North Carolina (UNC) Basketball Update Blog

It's official: Tyler Zeller out 12-16 weeks

2008-11-20T13:07:00.002-05:00

He broke both the left radius and ulna after a foul caused him to land on his wrist. And yes, he can medical redshirt so he doesn't lose a year of eligibility, but I really doubt Zeller will be around for all 4 years anyway.

University of North Carolina freshman forward Tyler Zeller suffered a fractured left wrist in the win over Kentucky on Tuesday and underwent surgery today at UNC Hospitals. Doctors with UNC sports medicine say normal recovery time for this kind of injury is 12-16 weeks, which likely makes it a season-ending injury.

Rumor: Tyler Zeller out for season

2008-11-19T14:01:00.003-05:00

I've read from multiple sources that Tyler Zeller broke his wrist in multiple places and is out for the season. He won't be flying with the team to Hawaii, but will fly separate after surgery. Regardless of how he gets there, he won't be playing. This sucks.

Kentucky 58, UNC 77

2008-11-18T23:47:00.005-05:00

After getting embarrassed by VMI, Kentucky should have been highly motivated to give Carolina a run for our money, but that didn't happen. In fact, we started the game by taking it to the Wildcats going on a 11-2 run. Our defensive intensity for the first 10 minutes was the best I've seen in a long time. We haven't played that hard in many games. Another thing that brought a smile to my face was all the extra passes our guys made. Last year we had a very impatient offense that would take the first shot available despite how well it was defended. This game, we made the extra pass to get our shooter just a little more time to get the shot off and it made a difference.

We forced a bunch of turnovers and if you look at the Four Factors from the game, you can see TO% was the only one that UNC had a big advantage:

Basketball Stats by StatSheet.com

It turns out that the game was way closer than it should have been. We only outscored Kentucky by 3 in the second half. While our Defense was very solid our Offense puttered for much of the game. I was a little shocked by the lack of fast break opportunities we had. It seemed like Kentucky had more breaks than we did! That should never happen especially against a supposedly much weaker opponent.

You can see from the game flow that we built a lead in the first half and maintained the same margin for most of the second half:

College Stats by StatSheet.com

There were some bright spots. Game ball goes to Deon Thompson who KICKED ASS! I wasn't a huge Deon fan last year, but boy he is playing tremendously well so far this season. He had 14 pts and 6 rebounds by half and finished with 20 and 9. Nice job!

Ty Lawson was driving to the hoop a lot more and while he got stuffed a few times, I think it does nothing but positive things when he is slashing around on the offensive side. He finished with 11 points, 9 assists and only 2 turnovers.

Wayne Ellington continues to struggle a bit from the floor. He went 5-14 from the field (but 3-4 from behind the arc).

Ed Davis was one point shy of getting his second double double in two games! He had 9 points and 10 rebounds. That guy is all over the floor when it comes to getting rebounds. You hear sometimes that a player has a knack for getting to the ball. That is Ed in spades.

No doubt the biggest concern of the game wasn't our inconsistency on the offensive end but the status of Tyler Zeller!! Zeller matched up against UK big man Patrick Patterson and didn't have quite the offensive night as he did against Penn. To make things worse he was on a break and about to slam the ball when he was fouled hard and went crashing to the floor. It looks like he may have hurt his left wrist pretty bad. It looked like he knew something was wrong with it as soon as he got up (he looked pissed). There is a decent chance there is some kind of fracture. If that is the case, he could be out several weeks. Fingers crossed that isn't the case!

The good news is our defensive intensity was great tonight (at least for the first half). The better news is that rumor has it Tyler Hansbrough will be back for the Maui Classic coming up.

The bad news is we didn't push the ball all that well and our offense sputtered at times again (like vs Penn). The worst news would be if Tyler Zeller is injured in a significant way.

Penn 71, UNC 86

2008-11-15T20:34:00.003-05:00

Our overall performance was not spectacular, but we got our first glimpse at the potential of our new freshmen. Ed Davis and Tyler Zeller both had good games. Zeller started in place of the injured Tyler Hansbrough and scored UNC's first points of the game on a shot from about 17 feet out on his way to scoring a team-high 18. Our shooting early in the game and late in the 2nd half was not very good. We missed 4 out of the first 5 three points. Wayne Ellington went 5-15 from the field.

