I have created an "EVE" sticker at Zazzle which you can order. The 3" stickers come 6 per sheet, $5 per sheer.

I REFUSE TO PROFIT FROM THIS. I could not figure out how to get Zazzle to print something without adding a royalty fee, which goes to my account. I almost just dropped the idea, but I thought that if people want to get the stickers, I want people to easily get them. ANY PROFITS WILL GO TO THE MEMORIAL FUND.

Hopefully people will print these out and pass them around at the game(s) in Charlotte this weekend. If any of you want the original graphic so you can take it to a local printer to hopefully print these cheaper, please put your info in the comments to this entry.

Let’s let the team know that Heaven’s newest angel is still with them!

Duke’s early exits from the NCAA tournament over the last four years has been a huge topic of conversation today. It’s been postulated that Duke was fatigued, that their recruiting left them short, their offensive system is flawed, and that K was tired. Let’s look at a few points of discussion.

Recent Results

2008 Second Round
2007 First Round
2006 Sweet 16
2005 Sweet 16
2004 Final Four
2003 Sweet 16
2002 Sweet 16
2001 National Champions

Recruiting

Here are the members of Duke’s recent classes:
2007 - Overall #8
*Kyle Singler - #5 overall, #1 PF
*Taylor King: - #37 overall, #12 PF
*Nolan Smith: - #39 overall, #8 SG
2006 - Overall #5
*Gerald Henderson - #11 overall, #2 SG
  Brian Zoubek - #24 overall, #3 C
  Lance Thomas - #42 overall, #13 SF
*Jon Scheyer - #71 overall, #15 SG
2005 - Overall #2
*Josh McRoberts - #1 PF - Went pro
*Greg Paulus - #1 PG
*Eric Boateng - #3 C
  Martynas Pocius - #16 SG
  Jamal Boykin - #20 PF - trans to Cal
2004 - Overall #6
*Shaun Livingston - #1 PG - direct NBA
*DeMarcus Nelson - #5 SG
  David McCLure - #13 SF
2003 - Overall #18
*Luol Deng - #1 SF - 1 year, then NBA
2002 - Overall #1
*Sean Dockery - overall #20, #6 PG
*Shavlik Randolph - overall #30, #6 PF 3 yrs, then NBA
*JJ Redick - overall #32, #2 SG
  Shelden Williams - overall #49, #3 PF
*Mike Thompson - #53 overall, #5 C - Trans to N’Western
  Lee Melchionni - NR

* McDonald’s All-American

Duke’s Donut Offense

Obviously there is no shortage of overall talent in the recruiting history. Some charge Duke with no inside presence. Freshman Kyle Singler averaged 13.3 pts points per game. His season became more consistent and more productive until about Valentine’s Day. After that, Singler’s shooting percentages went down and his activity at the free throw line became more erratic. In the final 6 games, Singler attempted a total of 6 free throws.

Unfortunately for Duke there was no big man to back up Singler. K ran off McRoberts and Boeteng. Sophomore Lance Thomas is 6-8, but isn’t an inside force. He played 18.5 minutes per game and averaged 4.3 points per game and 3.3 rebounds. Against the talented big men of UNC, Thomas only played 12 minutes! It’s unclear just what Krzyzewski wants Thomas to be. A post up player is certainly not in the cards, though he took no 3’s this season. Brian Zoubek only played 10.5 minutes per game scoring 3.8 points per game and 3.4 rebounds per game. He was injured for a month and his return almost directly aligned with Duke’s 11-game demise.

K has favored an offense that centers around his 2 and 3 men. It’s based on penetration and dishing instead of a strong post presence. Thus Duke took 816 of their 2084 shots, 39%, from 3-point land this season. For comparison’s sake, UNC has taken 22% of their shots from behind the arc.

Duke finished the season 6-5 in their last 11 games. If we go back to February 17 (the loss at Wake Forest), we saw Duke take 28/64, 44%, of shots from 3. The following game was a loss to Miami when the Devils took 56% of their shots from 3. Remember how they missed these shots? They were short (ie fatigue). Three games later they played at State and were lucky to win that game. They took 49% of shots from three in that game.

Fatigue

The Devils’ FG shooting percentages in their last 15 games reads like this: 41,45,44,40,41,46,46,43,39,51,33,52,43,43,38. Word is that Singler was mentally and physically exhausted in the middle of the season. Once Singler was solved by opponents (or was mentally and physically exhausted), the Duke team began shooting more shots from outside where percentages are lower and rebounds are wilder.

