UNC-Greensboro Basketball - Learn and Laugh with Keith Spillett

11/16/2025

After a challenging first week, UNC Greensboro went to Raleigh to play an outrageously talented NC State team.  This is not your garden-variety middle of the pack Wolfpack.  After years of playing in the shadows of behemoths North Carolina and Duke, it’s very possible that the best team in the Raleigh-Durham area is NC State this year. Will Wade arrived after a remarkable tenure at McNeese State where he unleashed an unholy terror of a defense on the college basketball world. His team was downright nasty, nearly holding Clemson to single digits in a remarkable first half as they pressed and trapped their way to the second round of last year's tournament. 

Wade not only brought his two best players with him to NC State, he put together a downright grotesque group of transfers, highlighted by arguably the most impressive kid in the portal, a 6-6 rock of a forward with one of the softest touches in the country, Darrion Williams.  While Wade’s teams are always relentless on defense, he’s never had a squad with this sort of offensive firepower.  Greensboro was likely seeing the best team they are going to face this year on Wednesday night.

All things considered, they held their own pretty well early against the Pack.  They hung around in the first half and kept them within 10, before a 26-2 run in the second half wiped Greensboro off the map. Donald Whitehead Jr. had another outstanding performance, dropping a season high 21 points against an NC State team that often seemed like they had 8 defenders on the floor. 

The key issue for Greensboro early in the season has been giving up three point baskets at a horrifying clip.  NC State came into the game with sophomore Paul McNeil shooting a quasi-comedic 47 percent from three point range.  He went 6-13 from beyond the arc, which would have been significantly more impressive if Darrion Williams hadn’t one-uped him by going 6 for 8 from netherworld, finishing with 32.

Saturday’s game lacked the panache of the showdown with the Wolfpack.  In spite of being in front of a home crowd, the Spartans came out a bit flat against an aggressive Austin Peay squad.  The first half was more reminiscent of Chuck Wepner’s boxing career than the game Dr. Naismith invented.  Lots of clutching, grabbing and bleeding.  At least neither team finished up the game by having to fight a bear.  

Austin Peay seemed to solve Greensboro’s three point defensive problem by opening 1-12 from beyond the arc, but settled into a groove in the second half by running the same exact clear out play to Collin Parker for something like 435 consecutive possessions.  Parker finished with 22 and the Govs snuck out of the building with a 69-63 win.  Justin Neely kept the Spartans in the game with a stellar performance for Greensboro, racking up his 2nd double double of the season with 15 points and 14 boards.  

As November drags on, getting into the win column is starting to develop some real urgency.  They matchup against a tough Queens College team on Thursday night.

11/10/2025

UNC Greensboro Spartans Season Preview and Week 1 Report

If the 2025-26 season is anything like the first week for Greensboro, it’s going to be a white-knuckle roller coaster ride the whole way.  They opened playing against a fantastic power conference Kansas State squad on the road and followed that with what could easily be considered the most exciting game of the young college basketball during their home opener.  In a highly competitive SOCON conference, it’s hard to know where they’ll end up, but they certainly will not be boring.

Coach Mike Jones returns to Greensboro after three consecutive 20-win seasons where his teams have regularly been on the brink of winning the SOCON.  Jones has the most generic name in all of college sports.  I believe there are at least 11 other D1 coaches who go by that name along with a Houston born rapper from back in the day best known for putting his cellphone number on an album cover.  But, nothing about Jones’ teams ever feels ordinary. He has continued to put together rosters that play fast, intelligent basketball year after year.  

This year he is dealing with the issue that roughly 300 other programs are facing in The Era of the Portal.  How do you take a team of mostly strangers and have them coalesce into a league champion in four months?  Things have never been more challenging for coaches who no longer have the option of keeping a group together for four years and building towards a greater purpose, the former blueprint for success in mid-major conferences.  Coaching has become about teaching the game at warp speed and turning talented individuals into a coherent team overnight.   Luckily for Greensboro, Jones has brought together a truly impressive set of players from as far away as Lithuania and France.  If Mike Jones can find a way to “chop and screw” this team together into a whole greater than its parts, they could contend with last year’s NIT winning UT Chattanooga squad for the conference berth in the NCAA tournament.  

