When they got it to seven

[Millhouse]

They scored ten in a blink of an eye and I freaked out. My wife was rocking out two year old, almost had her back to sleep. I make exec decision that she needed to bring kid down with her, sleep bedamned. I thought for a minute we had another miracle. We just needed UNC to miss and Paige and pinson stuck the fork in us. But even though it ended bad, they gave us hope again

Cooney in the second half - valiant

 

[wallacecuse]

Winning aside, a great send off for Cooney. He shot well, played intense, and was able to relive the best memory I have of him on the sports' biggest stage - the steal and dunk-fest at BC a couple years ago. Loved that he was able to have that play in his last game.

 

[Brooky03]

I had a brief feeling at that moment that we could pull off the miracle, but I was much less confident than I was for the UVa game. UVa was beating us in the 'wrong' ways. They were hitting 3's and we just weren't converting good looks before the final run. UNC was beating us in the 'right' way. They were automatic in the paint and could get looks at the rim seemingly at will, and our offense wasn't just missing shots it was sputtering in all facets for most of the game. While we still stole the game from UVa, at like petty theft level, coming back to beat UNC would have been grand larceny.

 

[wallacecuse]

I had a brief feeling at that moment that we could pull off the miracle, but I was much less confident than I was for the UVa game. UVa was beating us in the 'wrong' ways. They were hitting 3's and we just weren't converting good looks before the final run. UNC was beating us in the 'right' way. They were automatic in the paint and could get looks at the rim seemingly at will, and our offense wasn't just missing shots it was sputtering in all facets for most of the game. While we still stole the game from UVa, at like petty theft level, coming back to beat UNC would have been grand larceny.

I felt the same way. Virginia and Gonzaga got leads because of one guy getting hot (Perrantes and Wiltjer). UNC was mid-range pullup, and interior passing us to death. Their ball movement was better than our zone rotations.

 

[heresjohnny88]

When they cut it to 7, my thought process wasn't really "we're going to pull this off"...simply because I felt all game that UNC was just too good.

But I did think "man, this team just BATTLES." What a great group of kids.

 

[skurey]

That Paige 3 was the game. Damn him.

 

[RF2044]

Our come from behind wins recently happened because we had great defensive runs. We didn't slow UNC down the entire second half. I knew we were toast even when we cut it to 7. If you don't get stops, you can't cut into the lead.

It was discouraging to watch in person, with a lunatic UNC fan in front of us.

 

[MSOrange]

I followed the same pattern as the Virginia game. I got off the couch into my wheelchair to get into intense mode when we got it to 7 - and then Paige broke our hearts.

 

[upperdeck]

UNC always managed to get an easy putback to end almost any run we made. the first half off reb. and missed FTs turned an even game into a tough hole to climb out..

 

[elkeed]

Interesting how Paige suddenly found his stroke after casting bricks the whole game. For me the killer was Pinson. 28% shooter knocked it down to make it 13.

 

[QManCuse]

Nobody has more guts than Cooney. Hope everybody remembers him that way. Have a feeling he'll be a coach one day. His relationship with Gmac is similar to Gmac's relationship with Hop.

 

[TinyManInside]

They scored ten in a blink of an eye and I freaked out. My wife was rocking out two year old, almost had her back to sleep. I make exec decision that she needed to bring kid down with her, sleep bedamned. I thought for a minute we had another miracle. We just needed UNC to miss and Paige and pinson stuck the fork in us. But even though it ended bad, they gave us hope again

Cooney in the second half - valiant

My friend and I re-watched the game last night.

The amazing thing is that at the point when we got it to 7, we were 4-13 from the line, including missing the front end of one one-and-one (so functionally 4 makes out of 14 potential attempts). Let's say they were shooting a respectable, but not great 71.4%. That's 6 more makes and they would have only been down one at that point and it would have been a totally different ball game.

 

[TinyManInside]

They scored ten in a blink of an eye and I freaked out. My wife was rocking out two year old, almost had her back to sleep. I make exec decision that she needed to bring kid down with her, sleep bedamned. I thought for a minute we had another miracle. We just needed UNC to miss and Paige and pinson stuck the fork in us. But even though it ended bad, they gave us hope again

Cooney in the second half - valiant

Cooney was an absolute warrior on Saturday night. I've been critical of his play at many points in his career, but he really brought it on Sat and played his tail off. The whole team kept fighting (well, other than Roberson, who looked like he was about to keel over from exhaustion). I was just glad they didn't pull an Oklahoma and totally shut down.

 

[RF2044]

My friend and I re-watched the game last night.

The amazing thing is that at the point when we got it to 7, we were 4-13 from the line, including missing the front end of one one-and-one (so functionally 4 makes out of 14 potential attempts). Let's say they were shooting a respectable, but not great 71.4%. That's 6 more makes and they would have only been down one at that point and it would have been a totally different ball game.

