Wake Forest @ UNC Game Preview

by RAJohnston on Feb 15, 2011 6:43 PM EST

Wake Forest Demon Deacons (8-17, 1-8) (0-7 Road, 255 KenPom)

North Carolina Tar Heels (18-6, 8-2) (11-0 Home, 11 KenPom)

8:00

TV: ACC Network (Raycom)

The Deacs head to Chapel Hill to take on the Tar Heels tonight at the Dean Dome at 8. The Heels are coming off a win at LittleJohn Coliseum. They are 11-2 in their past 13 games. The Deacs have lost 4 in a row, and 9 out of their last 10 games. It would be a minor miracle if Wake wins this one, but stranger things have certainly happened.

Overall

Category	Offense	Defense	D-I Avg
Adj. Efficiency	111.6 41	86.5 4	101.3
Adj. Tempo	73.6 10		67.1
Four Factors
Effective FG%:	50.2 111	45.9 49	49.1
Turnover %:	18.5 71	20.6 160	20.4
Off. Reb. %:	35.1 81	29.6 61	32.4
FTA/FGA:	40.3 111	25.6 4	37.9
Miscellaneous Components
3P%:	33.1 222	32.5 78	34.4
2P%:	50.4 76	44.3 51	47.8
FT%:	65.2 282	64.2 20	68.9
Block%:	6.3 13	13.0 29	9.2
Steal%:	9.7 199	8.9 205	9.5

The Tar Heels have improved tremendously since last year. They are very good on defense, and this can mainly be attributed to their heigh and ability to block a high percentage of shots. They do an excellent job of not fouling on defense (which is sometimes rare for teams that block a lot of shots). It helps that they have John Henson, Tyler Zeller, and Harrison Barnes in there to contest those shots.
Their offense isn't a slouch either. They are averaging 1.16 points per possession (46th in the country). They could improve their three point shooting, but shoot above 50% from two-pointers. Free throw shooting has been a problem at times, and that could hurt them down the stretch in some games. They do a good job of holding on to the ball, and also provide a good amount of second and third chance points.

Conference Only

Category	Offense	Defense	D-I Avg
Efficiency	104.5 6	94.9 3	101.3
Tempo	71.7 1		67.1
Four Factors
Effective FG%:	48.4 7	47.1 4	49.1
Turnover %:	17.6 5	20.1 5	20.4
Off. Reb. %:	34.2 7	30.0 2	32.4
FTA/FGA:	38.3 2	25.3 1	37.9
Miscellaneous Components
3P%:	29.2 12	35.1 7	34.4
2P%:	50.0 1	43.6 3	47.8
FT%:	67.5 9	60.5 1	68.9
Block%:	8.4 3	12.9 3	9.2
Steal%:	10.0 8	8.9 7	9.5

KenPom has recently added a "Conference Only" tab, and I included this here for your enjoyment.
As you can see, They rank in the top half of almost every category, except for 3-point shooting, in which they are dead last. This is going to be a very tough game for the Deacs.

GAME STATISTICS
Player	GP	MIN	PPG	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	TPG	FG%	FT%	3P%
Tyler Zeller	24	27.0	14.3	7.2	0.5	0.8	1.2	1.3	.528	.750	.000
Harrison Barnes	24	27.3	13.4	5.5	1.4	0.6	0.4	2.0	.413	.714	.337
John Henson	24	24.3	11.3	8.8	0.8	0.6	2.9	2.1	.541	.393	.500
Dexter Strickland	24	25.2	8.2	3.2	2.0	1.4	0.0	1.5	.489	.643	.333
Leslie McDonald	23	14.5	7.0	1.6	0.5	0.4	0.0	0.7	.394	.696	.375
Reggie Bullock	23	14.9	6.7	3.0	0.7	0.7	0.1	0.5	.393	.550	.318
Justin Knox	24	15.6	5.7	3.8	0.4	0.2	0.4	1.3	.557	.731	.000
Kendall Marshall	24	19.3	5.2	1.4	5.0	1.1	0.0	1.9	.471	.706	.391
Larry Drew II	21	22.8	4.4	2.3	3.9	1.1	0.0	1.8	.384	.677	.207
Justin Watts	21	11.3	2.7	2.5	0.7	0.1	0.2	0.5	.375	.536	.316
Patrick Crouch	9	1.8	1.0	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.3	.571	.000	.500
Daniel Bolick	9	1.4	0.4	0.4	0.2	0.0	0.0	0.1	.250	1.000	.000
D.J. Johnston	9	1.7	0.4	0.7	0.1	0.0	0.1	0.1	.333	.000	.000
Van Hatchell	6	1.7	0.2	0.3	0.2	0.0	0.0	0.2	.000	.500	.000
David Dupont	9	1.7	0.0	0.6	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.1	.000	.000	.000
Stewart Cooper	9	1.4	0.0	0.3	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	.000	.000	.000
Totals	24	--	78	42	15	7	5	14	.460	.652	.331

The Heels are led by Zeller, Barnes and Henson, which is going to be a huge problem for the Deacs tonight. Hopefully Ty Walker is back from his illness. Once again, I think that Carson and Ty should get some time out there together.
Kendall Marshall finally replaced Larry Drew at the PG lineup, which resulted in a transfer from Drew. I have wondered since the beginning of the year why it took Marshall so long to become the PG. I would love to ask Roy Williams about that if I got the chance to talk to him. Marshall has been doing very well, and is going to be a formidable guard to come up against in the tournament this year, as well as years to follow.
The reserves will probably get a lot of time for UNC tonight, so look for McDonald (who if I remember correctly killed us at the Joel last year), and Dexter Strickland to put up some good numbers for UNC.

