UNC Review

UNC Review

The Vols took a hard loss on Friday afternoon, losing to the Tar Heels 101-87. The game got ugly in the first half, but the Vols found something in the second half and were able to fight and claw to stay in the game. Here are some thoughts from the game:

1) How awful were those refs? The fouls were called fairly evenly, with the Vols collecting 3 more fouls and 1 less free throw. But UNC continuously got away with stuff. The flagrant foul and ejection of JaJuan Smith was ridiculous. I can understand the intentional call somewhat since it was a hard foul from behind, and he did grab the jersey just a little. But JaJuan went for the ball, and barely missed it, and was ejected incorrectly. And I didn’t realize coaches can just run out onto the court and grab their players like Roy Williams did on that play. Hansbrough is a great player, but he gets away with so much its ridiculous. If you’re going to treat an All-American like that, then guess what, we have one on our team as well, and he got called for two ticky tack fouls tonight. I guess we can’t get the same treatment on both sides.

2) Lofton continues to frustrate me. I think towards the end of the game he finally started to look for his shot. You could tell early in the game that he wasn’t even looking for his shot, because he would catch the ball standing straight up allowing the defender to get close instead of in a triple threat stance. It really looked like JaJuan’s ejection fired up this team, and hopefully it said something to Lofton.

3) Major was greatly missed tonight. We traded his 6’10” frame for Dane at 6’4”. The Vols really could have used his experience tonight on the defensive end, as is seemed that Chism and Crews were getting frustrated with the ridiculous fouls they called on them in the post.

4) Despite the lopsided loss, I was fairly impressed by the team tonight. I thought they fought very hard, and gave it their all, especially in the second half. Ramar seemed to control the ball better tonight, only having two turnovers. Jordan was great at point guard, having 5 assists with no turnovers. The Vols were able to limit their turnovers to 14, creating 26 by the Tar Heels. The only struggle of the game, beside the free throws, was on the boards. The Tar Heels dominated the boards, collecting 15 offensive rebounds on 34 missed shots by UNC. The Vols on the other hand collected 13 offensive rebounds on 56 missed shots by the Vols.

5) Overall, it will be interesting to see what the Vols can take home from NY. I think they were able to learn more about themselves in this game, than the one against Butler. The Vols now know what it takes it be a top tier team in the NCAA, and I think that although there might be some growing pains to start the season, it might pay off in the end with the guys getting all this experience.

Stat Line of the Night:

                  TOT-FG  3-PT         REBOUNDS
Player Name       FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF  TP  A TO BLK S MIN
15 Howell,Jordan   1-6    1-5    2-2    0  0  0   1   5  5  0  0  0  19