Court Vision: Big men dominate for No. 15 North Carolina in win at Wake
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- No. 15 North Carolina (15-4, 5-1 ACC) had not won in Winston-Salem since 2012 and was just 2-2 in its last four tries. Heck, No. 10 Louisville and No. 5 Duke had already been to Wake Forest this year and had really tough times escaping with wins.
North Carolina made it look easy, though, as it met Wake Forest (9-10, 1-5 ACC) in a game that wasn't even all that close.
1. It hasn't been easy to win on the road in the ACC. Or to win in Winston-Salem. But North Carolina made it look that way.
After a relatively sloppy game against Virginia Tech at home on Sunday, Roy Williams said he was going to add a practice for that Monday -- which was supposed to be an off day -- and his tone sure sounded fearsome, if you were a North Carolina basketball player.
But at the end of the day, there was nothing fearsome about it.
"He told us, he was like, his ticked-off button is right there, this and that. So he gave us a warning," freshman Isaiah Hicks said.
The Tar Heels never hit his ticked-off button.
"We did like the first half of practice that we usually will do and then we just went and watched film, just broke it down and told us what we should be doing and what we should do. It was a good day for us," junior Brice Johnson said.
Williams had made it sound like the team would be there for hours if necessary. Although perhaps the "if necessary" part is key there.
"I know he was mad about a lot of things, but it's a grind, the season's a grind. You can't have a three-hour practice and then kill us and set everything back," Marcus Paige said. "But I think the main thing was he wanted to teach us, don't be satisfied with a win that you didn't play great in. Come in, watch some film, learn from what we did and then get on the court and go through a few teaching points and sharpen things up."
Some of that sharpening showed itself early, as Carolina was crisp on offense. Some of it wasn't, as some of the ball security issues from Sunday showed up again.
It was a back-and-forth game for awhile, not unlike what Duke or Louisville experienced when they played the Deacons in Winston-Salem. Even though North Carolina was shooting over 53 percent, Wake out-hustled them to some loose balls and was able to get on the offensive glass.
But the Tar Heels went on a 16-4 run that began in the final 56 seconds of the first half and ended with 16:05 to go in the game that put them up 14. Wake got it to 11 with 14:14 to go, but a quick 7-0 run by the Tar Heels erased any doubt. North Carolina shot almost 70 percent in the second half and really got what it wanted most of the game offensively.
The real tweak, though, was a 2-3 zone that North Carolina has played only sparingly this year. Three of the Tar Heels' five starters picked up three fouls by the time it was relatively early in the second half, but Williams wanted to keep them in.
Usually, if North Carolina has played zone this year, it's been the usual 1-3-1. The 2-3 had been used maybe for a possession or two per game, according to Paige.
"We like to have 2-3 defenses so we don't give the same look every single possession. It helps disrupt teams and take them out of their rhythm," Paige said. "We went mostly 2-3 and man-to-man tonight and then at the end we played a little 1-3-1 just to try to confuse them. But the 2-3 was solid.
"By far, this game was the most we had played it. After we identified shooters, we did a pretty good job. We got beat on the backboards a little bit because it's harder to box out from a zone, but at the same time, our effort level was so high that we made up for it in a lot of categories."
It didn't hurt that Wake Forest struggles to shoot three-pointers. But either way, the Tar Heels forced Wake into shooting nearly half of its shots (24 of 60) from beyond the arc, and cut way down on dribble penetration.
North Carolina led by as many as 18 points and held Wake Forest at arm's length the rest of the way. And the impressive road win now puts North Carolina at 4-1 on the road this season, with its only road loss coming at Kentucky.
Traditionally, the best Roy Williams teams have been the teams that are good on the road. If that's true, that's a good sign for this bunch, who's won its three ACC road games by an average margin of 14 points.
"Coach likes to say that we have no problem going into other places, and we want to treat that just as important as a home game," Paige said. "Especially in our league, any given night, even if you're favored to win, a home crowd can get going and anything can happen. We wanted to make sure that we asserted ourselves tonight and we were able to do that."
2. Williams said at the beginning of the year that he needed multiple big men to step up. Well, he got it.
North Carolina's post duo of Brice Johnson and Kennedy Meeks came into this season with a lot to prove.
Their head coach still feels that they have a ways to go, and they probably do. But the Tar Heels are finally demonstrating what their team and offense will look like when they go inside-out, and at times, it's downright scary.
