I never thought we would be up on UNC in the ACC standings or national rankings coming into this game, but what a pleasant surprise this team has been so far.I did anticipate better overall team play than last year. And I knew our freshmen could all play. But I've been surprised by our ability to fight bigger, athletic teams. And Paulus has been really locked in the past few games.
Our depth and balance have been key as well. In the games when we've lost DeMarcus or Singler's in foul trouble, we don't seem to lose much going to our bench. We're legitimately 9 deep.
I am concerned about a few things, however. DeMarcus and Gerald are bricking too many free throws, and considering how often they get to the line, this could come back to haunt us. And I still don't know if we can handle a legit post man like Kevin Love or Hibbert or even Psycho-T. I guess we'll find out this Wednesday. I don't know how bad his ankle is, but I sure wouldn't mind if Lawson missed this game. I would love nothing more than to grab the 1 seed in the East and send UNC to another region to deal with UCLA or Kansas.
Game on!!!
2 comments:
Lot's of silence out there, although I suppose I would expect that from the Tar Heels out there.
Interesting game. Surely UNC is not the same team without Lawson, but I thought playing at home would have given them some edge in the game. As usual, we got beat up on the boards, and Psycho-T had his usual good game against us. I think we Dukies just have to accept the fact that we will get outrebounded, and that we really do not have the personnel to get us enough boards. The plus side is we have so much more depth and more weapons from outside that we can make up for the lack of size. Whether we can win 6 staight games in the tournament remains to be seen. Never would I have thought that we would be as good as we are. Thank you McRoberts for leaving and allowing our team to be what it is, and give Coach K credit for being able to adjust the style of play to maximize our teams' strengths. Truly, he is a coach of the year candidate.
Also, what got into Lance? He actually looked like a player.
Looking forward to the rematch in Cameron.
Lance did look good. I wonder if it's an aberration or if he'll develop into a legit 4/5. He doesn't really have to do that much for us.
I basically agree about the rebounding, but we're doing a pretty good job hitting the boards as a team.
The interesting thing that I didn't think about earlier is that we normally have a great mismatch against other teams bigs in other ways. It's hard for most big guys to defend Singler or handle and pass the ball. We're really exploiting these advantages with the steals, turnovers, and hitting tons of 3s.
I'm actually starting to think we might be able to make a run at the final 4.
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