Heels try for tougher defense

Coach Roy Williams said it at the team's first practice of the year. He said it the first time he met with the media. And he'll say it to his team just before it opens play against Villanova on Saturday.

Defense wins championships.

""From the first day I've tried to push this team to concentrate and to invest in it on the defensive end of the floor"" he said Tuesday.

And over the course of the last month we've had some good moments defensively.""

Before the NCAA Tournament" UNC was primarily known for its offensive prowess. Consequently the team defense could never equal those standards.  Yes they would score 108 points against Maryland in February — but they gave up 91 too.

They went into the postseason with the hopes of changing that.

North Carolina currently is ranked 71st in the nation in field goal percentage defense allowing opponents to go 41.3 percent from the field (of the Final Four teams only MSU is lower — allowing 41.4 percent).

But the Tar Heels have stepped up their defensive edge in the NCAA Tournament holding Radford to 27.5 percent shooting and Oklahoma to a 10.5 mark from behind the arc.

And more importantly — it's become a team effort. Before the postseason Bobby Frasor and Danny Green had combined for 19 of the team's 30 Defensive Player of the Game honors.

But in the ACC and NCAA Tournaments Frasor has garnered only one and Green zero.

 Instead their teammates are getting the recognition. Ed Davis doubled his season total with three in a row" while Deon Thompson and Tyler Hansbrough both received their first — Hansbrough for his work against Blake Griffin in Sunday's Oklahoma game.

Such improvements beg the question: Can the Tar Heels play strong defense after all?

""We can. When we turn that switch" we definitely can Wayne Ellington said after that game. We can get some big-time stops" and that's what we did today.""

They'll have to against a guard-heavy Villanova team — a team with players similar to those who have burned the Tar Heels in the past.

UNC has struggled against the strong guards in the ACC — Toney Douglas" Tyrese Rice" Jeff Teague and Greivis Vasquez come to mind.

In six games against those teams — three of them losses — those players lit up UNC with 50.5 shooting and an average of 28 points per game.

Williams hopes those performances won't be repeated by the talented guards of Villanova.

""We've had some times we didn't play as well and didn't have that sense of urgency" he said.

But we've had some games where at big moments we've really stepped up. So that itself" has given the coaching staff and players some confidence that they could do it.

""The next push was to try to get them to do it consistently.""

Thompson" for one" thinks they've started that.

""I think our defense has improved"" he said.

And I just think our defense just  always gets knocked on just because we can score the ball so well.

""So definitely" our defense does need to be good — I don't know if it necessarily needs to be great" because we can score the ball so well.

""But it definitely has to be above average to beat good teams.""