Clearly the weak point with this team was the conditioning and player development shortages in the interior. Once Kyle Singler hit the wall, Duke had no fall-back plan other than to shoot more 3’s. Duke has recruited big men in recent years that were highly ranked. For some reason they don’t fit in with the coaching staff. The assistant coach responsible for coaching Duke’s big men is the 5′11" former point guard Steve Wojciechowski. Perhaps it is not the recruiting of big men that is the problem. Perhaps, instead, it is the inability of Steve Wojciechowski and the coaching staff to get Freshman big men on campus to develop into a consistent players. We saw this crew try to convert Shavlik Randolph into a bulky post player with miserable results. Randolph got out while he could. Now it seems the staff is once-bitten-twice-shy about how to develop big men, and gives up on guys who don’t come in and make an immediate impact.

The Heels hit the floor today and surgically dismembered a pretty good Arkansas team before the first time out. Teams get out to 9-0 leads, but often the other team will heat up and generally make it a close game by the time each team has 20 points, or so. Not today. The score was 33-11 then 42-21 and the Heels never looked back en route to a 108-77 win. They did it with offense, defense, rebounding, you name it…well, not quite.

Did someone say offense? The Heels 1.36 points per possession production marks the highest efficiency since I started tracking this stat 13 seasons ago. The Tar Heels shot 68% from the field, and took about a fourth of their shots from 3-point land.

Did someone say defense? Well…this is where the Heels were not particularly stellar this weekend. Mt. St. Mary’s scored 0.86 points per possession while Arkansas scored at a 0.97 ppp clip. Certainly a team roaring on offense won’t lock down defensively like they would in a tight game, but the one chink this weekend is the lack of forced perimeter turnovers. The baskets in Charlotte won’t seem quite as wide, so we have to force Washington State into coughing it up.

Let’s get rid of these stupid on-court decals. The NCAA has locked down so hard on graphics in the playing arena that it is jeopardizing the health of the players. It’s understandable that lit ad boards around the arena might offer an unfair ad revenue advantage for the NCAA’s advertising department. That’s where I draw the line, though. NCAA mandates included furling all professional sports banners in the ceiling, and allowing just one logo for the arena’s name. Center court logos had to be completely masked, too and the NCAA insisted that they place their logo in each halfcourt, as well as on each player’s jersey.

After sitting through six games this weekend, I can emphatically say that the players’ welfare is at stake with these decals. We saw at least five different Tar Heels hit the floor today due to slippery logos. These are the kinds of accidents that can ruin a team’s chances…all so the NCAA can obnoxiously brand their product.

Next up: Washington State, Thursday at 7:27pm EDT. The game is in Charlotte, but maybe they should be in Raleigh. The Heels’ have played 3 games in the RBC Center this season with an average margin of victory of 28 points.

More coming tomorrow, but here are a few notes:

The Tar Heels entered the RBC Center and set the scoreboard on fire. Mount St. Marys was hot shooting in the first half, and we fans were frustrated. Then we looked at the scoreboard and realized that while MSM scored 41 in the first half, we had 60! How often is it that you allow a team 41 points and still have a 19 point lead!

***

I got a REAL treat tonight. Woody is on the RBC Center in-house feed on 87.9FM. It is a RAW FEED!!!!!! (no commercials). During the commercial breaks you get to hear all of the banter between Woody, Eric, and Jones. I would pay-per-listen to get this feed at all of the games.

***

Brian Reese was in the building. Bill Clinton was apparently not.

***

Stephan Curry was amazing against Gonzaga. Isn’t Mark Few supposed to be a great coach? Why didn’t he adjust his defense to address the guy scoring 40 points??? The thing was that Gonzaga guys played pretty good man on him. He just kept pump faking and juking to get space to pop jumpers.

***

Play of the day: Surry Wood’s ally-oop, in his hometown arena. Awesome.

***

Arkansas coach John Pelphrey is a JERK. He rarely ever pumped up his players and routinely yelled, screamed, and rolled his eyes at his players. Most likely his big men, who looked a gear slower than Carolina’s, will get to the play a step late and foul frequently. They are big, but they are not quick.

***

Arkansas has a really good band, though. Not like Arizona, but still a lot of fun. They played a jam that was in 6|4!!!

***
Indiana is a mess. The players looked lost out there. There were no players for some guy wearing #23 (that’s a joke) and there defense was awful. With DD on his way out along with White and Gordon, that program is poised to plummet mightily. It was kind of sad to watch it all unfold tonight.