Our defense wasn't a whole lot better. At times Penn beat us up the court for easy shots and got several wide open 3 point attempts, which helped keep the game close. Let's just hope this is new season jitters/bugs that will be worked out over the next couple of weeks. Of course not having Tyler Hansbrough and Marcus Ginyard (the team's top 2 defenders) had something to do with it.

On the bright side, Bobby Frasor got some quality playing time despite injuring his ankle earlier in the week. I mentioned Ed Davis earlier, he finished with a double double for his first game in Carolina blue! He had a reputation as a rebounding machine and he didn't disappoint by grabbing 10 rebounds.

I felt we settled for outside shots much too often throughout the game. Deon Thompson had a good game scoring 17 despite the limited touches down low.

We finally got our act together toward the end of the 1st half and the game would have been an easy blowout if it wasn't for a field goal dry spell in the second half. We went over 4 minutes without a field goal and Penn ate away at the lead. But it was too little too late as we just had too much fire power.

I do need to give props to Penn's Tyler Bernardini (reigning Ivy League Freshman of the Year) who scored 26 against us just like last year! You think we would have learned the first time around.

Five players down, I still like our odds

2008-11-15T13:47:00.000-05:00

Today is our first game of the season. We are down 5 players:

Hansbrough out for sure -- rumor has it he may start practicing next week
Frasor is a game time decision -- without Bobby we'll be missing our top 3 defenders!
Ginyard still out -- not back until December/January
Copeland out until January
Watts out with a knee injury -- probably not back until December

Our starting lineup looks like this:
- Ty Lawson
- Wayne Ellington
- Deon Thompson
- Danny Green
- Tyler Zeller or Ed Davis

Roy said recently that over the first 15 practices Zeller did the best out of the freshmen, but over the last 8 practices Ed Davis has done very well on the offensive end, so it will be a game time decision as to which one starts. He said you'll likely see both freshmen big men on the court at the same time while Hansbrough is out.

Injury Bug Bites Again. This time Hansbrough!

2008-10-31T09:39:00.005-04:00

Yikes! First it was Ginyard, and now Hansbrough is out "indefinitely" with a "stress reaction" in his right shin which could turn into a stress fracture. I don't think we are talking about the whole season at this point, but it could easily be December and maybe even January before he plays. It all depends on whether it turns into a fracture.

I found this description of a tibia stress fracture:

Tibial stress fractures are definitely not fun. They can stop training in its tracks, they are painful, and, while it is often said that they require two to three months to heal, the reality is that up to six months may be needed to restore the bone to normalcy and remove most traces of pain, and some athletes may require a year or more for full recovery. Thus, prevention of tibial stress fractures is key, and the best prevention includes the consumption of a nutritionally adequate diet, avoidance of too-rapid increases in the volume and intensity of training, and the utilisation of special exercises which promote the fatigue resistance of shin muscles (remember that your shin muscles are less able to protect your tibias when they are tired).

And here is a description of how to treat it:

The best treatment for a stress fracture is rest. Taking a break from from the routine and doing some low impact exercise for a few weeks (six to eight) can help the bone heal. If rest isn't taken, chronic problems such as larger, and more persistent stress fractures can develop. Re-injury may result in a chronic problems, broken bones and fractures and the stress fracture might never heal properly.

Late Night with Roy Tonight

2008-10-24T12:13:00.003-04:00

Yes, that yearly event for fans to help kick off the new season is upon us! Unfortunately I won't be able to attend this year.

The event is free to the public and doors open at 4pm. The basketball festivities will begin directly after the 5pm volleyball match. Many big time recruits will be in attendance. Despite all the troubles with the world economy, knowing that UNC's first game is less than a month away brings a smile to my face.

BTW, the UNC Roster is up on StatSheet now.

And scACChoops has a preview of UNC.

Get your Stat Fix!

2008-10-22T00:14:00.002-04:00

Are you a stats fanatic like me? Or perhaps you have a general interest in UNC basketball stats? Either way you'll be interested in the latest website I've developed. It is called StatFix.com and with it you can get an interesting "stat of the day" pertaining to UNC.

Here is the page for Carolina. There is also a RSS feed in case you want to subscribe to the stat feed.

Brandan Wright is on the second team

2008-10-08T18:09:00.003-04:00

Brandan Wright is not progressing as fast as some of his peers, but this isn't a surprise to me. Brandan has a very long and lanky body. It is a young body. He's a young guy. He left UNC at least 1 season too soon. He needs to develop more and unfortunately he has to do that on the bench in the NBA instead of on a #1 UNC team.

