XM Blog: UNC vs. Dook

Tomorrow's Game from a Tar Heel's Perspective

2007-02-06T13:11:00.000-08:00

Since it is the day before the game, I thought we would get down to specifics about the game and predictions. Get ready for a completely biased view of tomorrow's game -- sorry. I can't help it.

Why UNC will win:
We know we should win. For the first time since the 1994-95 season, it is clear that UNC is far and away the more talented team. There are only two players on Duke's team, McRoberts and Nelson (and possibly Henderson), who would even get playing time on this year's Carolina squad. We go twelve deep. Duke's quality does not go much deeper than seven (and that is counting McClure, which is highly questionable despite late game "heroics" in the dubious Clemson victory).

We are one of the best rebounding teams in the nation and should kill Duke on the glass. Hansbrough, Wright, and Terry would all be the best rebounders on Duke's team and are all in our starting five. We have superior athleticism at every position, and will force the issue from the get-go by pushing the ball up the court and running Roy's patented secondary break relentlessly. This gap in athleticism will make it incredibly hard for Duke to get to the basket, forcing them into relying on the outside shot.

Perhaps most importantly, we are coming off a game we NEVER should have lost and are out for blood. We beat Duke at Cameron last year, so the players on our team know how to get it done there and are not intimidated. On paper, this is a Carolina victory.

Why Duke will win (God forbid):
On paper never seems to work against Duke. Even when they are "down," they are either far more talented than people think or Krzyzewski makes up for that lack of talent with unique strategies and superior motivational abilities (not that these compare to his abilities in the advertising world).

This Duke team is a combination of the two. They are more talented than many think- remember that most of these guys were McDonald's All-Americans and coveted by dozens of schools nationwide. McRoberts is beginning to assert himself, Nelson is very solid, and Paulus is starting to shoot the ball a little better. This team does not, however, have a go-to scoring option. They play great defense and hustle, but struggle to score against everyone (they scored 57 against Holy Cross for God's sake).

Krzyzewski is a master motivator and always seems to have his players on the same page. This team is no different. They usually play smart basketball and are able to play at their speed, which hurts UNC. We like to run for 40 minutes and use our superior depth to wear teams down. If Duke controls the pace, they have a chance to knock us off. It also never hurts to be playing at Cameron, especially in front of a crowd as pumped up as this one will be (and most likely belligerently wasted according to Alex's blog).

Prediction:
Despite Duke's home court advantage and Krzyzewski's ability to rally his troops against their most bitter rival, I think the pick has to be UNC.

UNC should manhandle the Blue Devils down low -- Hansbrough and Wright are way too much for McRoberts to handle on his own and UNC's other freshman bigs have been great lately. On the wings, UNC has unparalleled depth and athletic ability that Duke simply cannot match, although the Heels need to keep an eye on Scheyer from behind the three point arc. I expect Lawson to play great tomorrow. The dude is fearless and entirely too quick for Paulus.

We have more talent at every position than Duke and I can assure you that Roy will not tolerate any effort less than our best following Saturday's loss and a few days of what I'm sure were grueling practices. There is no doubt in my mind that Duke will respond and play well tomorrow night -- hell, this is UNC-Duke. It's always close.

I don't think that it will be enough, however, for I expect our superior depth to eventually wear down the Devils. The Heels will run away with it late, and I'll see y'all on Franklin Street tomorrow night.

Predicted Score:
UNC-87 Duke-75

Check in tomorrow for some gameday observations on the morning XM Broadcast from 6-10 AM. Go Heels.

As if we needed to up the ante...

2007-02-05T14:06:00.000-08:00

That one stung a little, but I've moved on. When the UNC-Duke game is only two days away, there is really no other choice. If anything, I am upset with our team because the stupid howl that they play over the loud speakers at the RBC Center every 2.3 seconds is still stuck in my head. Ugh.

Although many might argue that Wednesday's game has lost a little bit of its luster following a Carolina loss to the lowly Wolfpack and consecutive Duke losses in ACC play, I think it only makes the game that much more interesting. When was the last time UNC lost to NC State and Duke in back to back games? When was the last time Duke lost three consecutive ACC games? I don't know the answer to either one of those questions (where's the "Stat Boy" when I need him?), but I would imagine that either scenario is extremely rare.

Speaking for UNC students, I know that this game has become even more important. No one (and I mean NO ONE) anticipated that we would lose to NC State. As if losing to the Wolfpack wasn't bad enough, the mere thought of losing to State and Duke back to back is absolutely disgusting. In fact, I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth. State is UNC's ugly stepsister- we don't hate State as much as we hate Duke, but we don't really have any respect for them and hate losing to them. Duke we respect, yet hate because of our image of Duke students as arrogant rich kids from New Jersey who care more about being Cameron Crazies than college basketball itself (this image is admittedly stereotypical and probably only half true).

