Nov. 26, 2008

By Adam Lucas

MAUI--North Carolina put five players in double figures, saw the return of the reigning national player of the year, got a double-double from a freshman and shot 50.8% from the field in Tuesday's 98-69 victory over Oregon.

But one of the first things Ducks head coach Ernie Kent wanted to talk about after the game had nothing to do with any of the above. Instead, he wanted to talk about defense.

"They're outstanding defensively," he said. Then he considered the fact that his team shot a meager 21.1% in the first half and 30.1% for the game.

"A lot of it was their defensive pressure," he said. "They can turn it up and get up the line. We played too much one-on-one basketball in this game to beat a team of that magnitude...Everything you do wrong, they make you pay for it."

Sometimes, at this point in the season, you learn more from what the other teams are saying than what the Tar Heels are saying. By January and February, when the Tar Heels have a better grasp on the identity of this year's team, their insight becomes more valuable. But now, when impressions are fresh, listening to the other side can be insightful.

They're outstanding defensively. OK, Roy Williams is never going for this one. But the head coach did admit his team was "pretty doggone good" in the first half. These days, pretty doggone good gets you a 51-22 halftime advantage. Something amazing happened in that stanza. The Tar Heels played suffocating defense from tip-off until the first media timeout...and then continued it for most of the rest of the half.

There had been times through the first four games that they'd played that way defensively for a possession, or even for a four-minute stretch. But not every possession, every time, for a full 20 minutes. Even the Carolina big men were swarming the ball 35 feet from the basket.

"It creates havoc," said Wayne Ellington, who contributed a solid five assists and just one turnover in addition to his 13 points. "It's hard for them to get into an offense when they can't concentrate on the play they're trying to run. We want to take them out of what they're trying to do."

Oregon's points-per-possession figure for the first half was below 0.45, one of the lowest halves of the Williams era.

They can turn it up and get up the line. It helps when the head coach has a good feel for applying the knockout punch. Up 32-12 a little more than midway through the first half, Williams kept his foot on the gas and called for a full-court trap. The result was predictable--yet another transition opportunity.

"We spend maybe 30 minutes every day in practice working on that trap," said freshman point guard Larry Drew II, who has been a pleasant surprise. "As the season progresses, we're going to keep getting better at it."

We played too much one-on-one basketball. That's probably true, and Kent's frustration was evident when he left jitterbug guard Tajuan Porter on the bench for most of the second half. But Carolina's defense created that one-on-one play by--as Ellington said--disrupting the offense. The Ducks might have had some creative offensive plays. But they never got into them. Too many times, the shot clock ticked under 15 and the Duck with the ball simply chose to try and make something happen individually.

Everything you do wrong, they make you pay for it. Give Kent credit for distilling the essence of the Tar Heel attack to one simple statement. Here's the deal: Carolina wants to go fast. So fast it's going to be uncomfortable for you, so fast it's even uncomfortable for the Tar Heels themselves when they're first learning it ("There are times I think I'm running as fast as I can, and the coaches are telling me to run faster," Drew said). The theory is that eventually that discomfort will turn into turnovers, which will turn into fast breaks, which will turn into points.

And eventually, turn into a win.

"Sometimes it still surprises me how much good defense turns into offense," Ellington said. "Get steals, get everyone involved, go fast. That's Carolina Basketball."

Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.