Thanks for the link Susan.

Ginyard out 8 weeks!

2008-10-08T18:05:00.002-04:00

Ginyard out 8 weeks with foot injury

Ginyard got the injury that has plagued several Tar Heels in the past: foot stress fracture. That's a bummer, but for a team so stacked with talent, hopefully Ginyard's absence won't be too missed for 8 weeks at the beginning of the season. He is a starter and the team's defensive (and perhaps most vocal) leader. Get well soon!!

2008-2009 UNC Basketball Schedule on StatSheet!

2008-10-01T22:27:00.003-04:00

How do you like your basketball schedule? StatSheet has them for every Division I team now in HTML, RSS, iCal, and CSV.

UNC Schedule - HTML
UNC Schedule - iCal
UNC Schedule - CSV
UNC Schedule - RSS

You can also get the schedule for all the teams in the ACC in one convenient place.

Basketball Schedule coming soon

2008-09-21T20:35:00.003-04:00

I will have the UNC Basketball schedule up on StatSheet by the first week of October. Like last year, it will be available in HTML, CSV, iCal and RSS formats.

The season is fast approaching!

UNC is only slightly overrated ;-)

2008-09-04T12:56:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts for the past couple of months, but if you've followed this blog over the years you'll know that isn't uncommon during summer. Also, I have a pretty good excuse as I've been working diligently on statsheet.com.

Speaking of StatSheet, I recently finished reworking the College Basketball Rankings section. I created several reports analyzing the AP Poll.

One that I found particularly interesting is the Overrated Teams report. In it I calculate the teams that have historically been ranked lower in the Final AP Poll compared to where they started the season. It turns out that UNC is only slightly overrated ;-) In fact, we don't even show up on the list since 2000. Since 1990, we finished the season ranked lower 8 times out of 17. Which means we were ranked higher or finished at the same rank 9 out of 17 seasons. We are #12 on the list since 1990.

Other notable ACC teams? Georgia Tech, Maryland, Duke and NC State make the cut for some of the time periods, but none, with the exception of Georgia Tech, are consistently overrated.

Then there are the underrated teams. To my surprise Boston College and Wake Forest are consistently underrated.

Did you catch the Carolina game the other day?

2008-06-22T23:38:00.004-04:00

The now legendary UNC vs Former Players game that takes place during the Summer UNC Basketball camp was caught on video (most of it anyway). Jawad, Jackie, Melvin, and Stackhouse were just a few of the former players that played.

You can watch it or download the whole thing here: http://gallery.mac.com/benlora#100341

The video is a little shaky at times, but considering it is June with the regular season still 5 months away I'm not complaining!

Thanks much to benlora for posting it over on the InsideCarolina board!

Most talented team in college basketball ever?

2008-06-16T20:31:00.002-04:00

That's a pretty bold question, but I think next season's UNC team ranks among the most talented collection of college players ever to be assembled. Let's look at the facts:

- This past season UNC made it to the final four

- UNC is losing two players (Quentin Thomas and Alex Stepheson) who averaged just 16 and 15 minutes per game respectively. They ranked 7 and 8 among minutes played.

- We are gaining 4 players. Two of which are ranked among the top 15 incoming freshmen and one that is in the top 50. Three were McDonald's All-Americans.

- We lose a backup point guard and backup power forward. We gain a top 15 point guard, #11 overall power forward, #12 overall 7-foot center, and an unrated shooting guard that averaged 22 points a game last year.

- We should also gain a healthy Bobby Frasor.

- We have the returning consensus National Player of the Year in Tyler Hansbrough.

- We have one of the top 2 or 3 best point guards in Ty Lawson.