***

It’s absurd how the NCAA so oppressively rules tourney sites. Not only must advertisements be turned off, they have to be covered in black plastic. All professional sports team banners have to be removed, as well as the Canadian flag and flags for other countries. They only allow 1 on-court logo for the building name, and they totally mask over the center court logo with their giant circle, which has no line for detecting backcourt violations. The decals are slippery and too big, and were a problem for players maintaining footing. Roy Williams even went out on the court during play to address a dangerous spot created by the NCAA decal.

Did you know that the NCAA dictates that they be called the "N-C-A-A" during the tournament and not N-C-Double-A?

Meanwhile the NCAA’s football division ends its season with a plethora of corporate sponsored bowls. The national championship is played in a stadium where is is common to have over 100 prevalent corporate logos.

Don’t tell me the bowl money is too great to go to a playoff. If money were the main factor, they could sell advertising at these basketball venues. If football were a tournament, more people would watch and there would be more money. The NCAA needs to treat football and basketball the same. The six conferences need to treat both sports the same. The current contrast between the two sports is just laughable.

What does UNC do if they meet Duke again? The full-on defensive switching thing is probably not going to work because the element of surprise is gone. I wonder if a “junk” zone wouldn’t work. Some play a box-and-one to handle a hot perimeter player. Why not an inverse: dot-and-four? Leave Thompson down low as the goalie and send 4 guys out to play man on the perimeter shooters.

One thing that will go a LONG way if we meet again is to actually shoot the ball decently. Looking over the season’s stats it shows that UNC had their two worst offensive games against Duke. Here are some of our offensive stats:

	GAME 1	GAME 2
FG%	40.6%	40.8%
3FG	19-30   3-17	5-11
PPP	0.76	0.81

(Points per possession goal is >0.95).

Shooting the ball closer to 50% will take much of the load off of Carolina’s defense.

While the outcome was a fantastic one for the Heels, the primo matchup that ESPN hyped turned out to be a dud. The better-shooting team shot 41%. The other one jacked up 38% of their shots from 3. The refs swallowed their whistles as elbows flew, players rolled on the floor with the ball, and Hansbrough shot no free throws (he averages 10 attempts per game).

A lot has been made about Roy Williams’ advice to switch on all screens (at the noting of Steve Robinson). It was great to see Roy’s flexibility when needed and the strategy worked well. Many times Duke players found themselves not having the room they needed and had a larger player in their faces.

Perhaps even more important was the monster interior defense by the Heels, namely Green and Thompson. The two had 7 and 5 blocked shots, respectively, and the team combined for 15 blocks to Duke’s 7. Duke had a very hard time finding open shots all night.

***

It is not an impossibility that the ACC gets only 3 teams in the big dance. We know that UNC, Duke, and Clemson are in. Bracketology’s bubble teams on Friday included Maryland and Va. Tech, while Miami was in the tournament. Well, keeping in mind that no at large team has ever been ranked in the RPI lower than #43, let’s looks at this:

• MIAMI - Sagarin rank #37, schedule diff #54 - Good wins: Duke, Clemson.
• MARYLAND - Sagarin #57, sched: #56 - Good wins: @UNC
• VA TECH - Sagarin #56, sched: #45 - Good wins: None. Their ACC schedule pitted them only once against UNC, Duke, Clemson, Miami, and NCSU. They feasted on the league cellar.

Unless Maryland and VT make some noise next weekend, they will both be in the NIT. Miami really needs to beat NCSU, or they could be out.

The Heels went up to Chestnut Hill and played in one of the craziest, well-played games in recent memory. The Heels and Eagles shot 51 and 50 percent, respectively. They scored 1.14 (second-highest this season) and 1.05 points per possession, respectively. This is the highest offensive efficiency by an opponent this season. Both and turned the ball over on a rare 11 and 14 percent. While both teams played really well, they both went through incredible stretches. For BC to extend their lead to 18, then lose by 10 means that BC was incredible in the first half, and Carolina was incredible in the 3rd quarter.

Oh, did you notice that guy for BC? Tyrese Rice scored 46 points, more than half of the Eagles’ points. So many times the Heels have faced a hot player and were unable to overcome it, but the Heels got hot from outside when they needed it.

***

Duke/State was a barn-burner as well. Duke overcame a double digit deficit in the second half to win by one. It wasn’t that State was that good, though. Duke was dreadful at shooting and rebounding. They went through vast stretches where they got no offensive rebounds. K got his 800th, and he’s to be congratulated (it was all I could do to not boo him from my courtside seat).