For these reasons, not to mention the fact that I have several friends at both schools, the prospect of losing back to back games to these schools is cause for severe anxiety. Especially in a year when the UNC team is as talented as this one, we CANNOT let this worst case scenario come to fruition on Wednesday.

A note about Student Government Elections

Because Alex has discussed Duke's ticket distribution system at Cameron, I thought I would talk a little about UNC's system and the importance of this issue in Student Government here, eventhough this week's game is at Cameron. Perhaps this information is unecessary, but I think it paints a pretty accurate picture of what the current basketball climate here on campus is like.

The Dean Smith Center seats roughly 23,000 people. Because the arena was built almost entirely through alumni contributions, only 4,000-6,000 of those seats belong to students, depending on the game. This year, we moved to an online distribution system where students enter a lottery for each game and have a 30-40% chance of landing tickets (UNC has about 15,000 undergrads, but 24,000 with graduate school students). Student Government elections will be held on February 13, and the main issue of the campaign is clearly the disapproval of the current system run by the Carolina Athletic Association.

UNC fans bristle when they hear talk of the "wine and cheese" (thanks Sam Cassell) Dean Dome crowds, and the current system has further hampered our ability to guarantee tickets to the most dedicated fans. It takes little to no effort to log on, sign up for tickets, and then decide if you want to go to the game when the time comes. There is a good chance the policy will change in favor of one that rewards the most "hardcore" fans, but the debate between candidates right now is heated.

Since August, there have been hundreds of letters to the Editor in the Daily Tar Heel discussing this system. We hate it, and we hate even more that Duke so effectively rewards its students with great seats.

Kudos to Duke for rewarding the most dedicated fans. I can assure you that this is the only positive thing that will ever be said about Dook on this blog. Tomorrow we will talk about matchups: frontcourt, backcourt, coaching, etc... Go Heels.

Here we go again...

2007-02-02T13:06:00.000-08:00

The time has come for another installment in the only rivalry that really matters in college basketball (hell, college sports): UNC vs. Duke. The nation's two best basketball programs (and now women's programs as well), the nation's two best coaches, and the nation's two most fervent fan bases will clash in what is sure to be another excellent game between two of the ACC's best. Perhaps there are other rivalries that matter more to other people, but not any people that I know.

It seems as if recently, the rest of the nation has begun to agree. ESPN has already started the annual hype machine, guaranteeing that every one of their 74 channels will be airing only old UNC-Duke games and previews of next week's game starting Sunday night when the clock hits 00:00 in Miami.

When I was a kid, they only aired the game on ESPN2, which was an obscure channel that no one even had, and the local Raycom sports programming. Now it is arguably the most highly-anticipated game of the year on ESPN. They air commercials about it all winter, including the clever College Gameday one featuring Bilas and Davis at the UNC cafeteria (not the real cafeteria, just so you know) and the one featuring the creepy Dook dad who makes his kids beat the hell out of a Ramses piñata at their birthday party. Typical Dook behavior. Although I love this nationwide UNC-Duke obsession, I really can't imagine how irritating this is for the rest of the country. It's the week of the Super Bowl and ESPN is advertising UNC-Duke. I love it.

The buzz surrounding the Duke game has already begun on the UNC campus, and will probably be deafening once we have dealt with our so-called rivals in Raleigh on Saturday. I received dozens of messages last night following Duke’s OT defeat at UVA (go ‘hoos), analyzing the impact of the loss on the game next week. Tons of campus organizations are doing special UNC-Duke events this weekend and the beginning of next week. The banning of UNC Robertson Scholars at Cameron this year has yet again become a prominent, and explosive, issue on campus (for details, check out Alex’s Duke blog). Needless to say, Duke-bashing should be a prominent topic of conversation at the Chapel Hill bars tonight.

Even our faculty is getting pumped. On Wednesday, one of my professors announced his intention to cut our night class an hour short next week to insure that we have adequate pre-game time. Yesterday, another professor extended permission to skip next week’s 9:30 AM class if we win, acknowledging that all of us (including him) will probably have had too big a night to actually get out of bed in the morning. This is probably true, for town officials are already preparing for potential bonfires and thousands of drunk people jumping through them on Franklin St following a win on Wednesday.

I think that people are even more excited these days because of our team’s current play. After our thumping of several ACC opponents and Arizona at the McKale Center, we are all starting to get that same feeling we got in 2005 when the team started streaking. Not only is the talent of this year’s Tar Heels reason to be excited, Dook is led by perhaps the most annoying and overrated players in school history (which is saying something), Josh McRoberts and Greg Paulus. Nothing is going to please us more than watching Tywon Lawson drive around Paulus for a sweet finger roll (the Daily Tar Heel article was true- Lawson can teleport) or watching Tyler Hansbrough dunk on McRoberts and proceed to embarrass all UNC fans with one of his patented weird overreactions. It’s going to be a fun game.

OK. Enough rambling. We’ll get into actual game discussion on Monday: player match-ups, Krzyzewski’s nose, etc… Any comments regarding the game before then are welcome. Go Heels.