Tar Heels Might Find There Is No Substitute for Quality Depth

Bill Guthridge hasn’t appeared to feel the pressure of being Dean Smith’s successor at North Carolina.

The Tar Heels are 17-0, ranked No. 1 in the nation, and have defeated their opponents by an average of nearly 20 points.

But Guthridge, the long-time Smith assistant who took over from college basketball’s winningest coach before the start of season, made his first major head coaching mistakes in North Carolina’s 81-73 Atlantic Coast Conference victory over Virginia at Chapel Hill, N.C. on Saturday.

Guthridge replaced his starters with 1:26 left and the Tar Heels holding a 10-point lead. Eleven seconds later that lead was four points and the starters were put back in.

A minute later the North Carolina lead again appeared to be safe, so Guthridge put the reserves back in. Seconds later, the lead was down to five and starters were back on the floor.

There would be no third chance for the Tar Heel “blue team”--the group of seven bench warmers who account for only six points a game.

“It was obvious I made a mistake [the first time] so I got [the starters] back in,” Guthridge said. “The second time I put them in I thought it was safe. . . . For sure I wasn’t going to put them in a third time.”

Lack of quality depth is a concern for Guthridge and North Carolina, which gets 90.2% of its scoring from its first six players. The Tar Heels’ big three of Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter and Shammond Williams account for 62.6% of the scoring and average 51.4 points.

“It’s obvious why I was doing that substituting--so I wouldn’t get questioned about developing the depth,” Guthridge joked.

Come NCAA tournament time, it may not be a laughing matter.

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A six-point play? It happened in San Diego State’s 81-72 victory over No. 21 Hawaii at San Diego.

San Diego State was leading, 67-59, with 4:30 left when Hawaii’s Anthony Carter fouled Jason Richey. The players stumbled under the basket, and pushing and shoving broke out. Carter and Hawaii’s Micah Kroeger were called for technicals, and Kroeger was ejected for shoving Richey. Hawaii Coach Riley Wallace ran onto the court to help separate players.

It took the officials about 10 minutes to sort out the mess, including looking at a television replay. Richey finally went to the line and made six consecutive free throws, using some body English to coax in the fourth.