Never a Doubt...UNC takes the ACC Regular Season Title in Style

Carolina dominated Duke just as I expected, using their superior speed, length, and athleticism to overwhelm the Blue Devils in Chapel Hill 81-67.  UNC dominated the boards 40-32, led by John Henson's 12.  The Heels also ended the game with twice as many assists as their counterparts from Durham, led by 11 from Kendall Marshall.  Marshall was spectacular once again, scoring 15 points on 5-8 shooting and continuing to be the main cog behind the rise of UNC's offense and transition game back toward 2009 levels.  His court vision and phenomenal decision making have turned Carolina from an average team into a final four contender, and it's really amazing that it took over half the season and Larry Drew's self-removal to give him control of the team.


Roy Williams received the ACC Coach of the Year award today, but for the reason above I don't think it was warranted.  He would have had no shot at the award had Larry Drew never left UNC, so really he owes that award to Kendall Marshall and Larry Drew himself.  Williams' mistake of playing Drew over Marshall for much of the season was the sole reason why Carolina took so long to reach their current level of play, so I look at it like this...would you give the player of the year award in the ACC to Harrison Barnes?  Right now he's probably the best player in the ACC (Nolan Smith might still have it), but my feeling is the final conference awards are based on a season's worth of results rather than what they have done recently.  This is why Barnes is on the 2nd team, and Leonard Hamilton of Florida State should be the coach of the year (I have Roy in 3rd).  Hamilton has much less talent to work with, and he led his team to a 3rd place finish in the ACC despite losing his star player to injury in early February.  Second place would go to Mike Krzyzewski, who also lost one of his best players, but kept his team in the top 10 all year long and still has them in contention for a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament.  I keep hearing people say this is possibly Roy Williams' best coaching job in his career, a statement that makes me cringe at the lack of knowledge and vision of these so-called "experts."  UNC should have been a great team all along, but because the coach made some huge errors early on to create a dramatic turn around when those mistakes finally corrected themselves, he's supposed to be given the award?  Come on.

But enough about that, back to Saturday's beatdown.  Harrison Barnes once again outplayed Kyle Singler, this time in emphatic fashion.  Barnes finished with 18 points on 7-17 shooting and added 5 rebounds, while holding Singler to 3-14 shooting for just 8 points and 6 rebounds.  Barnes is just an all-around better player, and at this point that fact is pretty obvious.  Tyler Zeller had another good game inside, helping to shut down the Plumlees and scoring 14 points on 7-11 shooting and adding 5 boards.  Leslie McDonald and Dexter Strickland also played solid games, providing the extra scoring punch this team desperately needs from the shooting guard position.  I still wish McDonald would get more minutes since I think he's much more efficient on the offensive end, but Dexter plays extremely hard and is a great leader by example.  His exclamation point dunk at the end of Saturday's game really earned him some bonus points with me.


The Tar Heels enter the ACC Tournament in Greensboro as the #1 seed, and there's really no reason why they shouldn't coast into the finals.  They have a great draw with Clemson as the #4 seed and Boston College as the #5, and a loss to either of those two teams would be pretty unexpected.  I'm hoping for a 3rd matchup between UNC and Duke in the finals, a game I would once again expect Carolina to win handily.  The Heels have been the better team for 3 of the 4 halves played between the two teams this season, and Carolina is clearly still improving while Duke appears to have reached their ceiling.  If the Heels can follow up their regular season title with a tournament championship, they still have an outside shot to earn a #1 seed for the NCAA tournament.  That said, UNC has seemingly taken the ACC tournament very lightly in recent years, so I'm hoping they play with a bit more urgency this year.  For the first time in several years I'll be in attendance for the ACC Tournament, so I'm excited to see it all unfold in person.  We know there will already be one new banner added to the Smith Center after this season, but will there be more?