There are a couple of things I still don’t understand:

• What was up with Hickson’s playing time? Why wasn’t he in the game down the stretch? He’s one of the ACC’s leading scorers, shot blockers, and rebounders, and he was on the bench with a shrinking lead against a dangerous team. Weird. It’s almost like Sidney Lowe is so mad about the NBA talk this week that he is out to sandbag Hickson to prove he isn’t ready.
• With only a 4 second shot clock differential and a 1-point deficit, why didn’t State foul with 10 seconds left? Once Duke ran the shot clock out there wasn’t enough time for State to get a good shot. I would have fouled Duke. So what if you’re down by 3, it’s still a 1-possession game.

With should-wins coming this week for both teams, the stage is nearly set for another UNC/Duke clash for the ACC regular season championship. It’s really all about a banner because while both teams will be seeded in Raleigh for the NCAA’s first two rounds (unless K petitions the NCAA to have UNC shipped off again), the #1 seed in the Charlotte (Southeast) Regional is till up for grabs. We probably won’t know that distinction until Selection Sunday.

One thing is for sure, UNC and Duke will go as far as their jump shooting takes them; moreso with Duke, who has a very weak inside game.

Carolina won one of its most important games in history tonight. Those are big words to throw around, but tonight’s game against Clemson was the epitome of gravitas.

The Streak

Clemson has never won in Chapel Hill. Tonight’s game set an NCAA record for dominance/futility as the Heels have now won all 53 meetings against Clemson in Chapel Hill. I remember learning about this streak in 1988, my freshman year. At that point the streak was an improbably 33 strong, but it wasn’t a record. Clemson has brought some fine teams into Chapel Hill, perhaps none finer than this year’s teams. Players like Tree Rollins, Horace Grant, Dale Davis, Elden Campbell, Larry Nance; none have won in Chapel Hill. Conversely, UNC has fielded some weak teams, most notably the 2002 team, that were able to keep the streak alive. At some point Clemson will win in the Dome, and that team will have to live with that weight through history. The Tigers played incredibly well tonight, but this Heel team found some heart, and wouldn’t become that team.

The Season

Clemson may have 6 losses, but they are one of the nation’s best teams. They lost to Duke once and UNC twice. The other three came against Charlotte (just after the first UNC game), Mississippi, and @ Miami. Usually Clemson disintegrates in February. Colossal choke jobs like tonight’s game can begin avalanches, but something tells me this year is different, and this Clemson team will make the Sweet 16.

The Injuries

How many teams are able to overcome a 15 point deficit having lost 3 of their top 4 points guards? We knew that the loss of Frasor was going to be tough, and that Thomas would really have to play solid basketball. The loss of Lawson, and now Ginyard, to ankle injuries puts the weight of the world on Q. He responded well and hit two free throws, his career biggest points so far, at a crucial time to tie the game.

The Psycho

Clemson has the biggest, most classic frontcourt in the ACC. The knock on Hansbrough is that he is easily stopped against true big men, but not tonight. Tyler had a monster game, instead, with 39 points and 13 rebounds.

The Heart

Many teams fold when they are down 15. This team was suffering a Duke hangover, has an amazing number of injuries, has been in a huge shooting slump for the past five games, and has been sliced and diced down the middle. However they picked up defense, hit a few shots, and got the confidence they needed to overcome a well-playing opponent.

Stats

While this was an extremely important win for the Heels, there are questions. The Heels finished shooting 32-73 from the field, the end being a 16-25 stretch. That means that until that span, the Heels were shooting 16-48, or 33% from the field. Maybe they were tight and overthinking in response to losing to Duke, but to me it is a bad sign that this team played so poorly for almost 30 minutes.

The game was won on the FT line. The Heels hit 31 FTs while Clemson hit 1. A 30-point differential there will win almost always. The Heels shot 86% from the stripe for the game, and is shooting 77% for the season, 6 percentage points better than last year’s team.

Wayne Ellington was 5-9 from three point land tonight. In the previous 7 games he had hit only 7 total 3’s. His stroke is the key to Carolina’s success in March.

The second biggest key is UNC’s ability to stop dribble penetration, which was poor, again, tonight. Defensively the Heels did keep Clemson to 0.82 points per possession and 28-61 (46%) from inside the arc. I haven’t been able to break that down to the first 30 minutes vs. the final 20 minutes.

Next up is a game @ Virginia. Two games 48 hours apart? Hmmm. That sounds like March, yet I don’t hear the media lauding Roy Williams for preparing his team for "March-like" situations. I guess only Krzyzewski gets credit for spinning the conferences dealt schedule that way.

