All posts by Dane Huffman

Featured stories, The skinny, UNC

Roy Williams says Tar Heels can be ‘immature,’ but they still know how to bear down

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North Carolina is well aware it plays Duke Saturday night in the Smith Center, and yes, the Tar Heels know they are tied with the Blue Devils at the top of the ACC Standings.

But Carolina also knows it plays a tough Florida State team Wednesday night in Tallahassee, and coach Roy Williams insisted his team – though young – isn’t getting ahead of itself.

In fact, Williams even called his team “immature” in some ways.

“We know that we’ve go a big challenge at Florida State,” Williams said. “This team is immature as all get out about some things but they really have been pretty focused about playing the next game.”

For example, Williams said his club can be loose and comical around the clubhouse. But the Tar Heels are often playing with the poise of an experienced team despite starting two sophomores and two freshmen. Carolina has won 15 of 17 and 10 of 11 since that loss at Georgia Tech.

That’s an impressive run for a program that was a huge disappointment last season, and came into this year with significant, and unexpected, personnel losses.

“You go back to last May, when the Wears say they are not coming back … Will Graves … Larry Drew. There has been some adversity I never want to to through again,” Williams said. “Right now I’m estatic about what they have done. … I am really proud of what my team has done. It hasn’t been easy. Ol’ Roy has had a hard year since last May. But I am really proud of them.”

Featured stories, N.C. State

Pack’s Lowe says Wood being grabbed by defenders

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N.C. State shooter Scott Wood has been up and down this season, exploding for points in some games and disappearing offensively in others. He had zero points against Duke, nine against Wake Forest, five against Clemson, 15 at Maryland and three against North Carolina.

Then in Saturday’s win over Georgia Tech, Wood erupted for 20 points and hitting seven of 10 shots.

That raises the obvious question of why Wood has been so erratic. On Monday, Wolfpack coach Sidney Lowe had a pointed response on the ACC teleconference.

“One [reason] is that people are really paying attention to him and trying to do things to him to prevent him from getting shots,” Lowe said.

But Lowe couldn’t help but add a strong point about how Wood is being grabbed by defenses.

“I know he’s my player and I might be biased but the film doesn’t lie. He gets held more than anybody I have ever seen. They literally grab him, grab his jersey.

“People are just aware of him. The last ballgame he really moved well without the ball. That’s one of the things we’ve been trying to tell him – keep moving so they can’t grab you.”

Duke, Featured stories, The skinny

Duke reaches No. 1 despite Singler slump

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Duke ascended to the No. 1 spot in the polls again Monday, a move that reflects the carnage of the top at last week and the fact that the Blue Devils have steadied themselves after the loss of Kyrie Irving.

The Devils are continuing to win despite an odd shooting slump by senior star Kyle Singler. Coach Mike Krzyzewski continues to praise Singler for his defense, which you can take as a way of boosting Singler’s confidence, but there’s no doubt Singler’s shooting woes are puzzling.

Singler scored 24 at Wake Forest on Jan. 22, 14 against Boston College Jan. 27, 20 vs. St. John’s Jan. 30 and then 22 at Maryland on Feb. 2. So he was pretty much rolling along to a year worthy of national honors.

Then suddenly, he skidded. Here are his last five games, with shooting from the field and three-point range:

Feb. 5, N.C. State 5-13 (1-2) 14 points
Feb. 9, Carolina 3-17 (1-6) 10 points
Feb. 13, at Miami 6-12 (2-6) 14 points
Feb. 16, at Virginia 1-5 (0-2) 2 points
Feb. 20, Georgia Tech 5-14 (0-1) 15 points.

“I don’t know if there’s any one thing,” Krzyzewski said Monday. “Sometimes you just don’t shoot as well. Sometimes when you don’t shoot as well you don’t play as well. To me what’s remarkable about that kid is every other part of his game is terrific.

“At Virginia, he let that, for one of the few times in his career, affect how he played. And he can’t do that. He’s so important for us, whether he goes 2 for 12 or 8 for 12.
We won’t win a really important game unless Kyle plays with that spirit. And when he hits that shot, he’s a lot better.”

Krzyzewski compared Singler to a .320 hitter who is suddenly hitting .250.

“We think that he will hit .320 and balance out for the season. But I’m proud of him. He’s handling all his other responsibilities well.”

Featured stories, N.C. State

Leslie’s poem is unwelcome tempest for N.C. State

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It has been that sort of season for N.C. State, hasn’t it? Thursday night was exactly what you wanted from the Wolfpack – an intense ACC win over a good Clemson team, solid defense and some real effort by the Wolfpack.

