Game Breakdown, UNC 1/19/13

I know I'm a little late on breaking down this monstrosity of a game but a) I traveled 600 miles to watch it and wasn't in a hurry to relive it and b) greatness takes time.

Point Breakdown:
Transition: 20
Halfcourt: 16
Putbacks: 16

It's tough to make much out of a one game sample where the team only scored 52 points, especially with no frame of reference for how these categories typically breakdown, but I think it's safe to say that a team should make more than 8 shots out of its halfcourt offense in 40 minutes.

Altogether, the Terps got 71 cracks at scoring, a pretty brisk pace typical of a Maryland-North Carolina tilt, if not typical of Turgeon's tenure here.  However, 21 of those ended with turnovers.  This isn't exactly earth shattering news, but the Terps absolutely do not take care of the ball, and it's killing them.  Even counting charges as being forced turnovers - and if you see some of Nick Faust's wild drives you know that isn't quite the case - the Tar Heels only forced seven turnovers on the day.  The unfortunate reality is that those 7 turnovers were sandwiched between and around an additional 14 unforced giveaways.  Those happened in all manner of ways.  Dez Wells loses his handle.  Pe'shon Howard throws an errant pass.  Off the ball offensive foul.  Dez Wells loses his handle.  Pe'shon Howard forgets the Terps weren't wearing Carolina Blue.  Et cetera.

Even without the turnovers, though, Maryland had 50 possessions and only 52 points out of them.  A point per possession is not bad, but when we're only looking at the possessions where the team got a shot, you simply have to score much, much more than that, even with a good defensive effort that saw the Terps hold UNC to just 20 in the second 20 minutes of the game and far less than a point per possession overall.  Oddly enough, that was the third time in the first four games that UNC hadn't cracked the Turgeon Line, a rarity for a usually prolific offense that speaks to how different this team is than a typical Roy Williams UNC team.

Shooting:

Alex Len: 4-7 (2-3 at rim, 1-2 short jumpers, 1-1 mid-range jumpers, 0-0 threes)
Shaq Cleare: 1-2 (0-1, 1-1, 0-0, 0-0)
Chuck Mitchell: 4-7 (4-5, 0-2, 0-0, 0-0)
James Padgett: 1-3 (1-1, 0-2, 0-0, 0-0)
Jake Layman: 0-2 (0-0, 0-1, 0-0, 0-1)
Dez Wells: 8-11 (8-9, 0-1, 0-1, 0-0)
Nick Faust: 1-5 (0-1, 0-0, 0-1, 1-3)
Logan Aronhalt: 0-4 (0-0, 0-0, 0-1, 0-3)
Seth Allen: 2-12 (2-3, 0-3, 0-1, 0-5)
Pe'Shon Howard: 0-0 (0-0, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0)

Overall shooting: 17-25 at the rim, 2-12 on short jumpers, 0-4 on mid-range jumpers, 1-12 on threes.

The Terps had 7 points from the field which weren't layups or dunks.  Not good.