I still don't get it

[godukecom]

How did UNC lose? I watched this game LIVE and i still can't figure it out. I dont like UNC but I am also a realist, and at no point late in that game (even early into OT) did I think G'town was going to lose.

Why didnt UNC go inside when hibbert had 4 fouls and they were up 12? why did danny green shoot those stupid threes?

I have heard these two explanations telling me how unc failed to put gtown away, but i still don't get it; How did Georgetown win?

[FireOgilvie]

Great coaching down the stretch by Roy Williams. He consistently has the most talented people on the floor... he just has no idea what to do with them in close games.

[imagepro]

and he actually said he wanted to go inside. He said Greens open (but missed) 3, early in the shot clock was NOT what he wanted. He said he wanted to go inside to TH or BW and try to get to the line, as Hibbert had 4. He said he thought they could "finish the game against G-Towns subs."

So, lets be REAL here fans. Don't blame Roy, and say he can't coach. Oh yes he can. We like to "think" he can't , but he surely can. He wanted to go inside, but his kids maybe felt the pressure, rushed, panicked, wanted to be the hero or whatever, I don't know. Roy said several of the jumpers and 3s were not what he wanted.

Point is this- a coach (even ours) can't get on the floor in a game like he can in practice and TELL a kid what to do. Under IMMENSE pressure, kids react instinctively. Things happen very quickly. In a fraction of a second. Roy is not to blame, his kids didn't execute. That simple.

Be respectful and objective. You may not believe in karma, but I do!

[godukecom]

but how did they cool off so fast?
even as OT started, i thought that UNC would trade baskets and eventually get the ball with a 2 point lead and gtown would have to foul...

how did unc get shut out in overtime?

and BTW, nice job by hibbert. those 2 blocks with 4 fouls reminded me of shel last year. gutsy, clean, great play to seal the deal

but yeah, back to all the misses, how did this team with the best scorers in the country not score for the first 4:52.5? and by then it was over...

[dukelifer]

How did UNC lose? I watched this game LIVE and i still can't figure it out. I dont like UNC but I am also a realist, and at no point late in that game (even early into OT) did I think G'town was going to lose.

Why didnt UNC go inside when hibbert had 4 fouls and they were up 12? why did danny green shoot those stupid threes?

I have heard these two explanations telling me how unc failed to put gtown away, but i still don't get it; How did Georgetown win?

All year I thought Carolina was vulnerable in a close game. They really are not sure who to go to. Hansblah relies on being fouled- but the refs tend to stop calling those fouls that he usually gets late in games. Ellington is a shaky shooter when under pressure- has been all year. He is great when the team is up by 10. Terry is not a end of game player. Wright needs a great pass to be in a position to sore and Lawson is possible end of game player but his size is a problem and he is unreliable outside shooter at best. So down the stretch they can struggle. Carolina had this game and then started to shoot jumpers with 5 minute sto go in regulation. They were scoring at will inside and got away from it. I suspect they wanted to get a knockout blow and it never came. At the end - they just did not know who to go to. Terry and Lawson tried but did not deliver. They bever found their goto guy. Sometimes being young is an excuse.

Also credit Georgetown. They never panicked and just made great plays. At the end, UNC was just hoping to get fouled because they were missing from the floor and were living on the line. UNC lets this one get away and they will live with that for a long while. Roy will take some heat for this I am sure. Did he play too many players? Did he rely too much on his Freshman- how does Ellington take the last shot? Don't feel sorry for them though. Actually, it is best I have felt watching a ball game the past few weeks. 25 years ago, UNC beat the Hoyas on a jumper by Jordan and a botched last play by Freddy Brown. Today the basketball gods gave something back to the Hoyas. You have to have patience.

[BlueDevilBaby]

I agree, Carolina had no idea who the go-to-guy was during crunch time. H as been their achilles "heel" during close games.

[OldSchool]

The same thing happened to Carolina in this game that happened to Duke in a number of games this year -- they got a somewhat comfortable lead and then as Georgetown started to get back into it, Carolina got too tight at the end when it counted.

Hansbrough late in the game trying to play under the rim was frustrated by the much bigger Hibbard and the athletic Green - the same feeling he is going to experience in the NBA.

[Virginian]

So many people lament Coach K's resorting to stall ball so often, but a little clock management would have gone a long way for UNC tonight.

