Roy Williams has had some good teams. No, some great teams. He won a national title at North Carolina in 2005, of course, and he took four different Kansas teams to the Final Four. And his 1997 team at Kansas, which was 34-1 when it lost in the Sweet 16, was said to have been his best Kansas team of all.
But this team he has right now ... this North Carolina team ...
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| Reyshawn Terry provides more than just senior leadership for the Heels. (Getty Images) |
All except for the win-loss record.
The Tar Heels are one of four No. 1 seeds -- but the closest thing this 2006-07 NCAA Tournament has to perfection. No team can match the Tar Heels' combination of inside-outside balance, depth of talent, size and quickness.
The Tar Heels get 33.7 points and 14.3 rebounds from post players Tyler Hansbrough and Brandan Wright. Hansbrough, only a sophomore, already is a two-time All-American. Wright, only a freshman, is potentially the No. 3 overall pick in the 2007 NBA Draft.
The Tar Heels have a muscular mongoose for a point guard in Tywon Lawson, a smooth shooting guard in Wayne Ellington and an overlooked but still NBA-caliber small forward in Reyshawn Terry. The bench has two former McDonald's All-Americans in guards Bobby Frasor and Danny Green, a defensive specialist in Marcus Ginyard, a 3-point specialist in Wes Miller and credible post depth in Deon Thompson and Alex Stepheson. That's 11 quality players. Junior point guard Quentin Thomas makes 12.
Nobody compares to that -- not the national champion UNC team from 2005 (not quite the size or depth), and not anything from this current season. Ohio State has size and quickness but lacks the Tar Heels' offensive firepower and the depth. UCLA has no inside game. Ditto for Wisconsin. Kansas has everything the Tar Heels have ... minus the depth. Same for Florida.
North Carolina has just one weakness, but it's a big one: The Tar Heels don't play at their highest level on a consistent basis. That's a hard thing to prove -- show me a scale that measures effort or passion or toughness -- but I'll leave it at this: If the Tar Heels played at their highest level every time out, they wouldn't have finished the regular season with six losses. No way they would they have lost to Virginia Tech ... twice. North Carolina State? Georgia Tech? Those teams had no business beating the Tar Heels.
When UNC is right, everyone else is wrong. The Tar Heels finished atop the highest-rated RPI league in the country, the ACC, and went outside the conference to play four of the RPI's top 13 teams: Ohio State, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arizona.
And North Carolina blew out those four teams by an average of 15.8 points.
The Tar Heels blow out lots of teams. Why? Because they're darned near perfect. Their 18.6-point average margin of victory leads the country. They are second in scoring at 87.1 ppg, but not because they shoot indiscriminately (50.2 percent from the floor, fifth nationally) or play no defense (41.1 percent field-goal defense, third in the ACC). They are also among national leaders in rebounding margin, steals, assists and blocked shots.
In other words, North Carolina scores better than you, defends better than you, rebounds better than you, passes better than you and blocks more shots than you.
Something is amiss, however. How will you know if something remains amiss during the NCAA Tournament?
Simple: You'll know if someone other than UNC wins the whole thing.
