
{"id":8689,"date":"2010-01-14T10:37:25","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T18:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=8689"},"modified":"2010-01-14T10:37:25","modified_gmt":"2010-01-14T18:37:25","slug":"unc-notes-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/01\/14\/unc-notes-3\/","title":{"rendered":"UNC NOTES"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Frank Heath<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The North Carolina men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s basketball team regained a measure of its confidence Sunday, with a sure-footed 78-64 win over Virginia Tech, in which the Tar Heels pulled away with a strong overall second-half performance. Carolina was led by forward Ed Davis and point guard Larry Drew, a pair of sophomores whose contributions will be crucial to this team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s long-term development. Davis, who logged 20 points and 11 boards, has been quietly putting together an all-star caliber season. So far, he is averaging 15.5 points and 10.3 rebounds (2nd in the ACC), while leading the league in field goal percentage (63.1 percent) and blocked shots (2.9 per game).<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Drew had 14 points against the Hokies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c all in the second half \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and eight assists, and his aggressive play after the break provided a big spark for the Tar Heels.<\/p>\n<p>Almost as encouraging on Sunday was the play of junior Will Graves, who scored 13 points and grabbed six rebounds, and whose three three-pointers provided the foundation for Carolina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s second-half put-away of the Hokies.<\/p>\n<p>Another impressive facet of the game was Carolina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s field-goal defense (the Heels blocked 10 shots, four by Davis, and held the Hokies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 shooting below 38 percent in both halves) and its second-half defensive lockdown on Tech\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Malcolm Delaney, who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d lit the nets for 20 points in the first half but was limited to six after the break. Marcus Ginyard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s return was instrumental in slowing Delaney. Ginyard played 20 minutes, mostly during the second half, and was on Delaney much of that time.<\/p>\n<p>Among the freshmen, guard Dexter Strickland had a positive impact on the game, especially in the first half, when he drove through the Hokie defense for transition layups. Strickland also dished out three assists. When at his best, he gives the Tar Heels an extra dimension of speed and finishing ability from the guard spot. John Henson also made a couple of nice plays within the offense, and his long arms continue to be disruptive when Carolina is on defense. <\/p>\n<p>That all being said, Carolina fans couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford a whole lot of time to enjoy Sunday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s win, as the Heels had to travel to play at Clemson Wednesday night, in what looked like one of the toughest assignments on the Tar Heels\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 schedule.<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like that in the ACC when league play begins. The week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s results \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Georgia Tech over Duke in Atlanta, NC State over Florida State in Tallahassee, Miami topping Wake in Coral Gables \u00e2\u20ac\u201c show that this is likely to be another topsy-turvy year of conference play. <\/p>\n<p>Clemson, which leads the league in steals by a wide margin, tends to trap relentlessly and should provide a hefty challenge for Drew and Carolina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s press offense. A victory Wednesday night won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be a cure-all for UNC by any means, but it could give the Tar Heels an early leg up in the league race, and another boost of confidence, given that not a lot of opponents go into the Tigers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 den and win. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Frank Heath The North Carolina men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s basketball team regained a measure of its confidence Sunday, with a sure-footed 78-64 win over Virginia Tech, in which the Tar Heels pulled away with a strong overall second-half performance. Carolina was led by forward Ed Davis and point guard Larry Drew, a pair of sophomores whose contributions will&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8690,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8689\/revisions\/8690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}