Predictions:

KenPom- UNC 94 Wake 63 (99%)

Vegas- UNC (-22.5)

My Prediction- If I were using my formula to determine the score, it would come out to 79-65 UNC (adjusted for a 5 point home court advantage would push it to 84-65). I am going to use common sense, however, and say that UNC will win by a larger margin than that:

UNC-89

Wake-63

UNC is going to be way too much inside for Wake tonight. Their offense has been tremendously better with Marshall running the point. I expect the Heels to get off to a hot start and methodically/consistently wear us down from there. For Wake Forest to keep it under the spread, we will have to come out "like our hair is on fire", and we haven't been doing that recently. Since we are on the road, I think we may see another ridiculous halftime score (something along the lines of 45-24 perhaps). Coach Bzdelik has his work cut out for him tonight, but if Ari and CJ can have the same success that they had shooting last year, we could potentially cover. I think that keeping it within 20 would be a moderately good goal for tonight.

Comments are always welcome. Let's get out there and see some improvement in the effort department from Sunday. If we do that, we may see some results on the court as well. Go Deacs!

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Comments

Ready for the game.

Hopefully we can keep it moderately close.

by willisb_rad2 on Feb 15, 2011 3:17 PM EST reply actions

Nice picture by the way.

by willisb_rad2 on Feb 15, 2011 3:17 PM EST reply actions

I scalped some cheap tickets!

The only upside when your team isn’t playing well… CHEAP tickets. I’ll be the crazy guy yelling and screaming!!! Go deacs!!!

jfizzle86... Go DEACS!!

by jfizzle86 on Feb 15, 2011 3:49 PM EST reply actions

Hopin and prayin

For a good game. My worry is that it is going to get ugly quickly because of the rebounding ability of UNC. Even if we get off to a hot start shooting, we gotta do better on the defensive glass – UNC is #2 in the ACC in offensive boards. McKie, Walker & Desrosiers better be on their game tonight.

We only lost to Duke by 24, and played a pretty good 1st half against them and maybe Coach B can get them motivated to play better against a top 25 team – I am going out on a limb and saying 81-68 – JTT is the man in this one, looking for 5 or 6 threes out of him.

by DaDeacs on Feb 15, 2011 3:55 PM EST reply actions

I think JTT (based on his tweets) is going to take it upon himself to keep the Deacs in the game...

That means he will either have 30+ points, or will have a ton of bad shots and not a lot of success.

If we keep it within 13 I will be really surprised. Their greatest strength (interior offense/rebounding) is our greatest weakness (defensive rebounding/interior defense). I do not expect a good showing tonight from the Deacs (as awful as that sounds).

Wake Forest '12

Mother So Dear

by RAJohnston on Feb 15, 2011 4:12 PM EST reply actions

My thought process

Which is most likely flawed and (very likely) stupid – is basing it off the last game against Clemson. Clemson is an ok team, nothing special, they beat a pretty good FSU team, but also lost to Virginia. They also have a tough time rebounding the ball – but Brownell obviously had a good game plan, because they outrebounded the heels by 10 and almost pulled off the upset.

Assuming Buzz sees this and focuses on it, we have a shot of keeping it close (again, flawed thought process). We know they can’t hit the 3, so they are going to have to methodically blow us out (which is highly likely) – BUT, if we can stay home on the boards, make them hit their shots and get hot shooting the 3 ball, I think we can keep it close. There are a lot of IFs in there, the first being that Coach Buzz is game planning for this game versus still trying to get the players to play “his game”, whatever that is, not sure we’ve seen it yet, or ever will….

by DaDeacs on Feb 15, 2011 4:49 PM EST up reply actions

Not flawed thinking, but I think Clemson is better than "an ok team"

They are ranked 33rd in KenPom (5th in the ACC) at 17-8. They are also 4th in the ACC in offensive rebounding (35%), and 6th in defensive rebounding (68.2%). Against the Heels, Clemson offensive rebounded (34.1%,), which is actually below their season average, but they limited UNC to only 19.8% of offensive rebounds, which is where the rebounding margin came from. They didn’t give UNC a lot of second chance points at all. With Walker coming back from his illness, and Carson/Travis playing their first game at the Dean Dome, rebounding is going to be very tough to come by.

Wake is 11th in offensive rebounds, and last in defensive rebounds. UNC is 7th in offensive boards, and 2nd in defensive boards. That is a huge mismatch, and I’m not sure there is really anything Coach Bzdelik can do except change the focus of the entire game to rebounding everything. That would lead to a lot of transition buckets for UNC, since they run the most up-tempo offense in the conference at 71.7 possessions per game (in conference only).

Basically, if we crash the boards hard, we give up other aspects of the game that we could actually win. I’m not sure what Coach Bzdelik’s game plan will actually be, but I don’t think he is going to make that big of a change when even an increased focus would still not yield a lot of favorable results.

In my opinion, the best shot that we have is to limit possessions, run good plays, and shoot a high percentage. That will keep the tempo down (which is one of UNC’s strengths…getting out in transition), keep UNC focused on defense (which they are very good at, but can lapse from time to time), and lower the amount of rebounding opportunities on both ends. This will also help us not turn the ball over as much as we would if we were to play extremely up-tempo. I don’t think we can play UNC’s game (up-tempo/run and gun) and keep it within 25-30.

Wake Forest '12

Mother So Dear

by RAJohnston on Feb 15, 2011 5:28 PM EST up reply actions