North Carolina coach worried about team’s focus
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell believes the 12th-ranked Tar Heels have the talent to advance deep into the NCAA tournament. She worries, though, whether the Heels have the needed focus.
“If we all stay really focused and concentrate and have that mentality that we need to have, I think we can go a long way. If we don’t have it, we know we can get our wings clipped at any time,” she said.
The Tar Heels (24-6), the No. 4 seed in the East Regional, face 13th-seeded Middle Tennessee State (23-7) noon Sunday in the opening game of the NCAA tournament in South Bend. In the second game, 12th-seeded Southwest Missouri State (28-3) plays host Notre Dame (19-10), which is 13-0 at home this season.
The Tar Heels’ leading scorers are freshmen Ivory Latta (14.3 points a game), Camille Little (14.1 points, 8 rebounds) and sophomore La’Tangela Atiknson (9.9 points). The only senior starter is 6-6 center Candace Sutton, who averages 9.6 points and 6.4 rebounds.
“We’re young. We’ve played real well at times this year, but we’ve been up and down,” Hatchell said. “We’ve had some inconsistency and shown how young we are.”
Sutton said Hatchell has been stressing focus in practice this week, but she doesn’t feel as a senior she has to do anything special to make the younger players have the proper focus.
“I think our two freshmen are special. They’re not your average freshmen. I think they have that mentality that this is the NCAAs, this is business time,” Sutton said. “I don’t think it’s a big factor.”
Hatchell said her concern about North Carolina’s focus has nothing to do with the fact the Tar Heels, from the Atlantic Coast Conference, are playing Middle Tennessee State, from the less heralded Sun Belt Conference.
“I don’t think our team will be taking this team light at all. We know they are a great team,” Hatchell said. “They beat Alabama and beat a lot of good teams.”
Middle Tennessee coach Stephany Smith is not worried about her team being awed by North Carolina.
“We’re very proud of the things we’ve accomplished to this point. But by no means are we satisfied or content with where we are. We expect to compete against North Carolina,” she said.
Smith said when Middle Tennessee State played Duke in the first round of the NCAA tournament in 1998, losing 92-67, the Lady Raiders weren’t athletic enough or big enough.
“We were 5-10 and Duke was 6-5 and 6-3,” she said.
That’s no longer the case. The Lady Raiders don’t have anyone as tall as Sutton, but they do have 6-2 Krystle Horton and 6-1 Tia Stovall.
“We’re bigger, faster, stronger than we’ve ever been,” Smith said. “North Carolina is a little bigger, faster and stronger than we are. But I expect us to compete, to compete hard and be very confident.”
In Sunday’s second game, Southwest Missouri State hopes to use speed to counter Notre Dame’s size advantage.
“We’re going to go out there and do what we do best,” SMS coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson said. “We like to run, and we love uptempo, so we are going to try to do offensively whatever we’ve done to get us here and defensively, the same thing.”
The Lady Bears, making their 12th NCAA appearance in the past 14 years, average 78.1 points a game while holding opponents to 58.2 points a game. Notre Dame, making its ninth straight appearance, has outscored opponents by an average 64.7-58.8. They played eight ranked teams, beating the last five ranked teams they met.
Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw said she’s not afraid to let the Irish get into an uptempo game with the Lady Bears.
“We’re an interesting team this year in that we can play either way,” she said. “We kind of prefer a running game ourselves. I think it’s more exciting for our team, more exciting for the fans. Everyone wants to see an uptempo game.”