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North Carolina coach Williams gives credit to UNLV's defense
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John Locher/Las Vegas Review-Journal
North Carolina players walk back on the court after a timeout against UNLV on Saturday at Orleans Arena. The top-ranked Tar Heels absorbed a 90-80 defeat by the Rebels. » Buy this photo
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
It was college basketball's version of "The Perfect Storm," and North Carolina was the "Andrea Gail."
The Tar Heels could do virtually nothing right inside Orleans Arena on Saturday, while UNLV overachieved and then some. The result was a stunning 90-80 loss to the Rebels in the championship of the Las Vegas Invitational and so long to Carolina's No. 1 ranking.
"Needless to say, we're extremely disappointed," coach Roy Williams said after his team fell to 5-1. "We never could get our focus going offensively all night. We weren't doing things the way we wanted to do them."
But falling from the top of the polls was the least of Williams' concerns. His team was outworked, couldn't make free throws and failed to guard the Rebels on the perimeter or inside despite having a considerable height advantage.
"Their defense was really aggressive," Williams said of the Rebels (7-0), who probably will enter the Top 25 on Monday. "We needed to be stronger with the basketball."
Worst of all for Carolina, its stars failed to show up, particularly point guard Kendall Marshall and center Tyler Zeller. Despite eight assists, Marshall was unable to get his teammates consistently involved. He shot just 3 of 8 from the floor.
"Kendall didn't push it like he usually does," Williams said. "I don't know if it was fatigue or what. But we also didn't do a very good job of moving and getting open for him."
Zeller, the Tar Heels' 7-foot center, shot 1 of 6 from the floor while dealing with early foul trouble that limited him to 24 minutes.
Harrison Barnes and John Henson also struggled, as the frontcourt duo shot a combined 10 of 28 from the floor. Rather than take it right at the UNLV front line, the pair constantly settled for jumpers that more often than not didn't drop.
"We were settling for jump shots instead of being aggressive," Williams said. "We didn't do a good job of matching their intensity."
Credit the Rebels for contesting many of those jumpers and clogging the lane to prevent North Carolina from having an open path to the basket.
"I knew (UNLV) was pretty darned good," Williams said. "They shot it well, they defended well and give (UNLV coach Dave Rice) credit. His team did a heck of a job."
But there were no defenders at the free-throw line, where the Tar Heels shot 20 of 33 for 61 percent.
"We've got to get better in a lot of areas, and that's one of them," Williams said. "We didn't rebound as well as we should have, either, and we didn't handle things late in the game as well as we should have. But I'll take responsibility for that. We haven't worked very much on late-game situations."
Until Saturday, there hadn't been a need to. The Tar Heels had beaten their opponents by an average of 21 points. But as they desperately tried to claw back in the game while trailing 82-72 with 2:32 left, the Tar Heels were unable to get enough defensive stops and enough makes at the offensive end.
"We've got a heck of a lot to work on," Williams said. "We've got to defend better. We have to rebound better. We have to execute better. We have to be more patient.
"It was a painful lesson, and we paid for the lesson by losing."
Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.
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Come game time, you've got be ready to go. Doesn't matter the downtime, distractions, or even if the coach benches the whole starting lineup. It's a team sport, and everyone has to be ready to go in and do their job. No, UNC didn't play well, and I take exception to the writer of this story making that sound like that's why they lost. As per the UNC coach, UNLV's defense took them out of their game, and they never found it. UNLV proved they can play with ball with anyone Saturday, they just have to show up and play their game.
The Tar Heels lost for many reasons last night and Roy Williams was very candid and honest about the reasons his team lost. But one thing that he didn't mention and that I think was a factor is that the Tar Heels had been in Vegas since Wednesday. They didn't play until Friday/Saturday so that left a lot of downtime except for an hour or two of practice for the team to just have fun. From some of the Tar Heel tweets I've seen they were living it up in Vegas and that may have caught up with them by Saturday night.
Some writer is kissing a$$...how about UNLV wasn't perfect and that they took NC's stars out of their comfort zone ans Williams didn't do the best job of getting them back to it??? Watching this game proved to me that this was no perfect storm and no fluke...sure, the Tarheels probably win the majority of head to head matchups if they played more than once this year...but these Rebels followed a plan designed by their coaching staff and won...no perfect storm...just near perfect execution...