ETHAN HYMAN - ehyman@newsobserver.com
UNC's Tyler Zeller and N.C. State's C.J. Leslie go after the loose ball during the first half at the Smith Center in Chapel Hill.
CHAPEL HILL -- There was one, and only one, N.C. State offensive play for which North Carolina didn’t have a response. The Tar Heels did not adequately defend the opposite free-throw line, and Lorenzo Brown heaved an 80-footer at the first-half buzzer that rattled through.
That was two fewer 3-pointers than Scott Wood made all night. That was one-eighth of N.C. State’s made field goals in the first half.
You’d never know North Carolina just lost its best perimeter defender. You’d never know the Tar Heels weren’t the No. 1 team in the country the way they dismantled the Wolfpack. That’s how North Carolina started the season, and that’s the way the Tar Heels played Thursday, without Dexter Strickland, in a 74-55 blowout.
It was a worst-case scenario for N.C. State: Richard Howell in early foul trouble, Wood smothered, John Henson swatting or redirecting everything anywhere near the basket and the Tar Heels dominating the glass.
However Mark Gottfried drew it up, it wasn’t supposed to look like this. He ran out of options about six minutes in, right about the time Howell picked up his second foul. The Wolfpack ran out of gas not long thereafter.
“They took away one option and we didn’t have the wherewithal to stay with our offense and really grind out good shots,” Gottfried said.
So much has gone right for N.C. State this season, and the Wolfpack’s resurgence has put the fire back into this rivalry. The atmosphere in the Smith Center was electric early, and for as long as the result was in doubt.
What’s gone right for N.C. State all went wrong Thursday. They played some decent defense early and had the lead down to seven late in the first half, but the Tar Heels turned it on from there and N.C. State showed no inclination or ability to stop them.
Some of that had little to do with N.C. State. The Tar Heels don’t always play up to their potential, but when they do, they’re capable of putting on a show. And this was a show. Even freshman Stilman White, pressed into action as Kendall Marshall’s backup, got into the act, rousing a crowd losing interest during the second half to life with a 3-pointer.
With White spelling Marshall ahead of television timeouts – Roy Williams even used his first-half timeout to give Marshall a quick refresher – the Tar Heels moved on without Strickland and picked up where they left off in the second half against Virginia Tech a week ago. Marshall took on the defensive duties that might otherwise have gone to Strickland, and Brown struggled mightily.
As always with the Tar Heels, the challenge is to replicate this kind of performance. When North Carolina plays up to its potential, there are only a handful of teams in the country that can even compete. When the Tar Heels don’t, they can lose by 33 to Florida State.
“I said early in the year I thought we had a chance to be good defensively,” Williams said. “I still say that. At times, we really haven’t been.”
The Tar Heels still have to figure out how to defend the 80-footer. Other than that, there wasn’t a question N.C. State asked Thursday that North Carolina didn’t answer with authority.
