University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: A Significant Sunday
February 1, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
LOUISVILLE—And now for the most important practice of the year.
Carolina lost at Louisville on Saturday, 78-68, in overtime. There are plenty of stories to be written about that game.
The Tar Heels were beaten on the backboards by a 46-44 margin overall but by a much more telling 22-13 edge on the offensive side. That doesn't give the full picture, however, as the offensive rebound advantage for Louisville in the second half and overtime was a whopping 15 to two. That translated into a 17-0 whitewashing in second chance points in the final 25 minutes.
There were also 19 Carolina turnovers, some of which can be expected against a frenetic Louisville defense but several of which were of the careless variety, sometimes at crucial times.
What seemed to frustrate Roy Williams the most was a perceived gap in effort, as Louisville continually was the first to the floor chasing loose balls after halftime. The Cardinals made a staggering 44 trips to the free throw line compared to just 20 for Carolina. Some of the defensive struggles that might be first seen as lack of effort were due to foul trouble that began shortly after the Tar Heel team bus turned into the Yum! Center parking lot, as three visiting players fouled out and three more ended the game with four fouls.
But Louisville has generated a large part of their offense at the free throw line all year. Early this week, Carolina coaches had already identified playing defense without fouling as one of the keys to Saturday's game, and the Tar Heels never figured out how to do it. Just the Louisville starting backcourt of Terry Rozier and Chris Jones took more free throws (21) than the entire Carolina team (20).
“They just outworked us,” said Brice Johnson.
Much of that work was done by Tarboro native Montrezl Harrell, who finished with 22 points and 15 rebounds and was virtually un-boxout-able in the second half. Harrell was a big reason why the Tar Heels saw an 18-point lead turn into a 10-point loss, an almost unthinkable reversal at the point when Rick Pitino was forced to burn two quick timeouts early in the second half with his team down 43-25.
From there, though, Carolina would score just 25 points over the next 22 minutes, shooting below 35 percent over the remainder of the game and making only three of six free throws in the closing minutes of regulation while committing just enough turnovers to fuel the Louisville rally.
Most frustratingly, Carolina had completely taken a sellout Yum! Center crowd of 22,418 out of the game and was poised to get the team's biggest road win of the season, a victory that would have put them firmly in contention for the regular season league title. Instead, the comeback changed the tenor of the game and possibly of the league race. This was the kind of game that will be mentioned in a huddle again this year; at some point, the Tar Heels will have a big second half lead and Williams will challenge them to put away the opponent rather than let them creep back into it.
“They competed harder than us when we thought we had the game,” said Marcus Paige. “That's the story of the game. You can look at any statistical category you want.”
The real story from Saturday's loss, however, won't be found in any statistical categories. Instead, it won't become evident until Monday night around 9 p.m. Virginia comes to the Smith Center for a 7 p.m. showdown against a Cavalier squad that is very disciplined and very difficult for which to prepare.
That sets up a Sunday when the ideal scenario is to have a veteran coach leading a veteran team. There is a total of one day to both get over Louisville and get ready for Virginia. People talk about the Saturday-Monday turnaround as being similar to the NCAA Tournament, but in the postseason you never have to worry about losing a heartbreaker and then coming back and playing 48 hours later.
In March it will be lose and you're out. This weekend it's lose and regroup. Williams and Paige have a better handle on what their team and teammates need than any of the rest of us. Do they need to be pushed? Consoled? Encouraged?
That's coaching and that's leadership. It will undoubtedly be popular over the next 24 hours to talk about Carolina's failings in Louisville. But if the Tar Heels come back and beat the Cavaliers, Louisville is simply one of those really tough road losses that happen in every college basketball season. It's beginning Sunday when we find out what this loss means and how mature this group has become, not Saturday.
Have you ever spent any time around college kids? Sometimes you think they'll be crushed and they're resilient. Sometimes you think they'll be thrilled and they're indifferent. As we sit here on Saturday night, there is absolutely no predicting how the Tar Heels might respond over the next 48 hours. But there is this certainty: the coach guiding them has been in this position plenty of times before, and he has on his team a player who is universally respected by his teammates.
Williams took the loss—the first time Rick Pitino has ever beaten North Carolina—extremely hard and was almost despondent with what he perceived as his own personal failings in the defeat. The tone he and Paige set beginning Sunday afternoon will be the catalyst for a pivotal Monday game. It's really fun getting to be the star coach and star player when things are going well. But it's also a huge amount of responsibility, some of the most important of which happens when no television cameras are watching.
“We're trying to win the league,” Paige said. “Dropping one game can mean the difference between the top of the league or a three or four spot with a lot of hurdles to climb. For that reason, this is going to stick with me for a while. It's going to be hard not to think about this one. Once we get on the court tomorrow and start thinking about Virginia, hopefully we get past it.”
