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UNC players pledge to bounce back
Tar Heels, smarting from their first loss of the season, say they paid a price for coming out a little flat
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Published: January 6, 2009
CHAPEL HILL
Wayne Ellington is expecting one tough week of practice at North Carolina this week.
He knows, along with everyone else in the program, that repair work is needed after the Tar Heels were all but dominated by Boston College on Sunday night.
Boston College won 85-78 in the Smith Center, handing UNC its first loss of the season in 14 games.
"We're going to be fighting," Ellington said. "We're going to come out and bounce back. It hurts. We're going to get that feeling to go away. And in order to get it to go away, we've got to come out and give it our all."
UNC will play its first ACC road game of the season on Sunday at Wake Forest, after a midweek home game against College of Charleston.
Sunday's game was projected as an early season showdown between undefeated teams. Wake Forest upheld its end. UNC will be playing to avoid the ACC cellar after spending the first seven weeks of the season atop both national polls.
Danny Green, a veteran UNC forward, was mystified by Sunday's events. He kept thinking that UNC would catch a spark at some point, ignited by Tyler Hansbrough with a dunk or Ty Lawson with a dash down the floor for a basket, but it never came.
Green waited, and UNC's futility grew in trying to counter Boston College's sharp, disciplined play.
"I think it's shocking to everybody," Green said. "We didn't think we were going to lose, especially our first conference game, our conference opener."
Ellington could detect no problems when UNC first took the playing floor to run warm-up drills. He thought that all the players had the proper intensity and everyone was ready to play.
Between the time of the drills and opening tap, UNC's demeanor changed. Ellington could not cite a reason for the difference.
"We came out a little flat and they took full advantage," Ellington said. "There's no explanation. It's something we know we shouldn't be doing. Basically we gave them too much confidence early in the game.
"Instead of shutting them down early we let them keep building more and more confidence, and that hurt us."
Boston College hustled for loose balls. It fought relentlessly inside for rebounds. UNC held a 50-40 rebounding advantage but wasted vast energy getting the ball.
Boston College still grabbed 16 offensive rebounds. It had 11 steals among 15 forced turnovers. Green and Lawson, UNC's point guard, thought that Boston College was the tougher team, especially physically.
Ellington never thought that UNC would lack toughness in any ACC game with all five starters back from last season.
"It definitely hurts; it hurts a lot, especially from an upperclassman's viewpoint," Ellington said. "We've been here before and we know what it takes. We know how tough we need to play when the league comes around."
Hansbrough, last season's national player of the year, and Marcus Ginyard, a senior forward, are clearly not recovered from injuries that knocked them out of play for 15 combined games, 11 for Ginyard.
Hansbrough said that he is getting better each game and neither his right shin nor his left ankle is bothering him, but he struggled to control rebounds against Boston College. He could not hit shots around the basket after being bumped, knocked off balance and fouled, plays that have been a strength of his career.
"I missed some shots; normally I make those," Hansbrough said. "It happens. It's frustrating. It's our first ACC game and we came out and didn't play the way we wanted to."
Ginyard wore a protective hose on his right leg after taking what Coach Roy Williams said was a whack in practice last week. He played 14 minutes and grabbed three rebounds but didn't score. He didn't attempt a shot.
The game was Ginyard's third since returning to play after undergoing surgery in early October to repair a stress fracture in his left foot. He is upset that he is not further along in recovery. Williams is stressing patience to Ginyard.
"We don't see him doing the things that we've seen him do in the past," Williams said. "He's frustrated by it because he'd like to play better. I'm not frustrated because I know the kid is giving me basically everything he has."
The loss was UNC's fourth in its last 53 games. Three of the losses, counting two last season, have come at home. The other was on a neutral court in last season's NCAA Final Four.
Lawson is hopeful that the loss will at least enable UNC to play in a more normal fashion now that the players won't have to listen to talk about finishing as college basketball's first unbeaten team in 33 seasons.
"I guess, but we really didn't pay attention to that at all anyway," Lawson said. "We tried to keep it out of our minds. Right now we have nothing to worry about and nothing to lose. Now we can just go out and play hard."
■ Bill Cole can be reached at bcole@wsjournal.com.
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