I didn’t see the game last night, as I got distracted by some other tasks, but North Carolina narrowly beat Virginia last night, on a late jump hook by Tyler Hansbrough. This might seem surprising, given that UVA was .500 on the season, and 1-8 in the league, and indeed, the AP describes it that way.
Of course, nowhere in that article do you find the crucial bit of information. You have to go to ESPN’s box score for that information (their game recap just repeats the AP text). From the box score, you can infer that Ty Lawson did not play, which makes the struggle a whole lot less surprising. Not to mention the fact that the game was on the road, and only a couple of days after a double-overtime game against Clemson.
They did manage to get those facts in, but you might think that “playing their third straight game without their star point guard” would’ve made it into the story somewhere…
ESPN did the opposite. Scott Van Pelt described it as UNC’s “third straight game without a point guard”. As in, without *any* point guard. I’m sure Quentin Thomas was thrilled to hear that.
Thomas has played a lot better than I expected over the last few games. He had nine assists against Clemson and a few clutch baskets. In fairness, he also had five turnovers. Managing to keep your assist-to-turnover ratio just north of “1” for a two game stretch doesn’t make you Phil Ford — it doesn’t even make you King Rice — but at least Van Pelt could acknowledge that he’s a point guard.
I’ve always thought that Thomas is a talented player who gets a little panicky when he steps on the court. Hopefully he’s starting to get a handle on that.