Here is the depth chart:
Point Guard:
- Ty Lawson
- Bobby Frasor
- Larry Drew

Shooting Guard:
- Wayne Ellington
- Danny Green
- Will Graves
- Bobby Frasor
- Justin Watts

Small Forward:
- Marcus Ginyard
- Danny Green
- Will Graves

Power Forward:
- Tyler Hansbrough
- Ed Davis
- Danny Green

Center:
- Deon Thompson
- Tyler Zeller

The starting 5 is unchanged from last season:
- Ty Lawson
- Wayne Ellington
- Marcus Ginyard
- Tyler Hansbrough
- Deon Thompson

The second 5 is probably a top 25 team too:
- Bobby Frasor
- Will Graves
- Danny Green
- Ed Davis
- Tyler Zeller

What about the 2004-2005 UNC team? They are probably the best comparison to next season's team:

Starting 5:
Ty Lawson vs Ray Felton (my pick: Lawson - when healthy)
Wayne Ellington vs Rashad McCants (my pick: McCants - no brainer)
Marcus Ginyard vs Jackie Manuel (my pick: Ginyard - no brainer)
Tyler Hansbrough vs Jawad Williams (my pick: Hansbrough - POY)
Deon Thompson vs Sean May (my pick: May)

Second 5:
Bobby Frasor vs Quentin Thomas (my pick: Frasor)
Will Graves vs Wes Miller (my pick: Graves)
Danny Green vs Reyshawn Terry (my pick: Green)
Ed Davis vs David Noel (my pick: Noel - until Davis proves me wrong)
Tyler Zeller vs Marvin Williams (my pick: Williams - until Zeller proves me wrong)

Thats 6 picks for the 08-09 team and 4 for 04-05. There is a very good chance Ed Davis will be a stud and be better than David Noel. There is only a slight chance Tyler Zeller will be better than Marvin. So a good chance my picks would go 7-3. And that's compared to a national championship team!

Let me caveat this brief analysis by emphasizing one word: talent. I did not say the best team in college basketball ever. I wouldn't even make that claim for just next season. This past season UNC was arguably the most talented and we know how that went.

Just as we heard so much talk this year and in 04-05, everyone wonders how a team with so much talent will gel. With 3 players seriously looking at the NBA this year and one of which that got into trouble off the court, there are questions about chemistry next season. Will Danny continue to remain satisfied being the best 6th man in the country? Will Bobby Frasor and Will Graves get more significant minutes?

How well the team takes advantage of its talent will dictate how successful they will be. We won't know until the end of next season. The one question we can tackle now is which team is the deepest and has the most talent. My vote is for UNC 08-09 being among the most talented ALL TIME.

Everyone is coming back!

2008-06-16T18:11:00.002-04:00

Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, and Danny Green, all of whom were very serious about entering the NBA Draft, decided today to return to UNC for one more year. This is great news as long as the returning players can shake off the disappointing loss against Kansas and work together as a cohesive team despite the extremely deep bench.

There is no doubt who will be preseason #1 now.

Ty Lawson arrested

2008-06-06T15:15:00.008-04:00

Ugh. Ty was arrested at 2:33am Thursday morning and was charged with three misdemeanors: driving after consuming alcohol, driving with a suspended or revoked license, and violating a noise ordinance.

The difference between "driving after consuming alcohol" and "driving while intoxicated" is pretty significant. Ty is 20 years old and no one under the age of 21 can have alcohol in their system while driving. Had he blown a .08 he would have also been charged with a DWI. So he was sober, but it still is an offense because he is under age (he turns 21 in November).

While he wasn't charged with a felony, all of the charges are very serious. Driving with a suspended license? That indicates prior infractions.

Everyone wants to know how this will impact his draft status. Here are my thoughts:

- He likely won't get drafted 20 or higher as he hoped. Carmelo Anthony got a DWI and Denver is trying to trade him (not just for that, but it didn't help). NBA teams don't like this kind of trouble with a player because they are working hard to maintain their image. This will likely drop Ty to the second round.

- Won't he stay at UNC for another season? It depends on the severity of Roy's punishment. Would he make Ty sit out games? How many? He made Wayne Ellington run until "Coach Williams got tired" after instigating a technical foul last year. How about getting in trouble with the law? Ty may want to forgo that punishment and the punishment the local media will likely inflict on him most of next year with constant questions about the arrest.

We'll have our answer by June 16th (last day to pull out of the draft).

In summary: Ty probably had a beer or two (like many college students) and was sober, but got behind the wheel (which was dumb with a suspended license), and played his music too loud (like many college students). While he didn't commit any felonies, even misdemeanors are a big deal for Carolina basketball players. We hold them to a higher standard and for that Ty will be punished far more than just what the legal system dictates.