Greensboro certainly didn’t take the easy road in week one.  They went into Manhattan, Kansas, which has been a house of horrors for many midmajor teams early in the season, and took on a Kansas State team featuring PJ Haggerty (or “Swaggerty”, as the kids like to call him) the Memphis transfer many writers and coaches picked pre-season as a National Player of the Year.  

UNCG came flying out of the gate completely undaunted and raced to a significant lead using fantastic ball movement and stellar defense.  The bigger and faster Kansas State squad were on the ropes early as returning Lithuanian marksman Domas Kauzonas seemed to score at will on a series of mid-range jumpshots made possible by sublime interior passing. Freshman KJ Younger also found his groove early and managed to make critical shots.  Fifth year University of Albany transfer Justin Neely, a Swiss Army knife of a player who seems to find ways to contribute significantly in every statistical category, did a fantastic job of moving the ball and keeping the offense in rhythm.  He finished with a team high 15 points and was a major reason Greensboro went into the locker room up one as the panicked Kansas State faithful felt an upset brewing.

Unfortunately for the Spartans, Kansas State, who had struggled to score around the basket, took their game out to the perimeter and the Jerome Tang Clan exploded from three point range, finishing the game shooting a nearly impossible 51 percent from beyond the arc and running away with the game in the second half.

The Spartans came home on Saturday tilt against a hot shooting Elon team who lives and dies behind the three point arc.  Greensboro again struggled to keep Elon in check from three point range in the first half, but settled in during the second and forced the Phoenix into a pedestrian 32 percent from three for the game.  But, the Greensboro team seemed to have improved by leaps and bounds from their first game due to the arrival of a player that could follow in the long and storied tradition of transcendent undersized mid major guards going back to Mouse McFadden at Cleveland State.  His name is Donald Whitehead Jr. and the Elon game served as a coming out party for this remarkable D2 transfer.  At 5 '10 160 pounds, it might be hard to find him during warmups, but once the game gets going, it’s hard to take your eyes off of him.  He had a solid first game at Kansas State, but on Saturday he gave us a glimpse of the greatness that lies ahead.

Whitehead’s electric first step, feather light shooting touch and turbo button speed helped Greensboro overcome a hot shooting start by Elon.  There is just something about this kid that is different.  His feel for the flow of the game, honed last season in season at University of California-Pennsylvania where he was an NABC All-American and PSAC Player of the Year, helped him become a poised athlete who balances the teams offense while keeping the opponent perpetually off-balance. Watching him play, you would never have guessed this was a kid playing in his first D1 home game.  He was Cool Hand Luke all afternoon…a kid with the grace and vision of a natural leader.  The team seemed to respond to his energy in his 36 minutes on the floor and particularly flourish when he was at the point.

The Spartans took a 3-point lead into the last ten seconds of the game, but inexplicably decided not to foul Elon and send them to the line eliminating their chance to tie it.  It was a surprising decision by a coach with great instincts.  Kasper Klacsek, the talented Polish scorer and guy on the court who most looks like he should be fronting a Journey cover band, splashed down a three to tie it.  With three seconds left, the Spartans put the game in the hands of Whitehead and asked him to win it for them.  

Showing the guts of a cat burglar, Whitehead sprinted down the floor Tyus Edney style and threw up the game winning basket in traffic as the buzzer sounded.  Whitehead was mobbed by his teammates and the building erupted.  It should have been one of the most magical moments the program has witnessed in years.  But, it wasn’t.

This perfect ending to a truly well-played back and forth battle between two hard fighting teams was marred by a terrible officiating mistake.  The officials, who had called the basket good on the floor, looked at the monitors and, after a long period of deliberation, took the basket off of the scoreboard because the shot was supposedly released .1 seconds too late.  Having watched the replay with the ferocity of Jim Garrison scanning the Zapruder film, I have absolutely no idea what the officials saw that made them decide to not count the game winner.  It was an egregiously bad use of instant replay as there certainly was no definitive evidence to overturn the call, let alone the outcome of the game.  But, the officials decided to legislate poorly with their whistles, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory for the Spartans.  Both Greensboro and Elon were exhausted after the frenetic last minute of the game and Elon managed to squeak out a 92-90 overtime victory.  A fantastic win for the Phoenix, but a game marred by one truly shameful call.