What (and where) to Watch: No. 3 UNC - No. 14 Albany

Sylvia Hatchell’s third-seeded North Carolina team begins its NCAA bid tomorrow, but it likely isn’t taking a win against 14-seed Albany for granted. After missing out on the NCAA Tournament altogether last year, the Tar Heels will likely enter the first round with a type of wide-eyed earnestness atypical of such a highly seeded team.

Here’s what to look out for during Sunday’s game:

Scheduled tip-off: 2:30 p.m. ET, although that depends on when the noon game between No. 6 Delaware and No. 11 West Virginia finishes. Expect a start closer to 2:45 p.m.

Television: ESPN2 and WatchESPN.com. Pam Ward and Rebecca Lobo will have the call.

Radio: The Tar Heel Sports Network’s Walter Storholt will be the play-by-play man — in Chapel Hill, that’s 1360 AM or 97.9 FM.

The Albany Great Danes: Sylvia Hatchell had this to say about her team’s first-round opponent:
“They’re very good. They’ve got a lot of leadership, very fundamental, good shooters, and they’ve got a 6-8 girl. They’ll try to control the tempo. They press a little bit and they play a lot of zone. But they’re very fundamental and a very well-coached team.”

• The 6-foot-8 girl to whom Hatchell referred is Megan Craig, one of the few players this season that will match up well with UNC’s 6-foot-6 Waltiea Rolle.
• Albany boasts a 27-3 record, including a spotless 16-0 tally in the America East conference. Granting that the Great Danes’ opponents might not have been of ACC-caliber, Albany has still put on quite a show this season: Albany averages a plus-18.4-point scoring margin, holds its opponents to 49 points per game, and shoots 36 percent from behind the arc. All of those statistics eclipse UNC’s, but the question is, as it always is during the postseason, to what extent the gap in competition levels will manifest when major and mid-major programs meet.
• And despite being a big fish in a small pond, Albany’s success has be a team effort. Four of its starters — Craig, Ebone Henry, Lindsey Lowrie and Sherees Richards — average double-figures in scoring.

Notes on the Tar Heels:

• UNC enters the tournament as a three-seed — higher than one might have predicted, based on its No. 15 end-of-season ranking. Hatchell notes that each of UNC’s six losses were to top-20 teams — Duke (three times), Maryland, Tennessee and Maryland.
• In contrast to last year’s injury-plagued team, Latifah Coleman’s sore knee is the squad’s only known medical concern.
• North Carolina lost to Duke for the third time in the ACC Tournament two weeks ago, but UNC senior Krista Gross said she hoped that type of big-game experience will have her younger teammates — including starters sophomore Brittany Rountree and freshman Xylina McDaniel — prepared for the NCAA tournament’s atmosphere.

UNC’s Projected Starters:

Waltiea Rolle: 11.5 ppg, 6.2 rpg
Xylina McDaniel: 12.2 ppg, 7.2 rpg
Krista Gross: 6.5 ppg, 8.6 rpg
Brittany Rountree: 7.2 ppg, 2.5 rpg
Tierra Ruffin-Pratt: 14.9 ppg, 4.5 apg

Albany’s Projected Starters:

Julie Forster: 9.3 ppg, 8.2 rpg
Lindsey Lowrie: 10.5 ppg, 42 percent 3-point shooter
Ebone Henry: 13.9 ppg, 5.1 rpg
Keyana Williams: 3.1 ppg, 48 percent field-goal shooter
Sarah Royals: 4.6 ppg, leads team with 112 assists on the season.

Final thoughts:

UNC’s defense has been superb this season. The Tar Heels are athletic, smart and tenacious. The worry for them, even against lesser opponents, has been shooting — just 40 percent from the floor an 29.7 percent from beyond the 3-point arc.

Ruffin-Pratt tends to score in bunches, or confine her scoring efforts to a single half. Rolle is easily bothered inside by the double- and triple-team, and Xylina McDaniel, though extremely strong and athletic, has a tendency to lose the ball or travel rather than kicking the ball out when she runs into trouble near the basket.

If UNC shoots a decent percentage from mid- and long-range, the Tar Heels should win handily. But if Rolle and McDaniel are neutralized and Rountree, Megan Buckland and Ruffin-Pratt aren’t able to convert from outside, the Great Danes might have a chance.