April 3, 2008

By Adam Lucas

In the week leading up to the 2005 Final Four, virtually all of the chatter was about North Carolina's defense. But not just any defense. Man-to-man defense. Displeased with his team's efforts against Wisconsin and Villanova in the East regionals, Roy Williams famously removed the rims from the Smith Center baskets in order to force his team to focus on man-to-man principles.

Suitably inspired, the Tar Heels then went out and won the national championship by...playing zone.

Saddled with unexpected foul trouble, Carolina used the point zone to great effectiveness against Illinois in the final. That's the kind of spur-of-the-moment adjustment that makes a one-and-out tournament so thrilling. After all, part of the title of Dean Smith's book was Multiple Defense, not Man-to-Man Defense.

Carolina's bread-and-butter, as Roy Williams likes to call it, will always be halfcourt man-to-man. That's what is drilled on the first day of practice all the way through the final game of the year. In a late-game crucial possession, when Williams is on the sideline, clinching his fists and imploring his team to get a stop, they'll be in man-to-man.

But sometimes flexibility is required in order to make it to those final crucial possessions.

"Most teams expect us to come in and play flat man-to-man," Wayne Ellington says. "But this team can switch it up and do something different. It throws them off when we give them a different look. Some teams don't even prepare for zone against us because they think we're strictly a man-to-man team."

Beginning with the win over Mount St. Mary's, Williams has sprinkled in some occasional point zone during the NCAA Tournament. The Tar Heels played that defense for several possessions against Louisville with varying results--a couple of stops, but also a couple of three-pointers surrendered.

Carolina has yet to have a player disqualified by fouls in the NCAA Tournament. That's partially due to Williams's defensive scheming. If a player is in early foul trouble, he's likely to use a couple possessions of zone to cut down on the foul possibilities. Zone is sometimes seen as more restful than man-to-man, but Ty Lawson disagrees.

"When we go zone, you actually have to work harder than in man," the point guard says. "You don't just have one man to worry about, so you're constantly looking around. You have to worry about people behind you, where the shooters are, and when the picks are coming."

And in the post, the Tar Heel big men are worried about rebounding. They've built the nation's best rebounding margin (+11.5) with an emphasis on boxing out and quickness to the ball. But getting a body on an opponent becomes more difficult in a zone.

"It's harder to find a man," says Alex Stepheson, whose evolution as a post defender has been evident in the postseason. "You're guarding an area, so as soon as the shot goes up you have to find somebody and put a body on them. If you don't, they've got a clear path to the basket and an offensive rebound."

If the point zone is the changeup in the Carolina defensive repertoire, the variety of traps is Williams's split-finger. Trapping is the Tar Heel strikeout pitch, the way to force tempo and generate some easy offense.

Trapping became a bigger part of the defense during the games Lawson missed with an injury; without the sophomore guard's one-man fast break, it was another way to create a more frenetic tempo. Since his return, the traps have remained as a method of applying even more defensive pressure.

When do the Tar Heels prefer to trap? Even Williams's players aren't sure.

"With Coach, we can be in a tie game late in the game with a hot shooter on the other team, and he'll want to run a trap," says Quentin Thomas. "You kind of think, `What?' and then it works out. He's a Hall of Fame coach, so you always have to be ready.

"The communication between the players and coach has really helped us defensively. There are times he'll ask us what we want to run or how we're feeling about a certain play. That's something that has evolved over the year."

Despite the unpredictability of Williams's defensive whims, one positive Carolina indicator is the fact that Lawson spends much less time looking at the sideline than he did during his freshman season.

Then, he was still getting used to the rhythm of college basketball. Now, he's learned to forecast when and how his head coach might want to present a different look.

"It's gotten to the point that I can call plays or defenses before he says it," Lawson says. "We're thinking on the same page more. He'll call me over during a free throw and want to talk about a defense, but I might have already told the team that same thing before I even talk to Coach Williams."

Like everyone else, Thomas knows that Carolina's man-to-man defense against Kansas will be the primary defensive factor in Saturday's outcome. But as the lone remaining player from that 2005 title team, he also has a unique perspective on what can happen on Final Four weekend.

"You have to be able to play different ways," he says. "We were ready for whatever was thrown at us in 2005. And we'll have to be ready again this year. Because in the Final Four, you never know what might happen."

Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.