That's a great point. Looking at the halftime stats, it was disheartening to see that we were only 3-13 or 3-12 from the line. Not suggesting that we would / should have made them all, but let's just say we'd made half -- so, five more -- that 11 point deficit would have been 6, and we would have been right there in the game. Those misses were really impactful, both on the scoreboard and psychologically for our team.

FT shooting, and that absurd 23-10 run we gave up at the end of the first half, really sunk us Saturday.

UNC also was something like 0-10 from three point range at the half, and still had an 11 point lead. When they flashed those stats on the jumbotron at halftime, I knew we were toast.

 

[Cheriehoop]

I think Cooney has been our best and most consistent player against UNC since we've been in the ACC.

He's scored 10, 27, 14, 28 and 22 points in our games against UNC while here. So he's averaged over 20 points in his career against them.

 

[85SUAlum]

Nobody has more guts than Cooney. Hope everybody remembers him that way. Have a feeling he'll be a coach one day. His relationship with Gmac is similar to Gmac's relationship with Hop.

I could see this happening. He's really been the on-court leader for this team the past couple of years, often coaching the younger guys on the court (Lydon credits Cooney with getting him out of his FT funk in the Middle Tennessee game).

 

[rrlbees]

I think Cooney has been our best and most consistent player against UNC since we've been in the ACC. He's scored 10, 27, 14, 28 and 22 points in our games against UNC while here. So he's averaged over 20 points in his career against them.

He'd be an AA if we only played UNC and ND.

 

[Cheriehoop]

He'd be an AA if we only played UNC and ND.

Too bad he just started driving to the basket and even taking jumpers inside the arc too later this year diversifying his offense, he sure would have helped his efficiency.

 

[two3zone]

I honestly wasn't worried about the UNC game until it hit about 3:30. We kept fighting and were playing incredibly well and UNC just kept answering, I thought UNC keeping up and matching us was going to end at some point but it just didn't. We didn't play a bad game at all and actually played really well in the second half, they were just a really really good team. Proud of the guys making it a great game to watch, outcome sucked but it was a good game.

 

[PeteCalvin]

To me, G just never seemed to be with it this game, and he needed to be. He lost that first pass from Cooney which would have gotten us on the board first, then went on to make some lousy shot selections and some bad turnovers. Not his best game, and he needed to bring it. The Freshmen played like their age, unfortunately.

It was a valiant effort and a magical run, but when we needed the game of our lives, we crashed back to Earth. Free throws killed us, but they wouldn't have won us the game. We needed to be smarter with our possessions than we were. Too many contested threes and off balance shots in the first half. We needed to take it to them...but even when we did, we bricked the gimmes.

Work on your free throws this summer, boys. The future is bright.

 

[CorduroyG]

fts killed us in the 1st half. we would have been right there at half if we made our fts.

 

[RF2044]

I honestly wasn't worried about the UNC game until it hit about 3:30. We kept fighting and were playing incredibly well and UNC just kept answering, I thought UNC keeping up and matching us was going to end at some point but it just didn't. We didn't play a bad game at all and actually played really well in the second half, they were just a really really good team. Proud of the guys making it a great game to watch, outcome sucked but it was a good game.

I think that's pretty close to it. They were a better team [top 10 basically wire to wire] who were NC favorites all season long. We needed to have our A game offensively or defensively to pull it off, and to UNC's credit we didn't do enough offensively or slow them down enough. Better team won.

 

[samspann1]

To me, G just never seemed to be with it this game, and he needed to be. He lost that first pass from Cooney which would have gotten us on the board first, then went on to make some lousy shot selections and some bad turnovers. Not his best game, and he needed to bring it. The Freshmen played like their age, unfortunately.

It was a valiant effort and a magical run, but when we needed the game of our lives, we crashed back to Earth. Free throws killed us, but they wouldn't have won us the game. We needed to be smarter with our possessions than we were. Too many contested threes and off balance shots in the first half. We needed to take it to them...but even when we did, we bricked the gimmes.

Work on your free throws this summer, boys. The future is bright.

Love the fight that the boys showed on Saturday night, especially Cooney. Agreed re. G - we needed to be firing on all cylinders to beat UNC, and we clearly weren't. G really struggled from the field these past 3 games...18-54 from the field, I believe.

Just seemed like we weren't getting many of the 50/50 balls, we couldn't afford to be giving away points at the FT line.

 

[Eric15]

fts killed us in the 1st half. we would have been right there at half if we made our fts.

Agreed -- but, UNC also missed their what, first dozen three point attempts? If they make a measly couple of those it negates the missed free throws.

 

[two3zone]

Agreed -- but, UNC also missed their what, first dozen three point attempts? If they make a measly couple of those it negates the missed free throws.

I think they started 0-13 or 14. They made up for that with dunk after dunk on the inside. Williams did a fine coaching job against the zone and had the athletes to pull it off, not a lot of teams could have executed what they were able to.