Game Preview: Ohio vs UNC

What: NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional Semifinal
Where: Edward Jones Dome, St. Louis, MO
When: Friday, March 23rd, 7:47 PM
TV: TBS
Records: UNC 31-5; Ohio 29-7
NCAA Results: UNC-def. #16 Vermont, #8 Creighton; Ohio-def. #4 Michigan, #12 South Florida

Different city, different player, same story.

The easiest approach to this game is the same as the one Roy Williams has been taking with the team which is to assume Kendall Marshall is not playing. If he does, great but my thinking all along has been to try and win this game without Marshall then see how things look on Sunday. UNC will face Ohio with Stillman White and Justin Watts running the point and we have little idea how well that will work against Ohio’s defense which is ranked 45th in KenPom.

Even without Marshall UNC has the horses to take care of Ohio providing the offense can be executed with some semblance of organization and efficiency. The Tar Heels still have arguably the best front court in college basketball, a shooting guard who is really playing well on the offensive and defensive end plus a little chip on their shoulders. Lest we forget that UNC is very good defensive team. Marshall defense was not his strong suit so the drop off in that regard is probably not as steep as it is on the offensive end. If the Heels really lock Ohio down on the defensive end, they should also be able to muster enough points given the preferred tempo to win the game.

Despite having solid guard play, Ohio is not a lights out team from the perimeter. The Bobcats come in shooting 33.8% from three as a team and 48.3% from two. Much attention should be paid to Ohio PG D.J. Cooper who is playing some of his best basketball of the season right now. In his past five games(three in MAC Tourney, two in NCAA Tourney) Cooper is averaging 19.8 ppg and 6.2 apg. There is a good chance Cooper gets his or worse for UNC gets penetration and sets up his teammates after the defense collapses. Despite a lower team three point shooting percentage, Ohio does have two players hitting 36% or better from three. One is the team’s second leading scorer Williams Offutt and the other is Nick Kellogg, the son of CBS basketball analyst Clark Kellogg. The junior Kellogg is hit 41% of this threes in 194 attempts from outside the arc. One of these will be Reggie Bullock’s assignment, the other will likely fall to Harrison Barnes.

On the offensive end, UNC needs to feed the post early and often. Ohio lacks the size to contend with UNC on the interior with only two players 6-8 or taller playing significant minutes. Providing the Heels can run the offense well enough under White/Watts getting the ball inside shouldn’t be an issue. Double teams are likely and not having Marshall available to knock down open threes will hurt some. Barnes, Bullock and P.J. Hairston will need to pick up the slack here and make Ohio’s job of defending the interior a difficult by opening up the half court floor spacing. And while I expect tempo will be down a little, Roy is still going to demand UNC get out in transition as much as possible. In the limited time White has played since Dexter Strickland was injured, he seems to understand this and makes an effort to push the ball off defensive rebounds. White and Watts should still be able to do enough of it to keep UNC closer to a tempo of the Heels’ liking than not.

This is a game UNC can still win without Marshall but in the NCAA Tournament there are no guarantees. Based on everything we have heard from the team this week, the players’ approach and attitude won’t be an issue. They are still in this thing to win a national title. Just because that task got more difficult doesn’t mean they aren’t going to still give their best in pursuit of that goal.

UNC 80 Ohio 69

ST. LOUIS -- Stilman White knows what people think about him – at least people who haven’t seen him play basketball but who might make assumptions because of his size or skin color. 

“You definitely hear it in public and all that stuff,” said White, the 6-foot freshman point guard at North Carolina. “But it’s all just funny. I guess if I were them, I’d be asking the same thing – you know, who’s that little white kid out there?”

Big moment for UNC's backup point guard

Kendall Marshall underwent surgery on Monday, coming out of anesthesia asking for his teammates. Prognoses for his return to the court range from the absurdly optimistic (Marshall's father) to the more muted responses of Roy Williams, who still seems pretty despondent over the whole thing. But while every Carolina fan has become an expert on wrist fractures over the last few days, we've only gotten two brief glimpses of the team following the Marshall's announcement.

The first came immediately following the game, when Roy Williams cleared the locker room of media to talk to his team about the injury. The media was eventually allowed to return, as this piece by Adam Sobsey evocatively details. The team had barely had time to process this information. Marshall was red-eyed, and most of the rest of the team was still coming down from the adrenaline rush of an important win. You weren't really going to get much out of them beyond statements about how important Marshall was to the team, a fact which anyone who has seen the team play was already aware.

Portrait of UNC post Kendall Marshall

GREENSBORO — John Henson returned for North Carolina on Sunday, playing with his sprained left wrist heavily taped and protected by a splint.

The 6-11 junior scored 13 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and blocked four shots as No. 4 North Carolina beat Creighton 87-73 in an NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional game at Greensboro Coliseum.

But his day was not as smooth as those numbers show.

Playing for the first time since injuring the wrist on March 9 during the ACC Tournament, Henson felt the Bluejays were a little too aggressive around his healing wrist.

Henson didn't like Bluejays actions