UNC was up 10 with about 5 to play (if I recall the clock correctly) and made no attempt to run ANY time off the clock. They just kept launching those threes with no one under the basket to get rebounds. And they made ZERO shots for about the next 8 or 9 minutes. That didn't stop them from launching those same shots with the same lack of effect.

Just amazing. They had no idea what to do down the stretch.

I'm sure the writers will chalk it up to a young team with lack of experience. If it were Duke they'd blame the coach. Let's see if they do the same vis-a-vis Roy.

[Duke76]

momentum is a funny thing, when it goes it goes.

This feels like what happened to us against, was it Indiana when we were up 15 or so in the second half whn we had Boozer and Williams etc. There are few other games when we had it won in the final four or regional finals and the momentum changed and before you knew what happened it was over.

I think the zone defense really flustered UNC in the last 8 minutes. They couldn't position down low to receive a pass and the sure as hell didn't get one offensive rebound in the last 5-6 minutes. It was beautiful to see.

Listened to both press conferences, typical sad sack Roy and Tyler, both about to cry.

Coach Thompson very articlulate nice guy and obviously really understands the game. Great, nice kids as well.

[FireOgilvie]

The UNC bias really amazes me. It's my favorite part of the rivalry. I guess that's what Duke gets for not having a Journalism major.

[vick]

What I find interesting is that Georgetown kept up with a fairly quick pace while playing four guys over 35 minutes and Hibbert 31 minutes (and he would have played more without foul trouble). Now it was an OT game, but even if it were just 40 minutes, we're looking at 4 of 5 starters over 30 minutes. Kind of makes you pause when you read about how Duke needs to give this guy or that guy more minutes to keep up with Carolina...

Minutes taken from ESPN.com, which isn't always reliable about this sort of thing, although it tracks pretty well with my memory for this game.

[dockfan]

I thought Oleroyweeums called too many timeouts at the end of the 2nd half, and only built up the game pressure on his team and destroyed any rhythm they had.

I also failed to understand all season why Danny Green got so much PT, and thought he really hurt them against G'town. Maybe he absolutely blows up in practice, and hits all his threes, but I haven't seen it in a game. And he is really not a very good ballhandler.

The Heels also did a poor job of looking inside for Brandan Wright against the G'town zone. He was wide open several times.

Plus, what ever happened to Bobby Fraser? I like that kid's game, and I know he hurt his ankle/foot/leg, but I guess he's no longer as good as Green, Ginyard, Thomas, and Miller this year???

[jipops]

Roy is obviously a great, great coach, without a doubt. He recruits great players and sticks to a very successful philosophy.

HOWEVER,

Did anyone else notice the play drawn up at the end of regulation for Ellington? This was the exact same play that beat UConn back in '04 (McCants jumper) and the play that JJ said he saw coming in Cameron back in '05. I've also seen this same play run countless other times when working with end of half situations. Wouldn't you think Roy would come up with something new, especially given all the other options he has? Just seems interesting that he draws up the very same high screen with the shooter swinging over the elbow outside the 3pt arc. Granted this is obviously not what lost the game for UNC but was a play that was interestingly predictable.

[Bob Green]

So many people lament Coach K's resorting to stall ball so often, but a little clock management would have gone a long way for UNC tonight.

Great point!!! Pass the ball & find a good shot while the clock goes tick, tick, tick...

Bob Green
Yokosuka, Japan

[RockyMtDevil]

It's also possible that playing 10 guys big minutes all year failed to establish the go to guy at the end of game...

[Bob Green]

I believe Carolina's depth hurt them in this game. Coach Williams played 12 players with 8 getting double digit minutes. D. Green played 9 minutes and A. Stephenson played 8. Q. Thomas and B. Frasor 2 minutes each. IMO, D. Green's 9 minutes were a negative. Let's look at his numbers compared to D. Thompson:

Green: 9 minutes, 3 points, 0-6 FGs (including 0-4 3-point attempts), 3-4 FTs, 1 rebound, 0 assists, 0 turnovers, 1 block shot, 2 steals

Thompson: 21 minutes, 14 points, 6-7 FGs, 2-2 FTs, 6 rebounds, 0 assists, 1 turnover, 2 blocked shots, 1 steal

If Deon Thompson plays 30 minutes and Danny Green plays zero minutes just maybe Carolina could've grabbed a rebound or two down the stretch when Georgetown made their big run. Instead, Green is jacking up bricks from behind the arc.