Not only that, but we saw something from C.J. Leslie we thought we’d never see – real hustle. Leslie actually dove for a loose ball, something that seemed abhorrent to him earlier in the season. One of the defining moments in State’s home loss to North Carolina was when Leslie barely reached for a loose ball while two Tar Heels dove for it.

But rather than relishing that 69-61 victory, the talk Friday morning is all about Leslie’s poem for an English class that made it to Deadspin. The poem essentially focuses on the poet’s efforts to hook up with a girl and his excitement when she sends a text saying, “sex.”

N.C. State hasn’t confirmed if that was really Leslie’s poem, and the fact is, no student should have his academic work splashed all over message boards. Would you want your freshman essays shared with the world? Uh, no.

Regardless of what you think of the poem, Leslie doesn’t deserve to have his private work shared with the world without his permission. The N.C. State Code of Student Conduct prohibits “willfully damaging the academic work or efforts of another student.”

Frankly, the school should find out who leaked the paper and punish them accordingly.

But all this doesn’t change the fact that State is being made fun of in the national and local press. This morning on 96 Rock radio, for example, the hosts made a big deal of making fun of Leslie’s poem.

Too bad, too. Leslie played great Thursday, with 18 points and 10 rebounds and a determined effort across the board. It’s what coach Sidney Lowe has been waiting for from his star freshman, and what this Wolfpack team needs. What should have been a big win wound up as fuel for talk show hosts, and that’s too bad.

Duke, Featured stories, The skinny, UNC

Harrison Barnes: UNC alumni game swung his thoughts to Carolina

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Duke was quietly confident it would sign Harrison Barnes. North Carolina didn’t come on until late, but once it did, the Heels made a huge impression. Barnes, now a UNC freshman, had a long one-on-one interview with Dan Wiederer of the Fayetteville Observer that was published this week, and in it, he told Wiederer that a trip to the Smith Center for the UNC alumni game changed his perception.

“I’ve never seen or felt anything like it,” Barnes said. “Not only to walk in as a recruit and see all the guys here, all the coaches, but to see how Carolina basketball came to be. Seeing Dean Smith talk to Roy Williams, that was the man he learned everything from. To see the 2005 championship team, to see the ’09 championship team. To have Michael Jordan come back. Vince Carter. Antawn Jamison. Rasheed Wallace. All of those guys are back.

“All of a sudden Carolina basketball and all of the history and legends that they talk about? It’s all literally right in front of you. I wouldn’t say it was an out-of-body experience. But there was definitely something surreal about that. It was like a live and in-person history lesson. The history of the program was playing right in front of me. …

“For any recruit that was there, I don’t know how you could say no after that. For me, it seemed like Carolina was the place to go.”

Duke had recruited Barnes hard, and he was close to Mike Krzyzewski and the staff. His final decision was closely guarded, and many were shocked when he went on Skype and told UNC he was headed to Chapel Hill.

Wiederer asked Barnes if he spoke with Duke after that announcement.

“We went our separate ways after that,” he said.

Featured stories, N.C. State, The skinny

Lowe blames Leslie’s suspension on ‘youth,’ says Leslie will play Sunday at Wake Forest

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N.C. State doesn’t have a game until Sunday at Wake Forest, and perhaps it comes at a good time for the Wolfpack. Tracy Smith’s knee is ailing – again – and State is also looking to get freshman C.J. Leslie back on course after he was suspended from Saturday’s loss at Duke for violating team rules.

Wolfpack coach Sidney Lowe said Monday that he expects Leslie to practice Tuesday and play Sunday.

As for the suspension, Lowe said, “I characterize that just as youth, just not understanding the importance of things, little things. …

“It’s just youth. It’s just growth and maturity and understanding  there is structure, there is discipline, and it has to be done.”

Lowe also made a pointed remark about the club circuit and its impact on the elite players. Lowe suggested that some of the behavior seen at the college level has its roots in club basketball.

“Unfortunately sometimes kids today – and I hate to talk about the AAU circuit – but there is not a lot of structure and discipline there. And then we get the kid and we have to show them that.”

Featured stories

Wake’s Desrosiers coming on, giving Deacons hope for the future

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This has felt like a lost season for Wake Forest, with one ACC win  and a new coaching learning the league and his personnel. But there may be more hope for the Deacons longterm than one believes.