Welcome Justin Watts

2008-05-22T11:40:00.002-04:00

Watts signs LOI to play at Carolina

Coach Williams moves fast! Alex decided to transfer last week and this week Justin Watts from Jordan High School in Durham signs with the Heels. Justin is a 6-3/6-4 guard that averaged almost 25 a game last year. He looks like a good solid player.

My new favorite museum

2008-05-18T21:59:00.002-04:00

I've been to the Louvre in Paris. I've been to the Uffizi in Florence. I've seen the Sistine Chapel in person. I've been to countless museums all over the US and Europe. But the one I visited last week in Chapel Hill, NC is my new favorite. That's right, I made a trip to the brand new Carolina Basketball Museum across from the Dean Dome and it was a pure treat!

I spent over an hour and a half at the museum and could have easily spent twice that. The museum is very nicely done and has memorabilia ranging from hand written boxscores for old games to championship trophies to a pair of Sean May's shoes. I highly recommend it for even the casual Carolina basketball fan that is within driving distance to Chapel Hill.

Below are the pictures I took from my visit. I'm going to comment on some of the more interesting pictures in the coming weeks (not a lot to write about here during the summer).

Alex Stepheson to transfer

2008-05-16T20:01:00.002-04:00

If you'll recall earlier in the year, Alex Stepheson had to miss a couple of games while he attended to his father in California who was sick. Apparently there are still some health issues in his family and he is transferring to be closer to home. I feel for Alex! He is a solid player and has a lot of potential to get better. I wish him the best.

http://northcarolina.scout.com/2/755305.html

Danny Green also declares

2008-04-27T10:43:00.002-04:00

"University of North Carolina forward Danny Green has declared for the NBA Draft, but will not hire an agent. "

http://northcarolina.scout.com/2/749971.html

Like Wayne and Ty, the odds are low that Danny will actually enter the draft. These guys just want to "test the waters" to see how they stack up with the competition.

The speculation is over, now time for speculation

2008-04-25T16:27:00.002-04:00

The various UNC message boards have been in a near frenzy over the past few weeks as various people said their "sources" were telling them one thing or another. I've heard every combination of the "big 3" coming and going and once that got tiring, rumors about Danny Green leaving started to surface.

The truth? Tyler is staying. Wayne and Ty are putting their names into the pot but not hiring agents. With Ty projected as a late first rounder and Wayne projected to go in the second round, there is a very good chance we'll still get all 3 back for next season. I imagine these guys want to see how the various team workouts go, but won't enter the draft unless they get a guaranteed contract (lottery), which isn't likely.

If either of them go I'm going to suspect they weren't happy with the idea of playing at UNC for one more season rather than they think they are ready for the NBA. Obviously both of these guys need at least another year in college and if they continue to improve will be in a much better position for next year's draft. Maybe they need the money now and there have been plenty of rumors floating around as to that being the case too.

In case you need a little cheering up

2008-04-17T14:42:00.005-04:00

A couple of people asked me if there was a picture of Danny Green's FACIAL on Greg Paulus when we beat Duke on their Senior Night (Youtube here). Thanks to Jim Hawkins from Inside Carolina here you go. This is classic!

Roy responds to criticism concerning him pulling for Kansas

2008-04-13T10:33:00.004-04:00

My post on the "sticker incident" has garnered more comments than any other post I've written in 4 years. Fans are decidedly mixed on their opinions. Now Roy responds to what he calls "the most unsettling thing to have happened to him in the 5 years" since he's been back at UNC...

Roy and the Kansas sticker

2008-04-08T07:34:00.003-04:00

Last night I turned on the championship game with about 3 minutes left to go in the first half. At one point they showed ol Roy sitting in the crowd. I was a little surprised to see what looked like a Kansas Jayhawk sticker on his shirt. At halftime he participated in an interview with CBS and had a jacket on, but you could still see part of the sticker sticking out.

I turned to my wife and said: I know some of the Carolina faithful won't like that.

What do I think?

I'm as big of a Roy Williams fan as you'll find, but it didn't sit that well with me. I know Roy spent 15 years at Kansas, but that was the team that just beat us badly a couple of days ago. Root for the Jayhawks sure, but why wear the sticker? I'm sure he meant nothing negative by it, but you have to know some Tar Heel fans won't like it. I also know Roy won't care if people didn't like him wearing it. Ultimately, this is a very small issue in the grand scheme of things and let's hope it doesn't get blown up more than what it is: a college coach rooting on his former team.