Nov. 19, 2008

On a Sylvia Hatchell-coached team, she will tolerate the occasional bad shot. She will tolerate a few turnovers as long as her team is creating possessions. But there are two things she will not tolerate - bad defense and bad rebounding.

Carolina corrected the former but never the latter in its 73-67 win over Xavier as Musketeer forward Ta'Shia Phillips, a 6-6 sophomore from Indianapolis, notched a double-double - in each half. There must be something about those Indiana kids; Bloomington native Sean May once had 26 points and 24 rebounds in a huge win over Duke in March of 2005. It was a Smith Center record.

`Was' being the operative word. Carolina got, well, Sean Mayed by Phillips, who made 23 points on 10-of-13 shooting and added a Smith Center record 25 rebounds. As a team though, Xavier Sean Mayed the Tar Heels, out-rebounded them 59-34.

If Carolina thinks its coach will take it easy on them because they came away with the victory, they can think again. Hatchell will be holding a special `rebounding practice', the very mention of which caused Cetera DeGraffenreid's eyes to grow wide. When pressed about what that practice would entail, Hatchell said: "Are you up at 6:00 Friday morning? Do you want to come watch?"

"We're always one of the best rebounding teams in the country. Tonight, we were one of the worst. That doesn't cut it."

Rashanda McCants said the entire team, including herself, needed to be punished for its performance on the backboards. But without McCants, Carolina never would have won this game. Down 40-37 at halftime, McCants went on a tear, scoring 20 of her 27 points in the second half in 12 minutes. Her 20 points were more than half of Carolina's 36 second-half points.

McCants was fighting hard to get rebounds but it wasn't quite enough. She fouled out at the 2:53 mark when the game was still in doubt but many of her fouls came when it was clear that she was sick of letting Xavier get every single rebound. And for a time, they did.

The Tar Heels also had a putrid shooting day, shooting just 32.8 percent. Carolina missed 31 shots from the field and nine from the foul line and Xavier had 31 defensive rebounds.

But what Carolina finally decided in the second half - with the leadership of McCants and a surprising spark from a freshman center - was that it was not going to let the pace of this game be chosen by Xavier. They were going to force the pace.

It took the 6-5 Chay Shegog getting out on the perimeter, getting in the passing lane, knocking the ball away and quickly turning it into a three-point play to not only spark the team but the crowd as well. "I thought it was a big spark for the team because you have a freshman and a center at that getting through the passing lane and actually making a lay-up and a three-point play," McCants said. "For me, it kind of just said, `Let's go.' That's that spark that we needed to go on a run."

And she went. Technically Carolina went on a 14-0 run, turning a 53-48 deficit into a 62-53 lead in a little over five minutes. It was started by the Shegog and-one play but McCants went on a 11-0 run in a little less than three minutes. "What I was thinking is that we're not going to lose this game, so whatever I had to do, I had to get it done," McCants said.

But while Carolina does not win this game if not for the proficiency of Italee Lucas in the first half, who had 11 of Carolina's 37 points and did not miss a shot, or without McCants, it doesn't win this game without turning up the temperature defensively.

Rebounding is a significant part of Carolina basketball and what Hatchell wants. But she was pleased to see her young team take it to the next level. The traps forced turnovers, bad passes were picked off, long Tar Heel arms were in the passing lanes batting balls away and Xavier stopped getting as many easy looks.

"Once we got the traps, we were getting out there and getting our hands on the passes," Hatchell said. "Then whenever they would turn around and try to make another pass, our rotations were really good on our defense. It made them play chaotic, which is what we wanted to make them do and make some bad passes. That's what we were supposed to be doing in the first half, but we were a day late and a dollar short."

It culminated when every pass was denied and Xavier could not get a shot off as it ran down with 7:52 to go and DeGraffenreid snatched the ball away; the Tar Heels may have had a lay-up if not for a technical foul on the Xavier coach. Carolina reclaimed the paint as well; after allowing Xavier to make 11-of-17 shots in the paint in the first half, it held them to 6-of-16 in the second half.

What had once been easy for Xavier was now chaotic. Carolina was able to take them out of their offense, which is what the goal of Carolina's defense is supposed to be. By the end of the first half, even observers knew their plays and sets because they were able to run them with little harassment. That changed.

"We were playing how they wanted us to play," DeGraffenreid said of the first half. "We went in at halftime and discussed it. We thought we'd come back out and show them how to play Carolina basketball."