The team that everyone expected would, did.
With all the preseason hype they received, the North Carolina Tar Heels might’ve
just headed North to Detroit and cut down the nets at Ford Field during football
season.
That’s not to belittle North Carolina’s accomplishments this season. The 2009
Tar Heels will go down as one of the most dominating NCAA Tournament teams ever,
right alongside the 1996 Kentucky Wildcats, among others. They won every tournament
game by at least double digits, beating five very good teams after breezing through
their first-round matchup.
Still, this season marks a third consecutive year where the brackets were covered
in chalk. The top three seeds in each region made the Sweet Sixteen, joined by
only one team below a No. 5 seed, No. 12 seed Arizona.
There are a lot of questions to answer about this season’s NCAA Tournament, and
I’ve only got the chance to get to a few. I’ll do my best…
Ty Lawson | |
1. Just how good was this North Carolina team?
While their dominance in the NCAA Tournament cannot be refuted, the Tar Heels
will hardly go down as a truly great team. Instead, it could be argued this team
was more like a truly great collection of players who never quite gelled right
until it became most important.
Throughout the regular season, the Tar Heels appeared just a bit disjointed.
On offense, no one really ever developed a defined role except Ty Lawson, the
unquestioned star of this year’s team. The junior point guard had been a fascilitator
and little more in his previous two seasons, but he added a rangy jump shot and
some new inside scoring moves to his arsenol this year. The result: an ACC Player
of the Year trophy and a group of teammates who never really seemed comfortable
with what they were trying to do out on the court.
By the end, things had balanced out by, in a way, unbalancing themselves. Danny
Green and Deon Thompson moved to the background, as the Tar Heel stars Lawson,
Tyler Hansbrough and Wayne Ellington took over the offensive reigns for the NCAA
Tournament.
Defensively, the gap was even larger.
After watching his team allow 91 points at home to Maryland in a 108-91 win, coach
Roy Williams suggested this year’s squad was not up to the same standards as last
year’s on the defensive end. After watching the Tar Heels play numerous times
this season, I agree.
The loss of Marcus Ginyard, by far the team’s top perimeter defender last year,
really hurt. But the team eventually found ways around that, and Ed Davis’s contributions
down low off the bench were an asset, both in rebounding and paint defense.
The end result: This team was very, very good. But I’m not willing to put them
above the 2005 Tar Heels or many other great teams – say, 2001 Duke – as far as
truly great teams go.
2. Was this the worst NCAA Tournament in recent memory?
I love basketball. I’ll watch an enormous blowout game contently. But even I can
admit, this probably was the worst NCAA Tournament in a while.
There simply were no upsets. When Arizona, Purdue, Xavier and Missouri are the
"Cinderellas," that really doesn’t speak well to the year at hand.
Four games stick out in my mind: Wisconsin-Florida State in the first round, Siena-Ohio
State in the first round, Michigan State-Kansas in the Sweet 16, and, of course,
Villanova-Pittsburgh in the Elite Eight, one of the great games in March Madness
history.
But, as previously mentioned, the bracket went mostly as planned. Even some of
the "upsets," namely No. 12 seed Western Kentucky’s victory against
No. 5 seed Illinois, were boring and predictable.
Then the preseason No. 1 ended up with the trophy at the end.
The basketball was good, but the results left us yawning.
3. Who earned their way onto the All-Tournament team?
Because they break things down by regions, there are no true "All-NCAA Tournament
teams," officially.
Here’s my breakdown:
G Ty Lawson, North Carolina – Lawson averaged 20.8 points per game in the five
games he played and his eight steals in the National Championship were epic.
G A.J. Price, Connecticut – Price, who has faced as much adversity as any player
in the country, nearly carried the Huskies to a title.
G Wayne Ellington, North Carolina – Ellington earned his way to Most Outstanding
Player with a tournament-high 115 points over six games.
F Sam Young, Pittsburgh – Young gets no credit, but his 23.5 points per game in
four games nearly catapulted the Panthers into the Final Four.
C Blake Griffin, Oklahoma – The man scored 114 points and grabbed 60 rebounds
in four games. Absolutely ridiculous.
4. What did we learn matters most in college basketball?
This year’s lesson was simply: coaches win championships.
The Sweet 16 was littered with great coaches: only two coaches to win NCAA Championships
in the past and have their teams make the tournament this year fell short of the
third round: Maryland’s Gary Williams and Minnesota’s Tubby Smith.
Roy Williams prepped his team well enough that he never had to lean on his one
weakness, in-game management. Tom Izzo, the best tournament coach of the last
15 years with five Final Four appearances, guided an underwhelming Michigan State
team to the Championship. Jim Calhoun may have went out with a bang, assuming
he retires. And Jay Wright proved what all of us have suspected for years: he
is among the elite in the coaching fraternity.
The epitome of this lesson can be seen in the first round matchup between Clemson
and Michigan. The Tigers held a huge advantage in talent, but coach Oliver Purnell,
who has never won an NCAA Tournament game, melted against Wolverine coach John
Beilein.
5. What can we expect next year?
I’ll have a full analysis of this later in the month, after NBA Draft entrees
are official. But I’m predicting right now, if Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich
come back, we may be singing "Rock Chalk, Jayhawk" for the second time
in three years.
