the program ever since Bill Guthridge started recruiting Omar Cook.

Hat’s off to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons who were able to show just how important free throw shooting can be. The Deacs put away the Tar Heels with the second-best free throw shooting exhibition in the history of the NCAA. The Deacs also got back on defense to stop Carolinas frenetic transition game as well as got three point contributions from minor players just when they needed it.

While this was a big game, it was more of a game where the Heels could have taken a big step toward winning the #1 seed in the ACC Tourney. However this loss doesn’t ruin the season or hopes of a #1 regional seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Heels must get better on the road and they have to use this loss as a mid-term report card.

The Heels must simply improve mentally on the road. While we didn’t see the team quit today, we did see them panic in the face of adversity by taking quick, long 3’s when they weren’t necessarily needed. We also saw Raymond Felton push too hard with the penetration in the first half.

An important problem today was the way they missed on 40 occasions. Almost all of those misses were short. This means the Heels were either emotionally too up for the big game or simply fatigued. I’ll pick the former. This team is a very good one, but they have had so little success in tough road games that they haven’t learned how to handle the pressure. In stark contrast is this year’s Duke team which is a far less talented team than the Heels. Duke responded perfectly on Thursday to an early deficit at NCSU: by keeping their heads up, playing good defense, and taking smart shots. The Heels shot selection today resembled that of last year’s team; panicked.

Rashad McCants was outstanding today…when he was on the court. I’m afraid, though, that Rashad’s reputation hurt him as a double foul was incorrectly called in the first half. This lead to the deal breaker for the Heels; a dumb 4^th foul on McCants 50 feet from the basket just 59 seconds into the second half. McCants sat on the bench for the next nine minutes and watched Wake extend a comfortable lead. By the time McCants went back in the game, not even his great offensive game could overtake the hot-free-throw-shooting Deacs.

The double foul was a bad call as was the non-continuation foul in the second half. McCants was fouled driving to the basket and made the shot but the officials waived off the basket and sent McCants to the line for two shots. Instead of punishing the Deacs by draining the shots, McCants argued with the officials and made a scene about the bad call. He then topped off his display by missing both shots. The Heels got the rebound and scored, nevertheless, but McCants’ actions made a statement again. Will he get unjust fouls later based on his previous attitude problems? Probably. Let’s hope he handles it better next time.

I’ve always said that Felton is the difference in this team being a NIT team vs. a NCAA team. Jawad Williams, however, is the difference between this team being good and Final Four-going scary-good. Unfortunately Williams all but disappeared in the second half. I saw him make one turnover and miss about three shots, and that’s it. It was his worst half of play since he his concussions last season. Don’t forget that Williams had an outstanding first half of the season last year only to fade at this point and be a non-factor when it came down to brass tacks. Let’s hope he can bounce back and continue being solid.

Raymond Felton did not have a particularly good day. Even before his injury (with 4:52 remaining in the first half) Felton forced penetration, lost the ball too easily, and missed many shots. Felton has faced three good point guards this week, but Chris Paul is definitely the best. Paul is more of a scoring type of guard and Felton needs to not try to play one-up with him. Felton needed to focus more on distributing the ball instead of trying to score so much today.

While the Deacs free throw shooting was incredible, the Heels did their part by taking bad shots. They took 25 of their 67 shots (37%) from 3-point range today and only made 28% of them. Their season average is 31% of all shots from behind the arc, which is still awfully high. If the team would be more patient, set screens, and look inside more, they will have a much easier time finding open 2-point shots.

Remember, the name of the offensive game is to score more than 0.95 points on each possession. While 3’s are fun, we only scored 0.84 points on the possessions today that ended with 3’s. On the other hand we were 20-42 from 2-point land, resulting in an average of 0.95 points on those particular possessions. The bottom line is that if you aren’t shooting better than 32% from three-point land, you should try more easy 2’s. With 2’s you only have to make 48% of your shots to achieve the 0.95 ppp goal.

Next up is an ugly Clemson team that lost and embarrassing one to Virginia Tech today. Is Clemson that bad? Can they shoot 3’s as well as they did in last season’s debacle? We’ll see. The important thing for the Heels is to stay with their game plan and not deviate into one-upsmanship on the road.

MidTerm Grade: A

Don’t look now, but the Heels are on fire. They have exceeded one point per possession for 6 straight games and have kept the last nine opponents below the target 0.85 points per possession. Only Kentucky has turned the ball over on fewer than 20% of their possessions. What I’m trying to say is that UNC’s outstanding play supersedes that of the impressive 97 and 98 teams (who incidentally played easier schedules than this current team).

That is not to say that UNC’s schedule has been difficult. Many of UNC’s opponents thus far are overrated and the Heels have only played 2 of their 13 games on hostile home courts.

Next up is Maryland (8-2) who is still searching for their identity. They are a short team with OK guard play, however UNC should not struggle in this game. Maryland lost to George Washington and Wisconsin and struggled mightily to beat an underperforming FSU team at home.

The Heels will not trap much for the rest of the season, and that’s a mistake. The ability to send Marvin Williams on the perimeter is a fantastic weapon in generating turnovers. The Heels must, however, play good interior defense. Williams, Williams, and May need to learn how to effectively block shots and move their feet while avoiding fouls.

Offensively the Heels need to use more dribble penetration. It will be interesting to see how many opposing coaches will pick up on what William & Mary was able to do today. With a combination of Triangle-and-Two and straight 2-3 zones, the Heels had difficulty getting into their rhythm and settled for too many 3’s early on. So many coaches, however, would rather die than play a zone defense, it will be surprising to face much zone this year.

Coach Williams has promised the team a “boot camp” atmosphere in practice this week, so hopefully the Heels can learn from it and keep strong intensity throughout every game as a result.