Lucas: Wake Forest Rapid Reactions

By Adam Lucas

1. Carolina out-toughed Wake Forest in a 68-59 win. Carolina's defense clamped down on Wake to force the Deacons to hit just one of their final 12 shots to preserve the win. RJ Davis poured in 23 points as UNC's high scorer. He also played through a rolled ankle to score some of Carolina's biggest points of the game. He came into the game averaging 21.8 points against Wake in his career and did it again on Thursday.

2. Hard not to be proud of those final few minutes. In a game that had fallen apart, Carolina stayed together, pushed the right buttons on the sideline and on the court, and emerged with the win. This was absolutely, undoubtedly, no question a game the Tar Heels would not have won a month ago. Today, they did. Big defensive plays from Seth Trimble, Drake Powell, Ven-Allen Lubin and basically everyone in argyle to help win the game.

3. On a day he uncharacteristically had the worst shooting day of his Carolina career, Lubin had a colossal final three minutes to seal the win. It started when he blocked what would have been a wide open Hunter Sallis layup in a one-point game. A minute later, Lubin dunked off a lob from Elliot Cadeau, and on the next trip he slammed home a Jae'Lyn Withers miss to provide a six-point lead. Lubin then blocked another shot with 1:13 left. His 13 rebounds tied his career high and set his UNC career high.

4. Credit to Wake Forest for doing a very solid job at preventing Carolina from getting into transition and turning it into a halfcourt game. The Tar Heels did not have a fast break point in the first half. They eventually got one two minutes into the second half on an Elliot Cadeau layup, but finished the game with just five fast break points in a grueling, hand to hand combat game.

5. In a game that was played at a grinding pace where every possession mattered, Trimble's final 20 seconds of the first half were important. Trimble went to the offensive glass and tipped in an Ian Jackson miss to give Carolina a 33-31 lead with 11 seconds left. Then, with Wake trying to beat the buzzer, Trimble soared to challenge Sallis and force a Deacon miss. Trimble finished with 10 points.

6. The Tar Heels' opening 12 minutes were ugly. They turned it over eight times on their first 22 trips down the court. Not surprisingly, they managed just 13 points during that stretch, putting them at approximately 0.60 points per possession. Once they cleaned up their handle on the ball, the offense got much more productive. The Heels turned it over just once in the final 7:50 of the half. They scored 20 points on the final 13 trips of the half, putting them at 1.54 points per trip. Moral of the story: holding on to the ball makes it much easier to score.

7. In a game when offense was in short supply, second chance points were important to Carolina's attack. The Tar Heels grabbed seven offensive boards off 18 misses in the first half and turned those rebounds into seven second chance points.

8. Really unfortunate sequence with approximately 8:30 left. In a game where officials Ron Groover, Bill Covington and Eric Lewis had a very rough afternoon, the Tar Heels felt like Davis was fouled on a layup attempt. Then Covington clearly missed an out of bounds call and awarded possession to Wake (a rather important moment considering how tight the game was). Then, after letting an entire half of very physical play go, a double foul was whistled that included Cadeau's fourth foul. In a game with this much importance, it's unfortunate the officials played such a big role.

9. Improbably, things then got worse. Hubert Davis (who got the 100th win of his UNC career) had to point out a flagrant one foul on Juke Harris, which the officials then detected after reviewing the monitor. A few seconds later, after Lubin was assaulted going to the rim with no call, Eric Lewis decided to call a technical foul on the Carolina bench. This entire two minutes was an abysmal advertisement for ACC basketball, a league that used to be the best in the country. It will be fascinating to see if any of the officials from this quarterfinal advance to later ACC Tournament games. It very much had the feel of an old school Clemson-Carolina game at this event.

10. And through it all, Carolina kept playing. They weathered an incredible drought during the second half that saw them make just one of 14 shots--they didn't make a two-point field goal for nearly 17 minutes--and stayed close enought to make winning plays at the end. Withers hit a big three (and nearly hit another one, as it spun out), as did RJ Davis, and Drake Powell stole an inbounds pass with under a minute to go. On a day when likely no Tar Heel thought he had a great game, everyone still did something to help Carolina win.

11. Big loss for the ACC community on Thursday with the death of longtime sportswriter John Feinstein. While it's true that Feinstein might have leaned towards a slightly darker shade of blue, he was an important part of the league during a time when it was one of the dominant basketball conferences in America. You likely already know about his Season on the Brink, but his 1998 book A March to Madness was a very good look behind the scenes in the ACC at a time the curtain wasn't often lifted. Feinstein was 68 years old.

12. Carolina advances to the ACC Tournament semifinal against Duke. The Blue Devils suffered some injury issues in their quarterfinal win that you might hear about over the next 24 hours, but it should be a fun night in Charlotte.

Players Mentioned

Elliot Cadeau

RJ Davis

Ian Jackson

Ven-Allen Lubin

Drake Powell

Seth Trimble

Jae'Lyn Withers

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