Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Three straight Friday games. Will practice make perfect?
The stretch of four games in 18 days provides more practice time than the start of Hubert Davis’ first three seasons at the helm. So the question is: how beneficial is that more than actually playing?
The bad and good performance at Kansas last Friday was four days after the opener against Elon and followed by two seven-day breaks before four games in five days 5,000 miles away.
The first is tonight against 1-2 American that the Tar Heels should win easily before more practice and the long trip to the Hawai’ian Islands that begins with another Friday night date at the University of Hawai’i in Honolulu.
Then the Heels face more Kansas-type competition at the Maui Invitational on Thanksgiving week, where the opponents will be Dayton, Auburn or Iowa State and possibly two-time defending national champion UConn on the third day.
That’s a lot of practice and action before a very tough December. Fatigue isn’t a factor for college kids, but preparation will be for Alabama and Georgia Tech in Chapel Hill, Florida in Charlotte and UCLA in New York.
When the schedule came out, 10-3 before the New Year and ACC play resumes looked like a good record. Now that that may be more daunting even for the 10th-ranked team in the nation.
So what does Davis do to get the team through December in good shape on the court and in the record book?
Apparently, Hubert is trying a few things differently to simulate the competition.
Whereas Carolina basketball has long been the “white” team versus the “blue” team in practice — with a few players swapping colored jerseys to let the top seven or eight guys play together — Davis has been dividing up the top ten equally for the best possible competition between the players vying for minutes. That means R.J. Davis is playing against Elliot Cadeau as much alongside his starting backcourt mate. And the four biggest guys are also banging against each other rather than screening for them on the court.
It sounds like a way for Davis and his staff to decide minutes for a deep team that has pure talent on the perimeter and balance in the paint. So starters Jalen Washington and Jae’Lyn Withers may be white teamers and blue teamers for much of practice.
At least in the Kansas game, Cade Tyson may be losing time moving forward, perhaps like what happened to Paxson Wojick last season, when he started the first few games and then faded down the bench. Tyson had 16 minutes against Elon and only one at KU.
Or perhaps it is situational basketball, where the coaches try to get Tyson open to make his 3-point shots, which is supposedly his specialty. And with Ian Jackson’s emergence, where are his minutes coming from in a three-guard lineup?
I guess time and practice will tell.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
