Tough & Tenacious Tar Heels Triumph in Tournament

     Hey.  I'm sorry.  But I just had to.   Those of you that know me well know that I have an extreme appreciation and love of alliteration and rhyme.  I just plain like it.   But even I sometimes get sick of the constant use of it.

    Sweet Sixteen.  Elite Eight.   Final Four...   Sexy Six..  ha ha..  on and on and on.. I just had to go crazy with Today's Titillating Title.   Sally Sells Seashells by the Seashore.  Okay.  I'm done with that now.

ELITE EIGHT
   The excitement and anticipation is over... at least for another day.   The Tar Heels beat Indiana and advanced to the "Elite Eight", just ONE STEP away from the illustrious Final Four.   The first weekend of the tournament, there were 34 games.   After this weekend, which features only four contests, there will be only four teams remaining.   The big question is: will our Tar Heels team be one of them?

     I admit-- I'm a diehard Tar Heels fan.  I've followed them ever since around 1967 or 1968, when legendary coach Dean Smith led them to three straight Final Fours.  But even I had some reservations about Friday night's game with Indiana.   I mean, after all, we had NEVER beaten Indiana in the NCAA Tournament.  We had met twice before, in 1981 and 1984, both times also in Philadelphia. Both years, the Tar Heels were the #1 seed and the favorite to win.  And both years, the Hoosiers ended Carolina's dream for a championship and sent them home early.

   In 1981, they were 29-7 and coming off a convincing win over Virginia in the national semifinals.   Indiana and sensational point guard Isiah Thomas beat them, 63-50.   In 1984, it was an even greater upset in the regional semifinals, as the Tar Heels were not only the #1 seed, but the #1 rated team in the country.  At 28-2, they sported the #1 player in the country, budding superstar Michael Jordan, but they also had a recovering point guard, Kenny Smith, who had his wrist broken earlier in a January game against LSU, and never quite regained his form.  The Tar Heels shot poorly, and Jordan, plagued by foul trouble and harassed by Indiana defenders, had a miserable performance with only 13 points.

    Fortunately, for the Tar Heels and their fans, sandwiched in between these two disappointing season-ending games, was the 1982 championship season, which ended in dramatic fashion in New Orleans with Jordan's game-winning jump shot with only 17 seconds left on the clock.

    Why all of this retroactive analysis of past games?  I don't know, except it somehow made me leery of facing them again.   But-- even though it was the same location, these were different teams, and a different season.   And thankfully, it was a different result.

UNC ROLLS OVER INDIANA

Tar Heels dominated Indiana

     The Tar Heels, who came out of the gate fast and furious, running up and down the floor, hit their first seven three-pointers, led by guard Marcus Paige, who started 4-for-4 from the arc, and finished with 21 points, passing the legendary Michael Jordan in career points scored at UNC.  Big man Brice Johnson also added 20 points and 10 rebounds for his 22nd double-double of the season.   Paige and Johnson were not without help, however, as the other Tar Heel starters Kennedy Meeks, Justin Jackson, and Joel Berry II all scored in double figures.

    Balanced scoring and tenacious defense has been the norm lately for the Heels, and these good tendencies continued in the game against Indiana.   Although Coach Roy Williams said that Indiana just "missed a lot of shots", a good part of that was the Tar Heels, including their big men, chasing and harassing shooters out on the perimeter.

    The Tar Heels made their shots at over 60% in the first half, and ended the game with better than 50% shooting.   One very glaring statistic is that Carolina had a 50% rate on offensive rebounding-- in other words, the Tar Heels got second chances on over half of their missed shots.   The national average is around 30%.

FINAL FOUR?
     Carolina should be the favorite to reach the Final Four, and then win the National Championship.   History has proven however, that the favorite does NOT always come out on top.   As many analysts and pundits have speculated, --if-- the Tar Heels play up to their potential, there is no one else who can beat them.   In other words, if UNC does not win it all, they will most likely beat themselves, rather than being beat by another team.

     The Tar Heels face a familiar foe in the Eastern Regional Final in Notre Dame, a "new" ACC team which beat us on their court 80--76 at the beginning of February.   The Tar Heels had won 20 of their first 22 games, and an even dozen in a row, but lost two games in a row on the road at Louisville, and then at Notre Dame.  But a month later, it is the team that they literally whipped in the conference tournament, 78--47.

     Like Indiana, the Fighting Irish are a good team that deserves to be in the Regional Final.   But we-- all pride to the side-- are a better team... that could be a great team. Can we rise to the occasion?   We can... but more importantly, perhaps... we have to. We need to.   Great teams see the potential for greatness, and rise to meet it head--on.

     Carolina is riding high, averaging 90 points per game as a team in the tournament, while only allowing opponents an average of 65 points in the postseason.

     After Notre Dame (do I dare even contemplate this?)-- looms either Virginia or Syracuse, another two familiar ACC teams, and then Oklahoma or Villanova, two powerhouse teams that have 59 victories between them.

     It's only three more games.  Let's ALL rally around our team, and enjoy their success!
Here's to a victory against Notre Dame in the Eastern Regional final... and a trip to Houston... for a chance at the 2016 NCAA Basketball Championship.
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SUNDAY,  MARCH 27

@ 8:30 pm