Unless there is a meltdown, the ACC teams that will make the tourney this year are: WFU, Duke, UNC, Clemson, and Miami. That is 42% of the conference. Anyone remember when it was a regularity to have 44% of the conference in the Sweet 16 (much less getting invites)??

The reason only 5 will make it is that there are only 96 wins to be had in ACC conference play. If the top three teams beat everyone else, then there are (16+14+12) about 42 wins taken by the top 3 teams. The fourth place team is bound to win at least 8 games, so that takes us to 50 wins to split among the other 8 teams. If the fifth place team (Miami) wins 8 games, then we only have 38 wins to split among 7 teams. In that situation it is extremely unlikely for any of the remaining teams to get even 7 wins, much less the 8 normally required by the NCAA selection committee. If Miami or Clemson somehow fall apart and only get 6 or 7 wins, then we are likely to have a cluster of teams in the 6-7 win range, assuming that NCSU and Georgia Tech win around 5 league games combined. In that situation the league will once again only get four invitations (33% of the league, an all-time low).

The bottom line is that when a few teams at the top win most of their games or the bottom of the league wins a handful of games, the middle of the league suffers. Whether or not that makes for a strong league is not the really point. It is incumbent for this small portion of the league to do well in the big dance (that means you Clemson, Duke, and Wake Forest, the teams that have recently no-showed in the tournament).

For the second time in a week the UNC Tar Heels entered a Sunday night game playing dreadful offense and found themselves on the losing end. Wake Forest, behind a 34-point Jeff Teague performance upended the #3 Heels making a statement to national pollsters.

Wake Forest played a good game, but seriously, the reason Carolina lost is because they were unrecognizable to fans who watched this team up to Christmas Day. Yet again, the Heels could not shoot the ball. The four starters not named Danny Green combined for a pathetic 28% shooting night. Here are a few points:

• Has Tyler Hansbrough been sick this week? He was obviously fatigued, bending over and grabbing his shorts just 10 minutes into the game.
• Deon Thompson is a 6′8" finesse styled power forward hoping to play professional basketball. If he doesn’t get meaner, he’ll have to learn another language. When is the last time you saw a player with that physique get his shot blocked so often? Ten Thompson’s shots didn’t go in. Three of those ten were because they were blocked.
• Where has the shooting of Bobby Frasor and Wayne Ellington gone? Ellington last season Ellington’s 3-point shooting improved 3% over the previous year to an even 40%. This year his 3-point shooting is just 34%. Frasor is shooting 29% from "3" this season. Until this situation changes, expect the Heels to have an early exit in March. This is the only weapon Carolina has to pull triple teams off of Tyler Hansbrough.
• Is Danny Green now the Heels most likely to succeed in the NBA? Hansbrough is tough and scores well at the college level, however he is short and doesn’t block shots. Lawson and Ellington have not shown many dimensions to their scoring ability. Danny Green, however, has shown that he is the team’s best defender and best shooter. His rebounding is good, he is the team’s only leaper, and he has a mean streak. IF he keeps playing smart basketball, there is a chance that he becomes the most successful player on this team.
• This team cannot jump. This may be by design, in fact. Roy Williams emphasizes a controlled game, and when a player is in the air, they have little control over their bodies. It seems that these players are not being conditioned to leap better than they did coming in. Rather it seems that lateral movement is a priority. While teaching quickness is very difficult and needs to be done, I also think that there is a distinct advantage in being able to jump under control. At this point, though, this team plays its game below the rim and it is taking its toll with the number of shots that are getting blocked. Mind you, these are not the dramatic, point it into the stands blocks. It seems that most of the blocks are being corralled by the opponent.
• Why is this team unrecognizable? The problem is between the players’ ears. Countless possessions the offense is not being run correctly. Passes to the post are too rare, and all too often, passes are too low causing post players to attract at least one defender.
• We also need to utilize screens correctly. I think that Ellington is the only player on the team who consistently almost rubs shoulders with his screener. Other players, especially Ty Lawson, are passing far too wide of their screening teammates (nullifying the screen), or passing by the wrong side of the screen!
• Shot selection was a big part of the problem tonight. One fine example is the shot Tyler took with 1:45 remaining. Down 4, Hansbrough, a guy who is 2-for-6 from "3" this year, launches one from behind the arc. A) That isn’t your shot. B) YOU are the one who needs to rebound low-percentage outside shots. C) WE DON’T NEED A THREE. One of my pet-peeves is players who aren’t aware of time and score. Are the coaches not teaching what the priorities are with 2 min left and a 2-possession game? In that situation a relatively easy "2" gives Wake the ball with incredible possession. With that much time, UNC will get the ball back, probably numerous times. arrghh!
• You may have heard me talking about how Roy needs to utilize a few possessions of 1-3-1 to disjoint the opponent’s offensive rhythm. Well, tonight he did and it worked! In fact it led to our only easy basket of the night. The problem is that when the other team calls a timeout to clearly discuss how to attack the 1-3-1, you use that timeout to tell the team to go back to man. UNC came out of the timeout playing the 1-3-1 and got immediately scored upon. Roy Williams’ conclusion is probably something along the lines of "See. It didn’t work." Uh. Yeah it did. Keep going to it, but recognize when a team is figuring it out, then disrupt them again.