The Deacons lost 91-70 at Maryland Saturday, dropping them to 8-15 overall. But the Deacons started two freshmen and two sophomores, and one of those freshman, center Carson Desrosiers, is starting to show potential. Desrosiers is a slender 7-footer but he is a decent shooter and should improve rapidly.

He scored 11 points and had five rebounds against the Terps. Those are hardly All-ACC numbers, and he is averaging only 4.4 points and 3.5 rebounds for the season. Tall players take time to mature, though, and Desrosiers may be a center Wake can build around.

“In a quiet way Carson is slowly becoming one of the the elite freshmen in this league,” Wake coach Jeff Bzdelik said Monday. “Down the road as he acquires the necessary strength to finish around the rim and be able to hold and contest his position around the rim, he will develop into one of the elite big men in the ACC in the future.”

Elite? That’s a strong word, and Bzdelik used it later in the ACC teleconference when referring to freshman point guard Tony Chennault. But the idea that Wake could have high-level players at those two critical positions is important.

Desrosiers, the first native of New Hampshire to play at Wake, had already committed to the Deacons before Bzdelik was hired.

“He could have reneged and gone somewhere else. But a the same time whwne we met, it took him abut 10 mintues to say coach, ‘I’m in.”

“I’m sure glad he did. He’s a cornerstone of our program.”

UNC

Drew departure comes as Carolina faces defining three games

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North Carolina faces a huge three-game stretch that could define its season, and the shocking loss of Larry Drew II means Roy Williams will have to adjust his rotations against difficult competition.

The Tar Heels are home to Florida State on Saturday, and anyone who has watched the Seminoles knows how ferocious their defense can be. Then come games at Duke and at Clemson, both of which could be losses under the best of circumstances.

You can’t help but feel there was a strong sense of spite in Drew’s decision to leave in midseason. It really makes no sense – why drop out of a semester’s worth of classes and have to make it up? I mean, what parent would really allow their child to do that?And quit basketball, too?

But here are some tough numbers. Carolina was 19-17 in games Drew started last season (he didn’t start senior night against Miami). And the Heels were 12-5 with him starting at point this year, a string that concluded with that miserable performance at Tech.

Not only has Kendall Marshall played well at point guard, but Drew had played well off the bench.

The hunch here is Carolina will get better because of this. If Drew’s attitude off the court was so sour he wanted to leave, that wasn’t going to change with the tournaments approaching. And the rapid improvement of Reggie Bullock means Carolina has another option on the wing.

You have to give Roy Williams credit for a sharp coaching job so far. If he made one mistake, it was staying with Drew too long before turning to Marshall.  We’ll find out over the next three games how much Drew will be missed, but based on Friday’s events, it probably will not be much.

Featured stories, The skinny, UNC

Larry Drew’s leaving Carolina continues Calif. exodus from Chapel Hill

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The stunning decision by North Carolina guard Larry Drew to leave Chapel Hill in the middle of the semester continues a trend in which recruits from the state of California have not remained in Chapel Hill.

Under Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge, the Tar Heels rarely went to California for players. Center Scott Williams was one of the few from that state to play in Chapel Hill. But Roy Williams had established deep connections to California in his time at Kansas, and he continued to recruit that state, with success, at UNC.

But the shocking news that Drew is leaving marks the fourth time a California product has left Chapel Hill early under Williams. Alex Stepheson transferred to Southern Cal after playing the 2007 and 2008 seasons in Chapel Hill.

Last season, David and Travis Wear surprised Williams after the season when their father told him after the season they were transferring. They eventually picked UCLA.

Drew continued that trend Friday, and in a manner similarly surprising. Williams, in a news release, said Drew’s father told him the son would leave. (You’d think the players, in the cases of both the Wears and Drew, would have had the nerve to tell the coach themselves).

Regardless, it’s a stunning development for a team that appeared to be hitting its stride with that win at Boston College.

Carolina never seemed to play to its potential with Drew at point guard, and UNC fans heaped criticism on him for last season’s failures. Fair or not, it was clear Carolina had renewed fire when Kendall Marshall took over at point. Marshall is a deft passer and his teammates just exude more joy and confidence with him on the floor.

Drew had appeared to take the demotion gracefully. He played 19 minutes in the impressive win at Boston College Tuesday. He didn’t score a point but had nine assists. From the outside, he certainly appeared ready to share the ball and put winning first.

With Drew gone, that knocks a hole in Carolina’s depth, but not one that is unsurmountable. It solidifies Marshall’s job at point guard and means Reggie Bullock will get more minutes. Not a bad thing but still, a stunning development in Chapel Hill, where players rarely voice public displeasure over playing time.