Johnson was the man in the first half, getting deep post position seemingly at will and showing off his soft touch. He had 13 points in 14 first-half minutes on 6-of-8 shooting and would finish with 19 on 8-of-11 shooting.
Meeks scored the first six points of the second half for the Tar Heels and had eight second-half points alone in the first 3:20. He would finish with 16 points and eight rebounds in 22 minutes; 12 of those points came in 13 second-half minutes.
In Carolina's losses, the two big men -- talented as they are -- have too often been non-factors, whether it's due to foul trouble in some cases or struggles to guard on the perimeter in others.
Sophomore Isaiah Hicks has had some nice moments, but he is and should be a complementary piece. These two should be the centerpieces.
And they were in this game, as North Carolina finished with 50 points in the paint and those two -- 35 points on 16-of-22 shooting -- had plenty of them.
The Tar Heels need that version of both, particularly Johnson, more often.
"That's a great question. I just stay on him. He listens to me probably 10 percent of the time, so that's good enough for me," Paige said, grinning. "I always stay on him about staying aggressive, working hard to establish position because when he catches it anywhere near the block and he's low, it's a basket most of the time.
"We've got to bottle this Brice up, like I said. ... We just saw a different level of energy and intensity. Whatever way we can keep that, I'm going to try to find out."
Going inside-out led to North Carolina getting the shots it wanted, which also led it to it shooting 60.3 percent for the game.
"I think that's a product of the shots we were getting," Paige said of the shooting percentage. "Kennedy and Brice were doing a good job establishing low-post position, and they're going to make a lot of those. Justin (Jackson), myself and J.P (Tokoto). were efficient from the perimeter. That's a great combination to have, especially on the road against a tough ACC team."
And a scary one to have, if they can keep it up. But it starts on the interior.
3. Can Wake Forest withstand this tough early-season stretch and turn it into something positive?
First-year head coach Danny Manning certainly has his work cut out for him. He knew that when he came to Wake Forest.
But if ever there was a deceptive 9-10 record (or, especially, a deceptive 1-5 ACC record), it was this team's record.
Wake didn't play well in its first ACC game this year, which came back in December at N.C. State. They lost by 13. At that point in the season, it was 4-5, including home losses to Iona and Delaware State.
But after that, Wake won four of its next five games and played Florida relatively closely on the road. It then lost to Louisville by nine and to Duke by eight at home in two games that were closer than the final score indicated.
The Deacs finally got that elusive ACC win against Georgia Tech on January 10, but that put them at 9-8 overall and 1-3 in the ACC. Their overtime loss at Syracuse didn't demonstrate it, either -- not the way the Deacs fought, and not how hard they had to make a Syracuse team that's not what it has been in the past but is still a formidable foe at home work to get that win.
That was eight days ago, though. And since the Deacs had pushed other top teams at home, they'd surely push the Tar Heels too, right? Except, they didn't. And their body language began to sag and facial expressions began to sour as the second half wore on.
And so this blowout loss that was actually not as close as the final score just leaves Wake with a 9-10 record, 1-5 in ACC play, and nothing constructive to build out of its moral victories, a concept Manning buys into not at all.
It didn't show how much progress they had made, because there's no real way to show that -- at least, not yet.
That's coming.
Three of Wake's next four opponents are bottom-tier ACC teams -- Clemson, Florida State and Virginia Tech -- but two of them are on the road, a place that has been a nightmare for more recent Wake Forest teams.
It starts on Saturday at Clemson.
"The challenge is not letting this game effect us in a negative way. The challenge is us coming back in and being pissed off from this game, to be honest with you, and trying to get better tomorrow when we step out on the practice court," Manning said. "It shouldn't be too much of a challenge to come out and be ready to go."
61 points on 18-of-28 shooting (4-of-9 from 3) -- Freshman Justin Jackson has really found his groove in ACC play. He's averaging 15.3 points on 64.3 percent shooting in four ACC wins so far (44.4 percent from 3), compared to shooting 43.9% from the field and 18.2 percent in all other non-conference games plus the lone ACC loss to Notre Dame.
3 -- That's the number of healthy guards North Carolina has right now. Total. Paige and Jackson played 69 minutes, and the Tar Heels lost freshman wing Theo Pinson in the first half to a foot injury for at least this game. They were already down two point guards in Stilman White and Joel Berry. Right now, they have one reserve guard healthy that can see minutes (sophomore Nate Britt). That could certainly be troublesome moving forward.