Lawson will likely not play at Virginia, and Ginyard is gimpy (Gimpyard?). Should be interesting…

Many have spoken of the shortcomings of this team, however the lofty ranking made us critics sound unappreciative. The plain ol’ truth is that this is a very good team that will win all but 3 or so regular season games and finish with probably 5 losses overall, making it one of UNC’s best on paper.

In truth, though, this team still has shortcomings that the last three good opponents have exploited.

• Interior Defense - The key to this team is it’s ability to patrol the paint. Unfortunately it is getting eaten alive there. Any decent big man looks unstoppable when facing Hansbrough/Thompson/Stepheson. This threesome is completely unable to stymie big men with shotblocking and commonly get cheap fouls called down low
• Outside Shooting - The Heels were 30% from 3-point land yesterday and are shooting 38% on the year. As the opponents get better, the games get more physically demanding and substitutions get tighter. As we get more fatigued, the outside shot starts to wane. Ellington is shooting 41% on the season but has been inconsistent. Against Maryland he shot 2-7 from “3″ and 6-16 overall. With Green and Ginyard combining for 6-22, there is really no way the Heels deserved to be in this one. The threesome combined with Lawson for 34% group shooting. Yuck!
• Shot Selection - The emotionally scarring loss to Georgetown last season should have taught these players that you work for good shots. We didn’t see that in the past several games, including the second half against NCSU. In the halfcourt game we aren’t seeing crisp picks being set and we are only seeing plays survive two options before falling apart. Alex Stepheson looks particularly lost in the offense. He will often set a soft pick and then seem to drift aimlessly not aware of the ball’s location. Role players are everything and we have to have them running plays well to work for easy baskets. Maryland played good defense, but we let them. We didn’t try to move them, we opted for lousy three point looks. The Heels usually take 23% of their shots from behind the arc, but opted for 29% yesterday.

To be honest, Tyler Hansbrough is making a name for himself and carrying this team simply based on his ability to play through contact. He leads the nation in trips to the FT line and has scored 153 of his 405 points (38%) from the line. That’s why he averages 21.3 points per game!

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In other news, did you see Deron Washington’s dunk against GT? I nominate it as the best play of the decade in the ACC. Here is the YouTube link to it.

The game could be summed up by the Dean Dome crowd as NCSU finally scored its 13th point, they cheered. NCSU had missed 18 straight shot and was at the end of a 34-4 run that humiliated the visitors and made the second half an exhibition show.

Carolina played well, especially in forcing perimeter turnovers in the second half. What was more stunning, however, was how bad NCSU was in the first half. They showed no interest in rebounding and seemed to run no set plays. Possession after possession ended in a State player forcing the ball inside and forcing a guarded shot. Perhaps Coach Sidney Lowe told his team to release on shots to prevent the Carolina fast break, but it was a miserable flop. Not only did State teammates begin jogging up court when a teammate shot, they got beaten back on defense!

It’s really hard to tell if there is a coaching malfunction, chemistry problem, talent dearth, or key injury that is plaguing the Pack. Whatever it is, it’s creating the worst team in the Triangle since Dohorty’s 8-20 team. Very strange.

Enough about the Pack. The Heels continue to impress and get all of the headlines, however this team really scares me. They are clearly one of the two best teams in the ACC and will lose no more than 3 league games this season. I just wonder about their ability to survive an NCAA game against some faceless opponent with a hot shooting guard and a bully down low. The Clemson game showed that our big men really are not that big, and they don’t particularly play well against athletic 6′10"+ players.  Wayne Ellington carried the Heels against a not-so-bad Clemson team.

The problem is that the ACC is so weak, once again. While the league expanded by 25% recently, the proportion of the league that is halfway decent has plummeted to an all-time low. We know that UNC, Duke, and Clemson are tourney teams (unless Clemson does its famous disappearing act again). Are Boston College and Miami any good? They have played weak schedules and it will be interesting to watch their journey through the hapless league of mediocrity. It is likely, though, that only 4 teams will get bids this year, tying an all-time low 33% in 2000 when UNC, Maryland, and Duke were the only teams better than Meredith.

The Heels need to focus on defense, especially on the interior. Deon Thompson has to improve his weakside help, and Alex Stepheson needs to avoid cheap fouls (fouls that don’t give him any advantage but are called nevertheless). I’d like to see us generate more perimeter steals as well. The fast break is an element that is so emotionally disabling to opponents, that some perimeter steals can seal a game quickly.