Heels to be on familiar ground

CHAPEL HILL

North Carolina is already familiar with the unique playing conditions that this season's Final Four will present, after playing a game at Ford Field earlier this season.

The visit was almost four months ago, on Dec. 3, when North Carolina beat Michigan State, also a Final Four team, 98-63 in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge series.

Ford Field is the home of the NFL's Detroit Lions. The basketball floor will be put in the middle of the field -- as it was for the Challenge game -- and the floor will be raised about three feet off the football playing turf.

Opinions varied among Coach Roy Williams and his players about how helpful the December experience will be on Saturday, when North Carolina will play Villanova in the second of two national-semifinal games about 8:47 p.m.

Forward Deon Thompson said he was confident that the Tar Heels will have less of an adjustment period than the Wildcats, having played in the building and on the floor already this season.

"It was really big in there," Thompson said. "The depth perception of the seats and the rim is a little different. We played good in there, so that's obviously got to be a good sign.

"It couldn't be a negative. It can only be an advantage. That's the only way you can look at it. But we still have to go and play a basketball game."

Guard Wayne Ellington said he needed some time through pre-game warm-ups and the first minutes of play to adjust to the sight conditions. He found walking down steps from the playing floor to the bench and then walking up the steps to enter the game an odd experience.

Thompson said that playing at Ford Field wasn't much different than playing in the Georgia Dome in the ACC Tournament, where the playing floor was flat on the football field and was set up to one side of the building.

Ford Field's raised floor is his chief concern because he wonders if he or someone else might run off the floor and fall and be injured.

"It's definitely a possibility if you go running for a loose ball or something like that," Thompson said. "It's always a possibility that someone can go flying off the court."

Guard Bobby Frasor said he thinks that the previous game in the building will be of minimal help. Center Tyler Hansbrough said he wasn't sure that playing there before will be an advantage other than the players recalling that they played one of their best games of the season at Ford Field.

"The only thing I remember is how far the locker rooms were from the floor," Frasor said. "You're running up this huge tunnel and you're getting tired going back to the locker room.

"It is different, where the fans are kind of removed. You're separated from the crowd. It comes down to it's basketball. It's the same in any gym. The rim's still 10 feet off the floor. It's like the Hoosiers movie."

Williams found few faults with the game his Tar Heels played that day, handing the Spartans their most lopsided loss of the season, but he said he doesn't think that a game played four months ago will be of any benefit this week.

Williams said that playing a golf course previously didn't mean that he would play well on it the second time.

"The first time I played Augusta National I knocked it on (hole) 15 with a driver and a 5-iron," Williams said. "The next time I hit driver and 3-wood into the pond. The first time I played Cypress Point, on No. 16 I knocked it right in the middle of the green. The second time around I hit six balls in the water.

"I don't think it's an advantage. We've all played in big facilities before. It did take me until after the second TV timeout to get comfortably able to see. I didn't enjoy sitting down (below the raised floor)."

Forward Danny Green said he wasn't worried going into the game, although he had two of the worst shooting games of his career three weeks ago in the ACC Tournament.

Green made three of 25 shots and one of 12 3-point attempts in two games in the Georgia Dome.

"It was just a (bad) weekend," Green said. "Those were some bad shooting days. I'm not trying to worry about what happened in the past. I'm focused on the future. I'm going to play my game. If my shot's not falling I'm going to try to do other things to help my team.

"I'm not going to go in saying, ‘Oh, I'm playing in another dome. Hopefully I'll shoot well. I won't be able to shoot good in a dome.' That's not true. I've played in domes before and I didn't shoot as bad as I did that weekend (in Atlanta)."

In December's win over Michigan State, Green made two of seven shots, both 3-pointers. He also missed three 3-pointers. He finished with six points.

In last season's Final Four semifinal in San Antonio in the Alamodome he made six of 13 shots, including three of nine 3-pointers, and helped fuel a second-half charge that chopped Kansas' 28-point lead to five points with nine minutes left.

Green said that playing in a dome is more demanding than playing in a regular basketball arena, even one as big as North Carolina's Smith Center and its 21,750 seats.

"It is different; the dome is different," he said. "The floor there is elevated. The background is a little different. You've just got to adjust to it.

"When you sub in and out, it's a little different walking up and down the stairs. I've never really thought about running off the floor, but now that you mention it that's a thought that's going to be on my mind."

■ Bill Cole can be reached at bcole@wsjournal.com.