Tar Heels, Hoosiers pile up some points
PHILADELPHIA — The 30-second shot clock operator could have an easy night watching North Carolina play Indiana in the East Regional semifinals tonight.
These teams take plenty of shots, resulting in plenty of points.
“They don’t put anybody out on the court that can’t defend at a high level or score at a high level,” Indiana Coach Tom Crean said Thursday. “I think one of the things that separates this Carolina team so much is the way they pass the ball. It all starts with your transition because they get out and run.”
Top-seeded North Carolina (30-6) averages more than 82 points and 64 shots a game.
“They’re effective at both ends of the court,” Tar Heels Coach Roy Williams said of Indiana. “So we’re worried about their offense. But defensively we know they do a good job of walling the guy inside. They trap when they want to. They jam when they want to.”
Indiana (27-7), seeded fifth, averages more than 82 points a game on an average of 58 shots.
There’s not going to be a whole lot of time for play-calling or directing teammates. Everyone on both teams gets out and runs, and the ball doesn’t spend much time bouncing.
The big difference is threepoint shooting. The Hoosiers make an average of nine a game, almost doubling North Carolina’s five.
“We’ve got to get out and try to cut their percentage down. They’re going to shoot a lot of threes,” Williams said. “Yogi [Ferrell] gives them so much threat with his penetration and pinching that they’re going to get some threes.”
Crean said turnovers could be the difference. The Hoosiers have averaged 12.5 in the tournament, one below their season average.
This is the third time Indiana and North Carolina have met in the NCAA Tournament. The Hoosiers are 2-0, having won the 1981 national championship game and in the 1984 East Regional.
This is the third time Indiana has played NCAA Tournament games in Philadelphia. They won the 1976 and 1981 national championships in the Spectrum, which was in the same complex as the Wells Fargo Center is now, but was demolished in 2010.
“I think it’s tremendous,” Crean said of being in Philadelphia. “And when you look at the national championships that have been won here, they’ve heard about that this week.”
Williams doesn’t spend a lot of time dealing with history.
“You know, 10 years ago my guys thought Michael Jordan invented the game. Now they don’t even know who Michael Jordan is, if it weren’t for the Hanes commercials,” Williams said. “I’m going to call and leave him a message, tell him I said that today.
“Kids are in today’s times. If I were to talk to them about ‘81 and ‘84, I have a coach that wasn’t even born then. I don’t know that my guys understand that. And maybe I’m wrong, but I’m not talking about that to them.
“If I tell them I had black hair in 1981, they’d think it’s when the rocks cooled. So I don’t deal with that very much. I could be wrong, but that’s the way I’m dealing with it.”