Without a shadow of a doubt, the problems begin with Ty Lawson. Not only is he only a remote scoring threat, his defense isn’t good, he’s forcing passes, and when he does pass on a possession, he seems to get lost in the offense. What I see right now is a talented player who is exceedingly over-confident. This attitude is carrying over to the way he treats people on campus and if he doesn’t get focused and do more watching and listening than he does gabbing, he too will need to learn a foreign language to continue his career. The team lives and dies by this player and where this team ranks in Carolina lore begins with him.

The problems between players’ ears also can be tied to the absurd scheduling in December. When the Heels went up to Rutgers on the 20th, they had only played four games in the month of December. After beating Michigan State, the team didn’t play for 10 days. After the game on the 20th, there was an 8-day break. During such a light schedule against such easy appointments, it is easy for a team to completely lose its timing and precision. This team got so rusty in December that they are shell-shocked by fairly good opponents now.

Next up is UVA. There hasn’t been a Carolina team in 10 years that has won 2 in a row in Charlottesville.

Well, wouldn’t you know it. As soon as I get back into posting, the Heels go and make things interesting. Boston College’s win told us much more about this UNC team than we realized. While there are plenty of facets being discussed today, it all boiled down to one thing: shooting. UNC shot 38% from the field (12% lower than the season average), 32% from "3" (6% lower than avg), and 56% from the FT line (16% below avg).

From BC’s timeout with 1:41 remaining (Heels down by 6), UNC missed all five of its remaining field goal attempts and went 3-6 from the FT line.

We can talk all night about Lawson’s defense on Rice, Thompson’s disturbing lack of vertical jump, and turnovers but it all comes down to shooting.

Defensively the Heels didn’t look great, but the stats show that this wasn’t the place the game was lost. BC shot 46% from the field, 38% from "3", and 75% from the line. BC got outrebounded by the Heels, as they only got the ball 88 times to  UNC’s 102. BC did score 0.97 points per possession, and that is directly attributable to their low 11% loss of possession stat. So, the Heels were 12 percentage points off the mark on defense, but with their own 0.76 points per possession, they were 19 percentage points off their offensive mark.

Just a little basket here or there would have deeply changed the complexion of the game’s latter stages. This is people like me hate missing first half free throws!

While the coach cannot make shots, I sure wish that Roy Williams would implement some zone. When a team is breaking down your traps, setting picks, and creating open shots, there is a certain rhythm they feel. A few possessions of 1-3-1 zone defense can go a long way toward disrupting the opponent’s feel for the game. This is one of the concepts of Dean Smith that is being completely ignored unfortunately by Roy Williams.

I would like to see this team get angry. That Deon Thompson isn’t picking up loose balls around the paint throwing them down with authority shows that this team is just too confident. Green and Ellington aren’t following their own shots. Let’s see people not named Hansbrough hit the deck and scrap for every loose ball. That would be a change.

The 2009 Tar Heels, so far, have been astounding. In culminating a 13-0 record, the Heels have beaten every opponent on a moderately difficult schedule (Sagarin ranked #96) by at least 15 points. The Heels are shooting 51% from the field, 38% from the more distant 3-point land, and 73% from the charity stripe. They are averaging 1.03 points per possession while holding opponents to 0.75 points per possession. They are taking 28% of their shots from “3″ while opponents are launching 29% from “3″.

After losing their 3rd string point guard, their 3rd deep big-man, and their best recruit (to injury), this team has improved in numerous ways. They are turning the ball over on 13.8% of their possessions, 0.8% better than last year’s team at this point in the season. More importantly, there is a 0.4% improvement in turnovers forced on opponents.

The numbers show a few trends. It appears that this team’s real improvement is in guard play, though Wayne Ellington is shooting 35.6% from 3-point land, 4.4% worse than last season. Danny Green has certainly picked up that slack, shooting 48% from downtown.

What has truly been impressive is that the team featuring the returning National Player of the Year (and the school’s all-time most prolific scorer) has all five starters averaging in double-figures.

There has been talk of this team running the table, but that is entirely premature. The 1999 Duke team went 16-0, but that was while the ACC was sagging (only 3 of the league’s 9 teams got tourney bids). As of this writing, 4 of the Sagarin rating’s top 8 teams are from the ACC, the top-ranked Sagarin conference.

So with a team that has been so dominant, what does the coach do in practice. Certainly there are areas to improve, and here are the top five:

• Wayne Ellington’s 3-point shooting
• Larry Drew’s defense
• Ed Davis’ defense
• Deon Thompson’s rebounding
• Better recovery help defense in the lane

Today’s game is this team’s first league game of the season. Boston College is #60 in the Sagarin ratings. They return guard sensation Tyrese Rice, who leads the team in scoring (16.7pts, ACC #7, second in assists to Lawson). They take 31% of their shots from “3″. Power forward Joe Trapani is 15th in the ACC in scoring. Statistically BC is the epotome of the middle of the ACC conference. Having faced the 290th (out of 347) toughest schedule, I don’t expect much of a game, given that it is in the Smith Center and the first week of January.

Hopefully BC will be a better test than recent opponent have given the Heels. After a mid-week meeting with Bobby Crimmins’ College of Charleston team, next Sunday’s away game against the 6th ranked Demon Deacons looms large.