Bob Green
Yokosuka, Japan

[heyman25]

We have Jay Bilas who goes out of his way to give no credit to Duke,but fawns over UNC. Seth Davis is tolerable.But I hope the anti Duke media at the Winston Salem regional get exposed.

[ricks68]

O.K., I want us to win and UNC to lose, but let's be realistic. I recorded the game and watched it before knowing the outcome. I replayed the calls of the refs throughout the entire game and also replayed in slo-mo most of the calls I thought they should have made. I think the calls were spot-on the first half, except for the many times the Georgetown players blatantly pushed off the UNC guys on the in-bounds passes after UNC baskets. Obviously, that means I think that UNC should have had more of the calls in their favor.

The crowd did not see what I could see during slo-mo replays, and therefore got on the refs. The result of which really intimidated the refs so that they stopped calling fouls against Georgetown a lot during the beginning of the first half. There were a number of really bad fouls under the basket that should have been called against Georgetown, including one where a UNC player came up with a tough rebound and the Georgetown player grabbed him by the neck and began to pull him down. The UNC player pulled away and went down the court with a no-call by the refs. It continued from there with more arms and elbow pushing along with gabbing by Georgetown players resulting in no-calls.

After that, the UNC guys began to push back some, resulting in no-calls again. And so it went. Because Georgetown was more physical, they won out. The refs did it. In my opinion, they lost control of the game due to the intimidation factor of the fans. When that happened, instead of Roy and the UNC whinning about the no-calls, the UNC team just tried to fight back physically, and got out-manned. Then they missed like 23 shots in a row due to immature shot selection and execution.

I don't think it was a case of the fans wanting the refs to let them play, ala the Connecticut massacre of us by the refs a few years ago in the FF, where even the UCONN fans were the loudest chanting "let them play"--and that was during the bad calls on Shav and the rest of our players.

I don't think the refs were fair to UNC or to college bball fans. If Fla and Georgetown make the final game and the refs do the same, it could get pretty violent considering how emotional some of the Fla players are.

I know I'm opening up the possibility of a lot of negative comments here to this post, but I gotta call 'em as I see 'em. I love Duke and dislike UNC, but I can't let that interfere with my judgement of what I feel is an injustice.

Oh, and did you catch the absolutely stupid replay and remarks by Billy Packer on the "travel" dispute? He aired the replay that definitely showed the pivot (right) foot being moved and reset even before the move to the basket that should have been labelled as the original violation. Then he ignores it and says that the replay is not a travel because of stuff after that not even pertains to that initial movement. Then he refers back to it and claims that the refs can't see everything that happens so fast during a game, and that things don't get called because of that and that's the reason it was a fair call. What a bunch of garbage. He does that all the time. Check it out, Feldspar.

ricks

[ItalianDevil]

the simply stopped playing, and I'm saying this with the greatest possible grin on my face. Went to bed wayyyyy late (European time), but it was so worthy, believe me!!!!! choke choke choke
And now timewarp me to next October....
GO DEVILS!!!!!!!

[greybeard]

All year I thought Carolina was vulnerable in a close game. They really are not sure who to go to. Hansblah relies on being fouled- but the refs tend to stop calling those fouls that he usually gets late in games. Ellington is a shaky shooter when under pressure- has been all year. He is great when the team is up by 10. Terry is not a end of game player. Wright needs a great pass to be in a position to sore and Lawson is possible end of game player but his size is a problem and he is unreliable outside shooter at best. So down the stretch they can struggle. Carolina had this game and then started to shoot jumpers with 5 minute sto go in regulation. They were scoring at will inside and got away from it. I suspect they wanted to get a knockout blow and it never came. At the end - they just did not know who to go to. Terry and Lawson tried but did not deliver. They bever found their goto guy. Sometimes being young is an excuse.

Also credit Georgetown. They never panicked and just made great plays. At the end, UNC was just hoping to get fouled because they were missing from the floor and were living on the line. UNC lets this one get away and they will live with that for a long while. Roy will take some heat for this I am sure. Did he play too many players? Did he rely too much on his Freshman- how does Ellington take the last shot? Don't feel sorry for them though. Actually, it is best I have felt watching a ball game the past few weeks. 25 years ago, UNC beat the Hoyas on a jumper by Jordan and a botched last play by Freddy Brown. Today the basketball gods gave something back to the Hoyas. You have to have patience.

Really enjoyed this take! Thanks.