Thursday, November 18, 2010

Five halftime thoughts: North Carolina

1.) Wow. North Carolina is good. There’s not much the Dutchmen can do when the Tar Heels are shooting 54 percent from the field and an ungodly 8-of-9 from 3-point land. Harrison Barnes is a man among boys. See you in the pros, kid.

2.) See you there too, Charles Jenkins. The one bright spot for the Dutchmen is Jenkins crushing this audition on the national stage: He’s got a game-high 20 points on 9-of-11 shooting. He’s creating and hitting shots even though the Tar Heels are obviously keying on him. He’s not just a future pro, he’s a future first-round draft pick.

3.) It looks as if the Dutchmen have the “2” in their 1-2 punch with Mike Moore, who has 10 points on 4-of-8 shooting and showed off his willingness to bang down low with his 6-foot-5 frame by driving for a basket and drawing the foul.

4.) The Dutchmen have no answer, none at all, for the Tar Heels’ bigs. No shame in that, but it didn’t take long for the worst-case scenario to come to fruition as Greg Washington picked up his first foul 17 seconds in. Washington has no points, two blocks and two fouls. The Dutchmen are being outrebounded, 21-13, and their best chance to stem the tide on the boards, Stephen Nwaukoni, has three fouls in limited duty.

5) With UNC up by 25, the only bits of suspense in the second half are whether or not Charles Jenkins can become the first Hofstra player since Speedy Claxton to score 40 in a game and whether or not the Tar Heels will break the Defiantly Dutch Era for points in a game (108 by Drexel in the 1995 NAC tournament). Most points by a Hofstra opponent in the last 30 years: Brigham Young with 119 in 1983-84. Back then, I angered the Mormons by accusing them of running up the score.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

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