University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Can't Stop
February 7, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
SOUTH BEND, Ind.—For weeks, we've been waiting for Marcus Paige to revert to last year's form. Saturday night, he did.
Unfortunately, the rest of the Tar Heels did also.
Paige put on a shooting exhibition at Notre Dame, drilling five three-pointers and generally looking like that same Paige to which you've gotten accustomed over the past four years. But he was the only Tar Heel who got into an offensive rhythm, and the defensive suffered repeated breakdowns on the way to losing a road lead and an 80-76 defeat.
The Fighting Irish came into the game as the most efficient offensive team in the country according to Ken Pomeroy's metrics. They showed why in the final 14 minutes, getting points on 19 of their final 26 possessions.
Think about that. In the most critical point of the game, Carolina was able to get a defensive stop on barely a quarter of the possessions. And on two of the “stops,” the only reason Notre Dame didn't get points was because they missed two free throws. That means Carolina got a legitimate defensive stop just five times on the final 26 times down the floor.
Actually, that's not completely correct. Five other times in the final 14 minutes, the Tar Heel defense coaxed the Irish into missing their first shot—those should have been stops—only to watch Notre Dame get the offensive rebound and turn it into points. There's your ballgame. Get a box out and grab the rebound to finish those possessions after one shot, and you walk away feeling much different about that game.
Paige, of course, was the team spokesman for the media after the defeat. He stood in the middle of the locker room talking to eight media members, but he might as well have been talking to the otherwise dead silent room, where his teammates were putting on their coats and ties for the trip back to Chapel Hill.
He was prompted with a question about his return to shooting form. He wasn't interested in individual stats.
“Until we find a combination of five guys who can step up on the defensive end and finish the defense with a box out, it doesn't matter,” Paige said.
The Irish got nine of their final 11 points from the free throw line, where they spent a large portion of the evening. They've now attempted 70 free throws in the last two meetings between these teams (including last year's ACC Tournament championship game), to just 28 for Carolina. They've made a scalding 84.3 percent of those attempts. Getting to the free throw line has proven to be a Notre Dame weapon. The Tar Heels can't stop it.
That's how much the game has changed. Carolina used to be the team that pounded it inside and dominated the free throw stats; Dean Smith's teams were legendary for making more free throws than their opponents attempted.
College basketball is different now. Big man-to-big man contact very often goes uncalled. The players are simply too big and too athletic to blow the whistle every time in the paint. The game now is often about using the dribble, about knifing into the lane and either creating contact or finding a teammate for an open shot. Guards are too quick, too strong, to stop one-on-one without fouling—at least that's how it looked on Saturday night.
“They changed their offense and went five-out and spaced us out and started driving,” Paige said. “That's been our weakness. We have to be able to cover the ball.”
“They were able to spread us out and drive,” said Brice Johnson, who had his 14th double-double of the season. “It breaks down everything from there when they get penetration. It's hard to box people out when they get penetration. We have to be able to guard the man.”
That's an underrated part of why the Tar Heels were beaten so badly on the offensive glass. By the time the Irish shots went up, Carolina was out of position defensively, making it tough to find their box outs. But in case you haven't heard, it's pretty much all going to be tough the rest of this season. That's the part of the schedule the Tar Heels are in right now.
Notre Dame presents some unique challenges for Carolina defensively. But they presented the same challenges in the first half, when the Tar Heels were building a 15-point lead and quieting a rambunctious ESPN College Gameday sellout crowd. These are the games you want to play in—you want to be the team that sells out opposing arenas and is the hot ticket. But likewise, these are the leads that simply can't slip away.
This is a truly incredible stat. Of Notre Dame's final eight possessions on which they missed their first field goal attempt—a span that goes back to the midway point of the second half because they were so efficient and were spending so much time at the line—the Irish got the offensive rebound on seven of them.
That's a number that will leave Roy Williams sleepless tonight. In the most critical part of the game, on the road, with a veteran team, the Tar Heels couldn't complete a defensive stop by grabbing a rebound nearly 90 percent of the time.
"I've got a wonderful bunch of kids, but we've got to decide we want to compete when it's tough, not just when it's easy," Williams said.
"A lot of what happened tonight can be solved with a little bit of extra effort," Paige said.
Oh no. Not that again. Let it be poor shooting, let it be simply getting outplayed, but please don't let it be effort.
Long after most of the tough work had been done, Zach Auguste found a way to perfectly sum up the evening. With seconds remaining, Mike Brey cleared the rest of his team off the free throw line with Auguste at the stripe. The Notre Dame big man missed both shots. But then, with no other teammates on his side of the court, he managed to outfight the Tar Heels for the offensive rebound, punctuating the win by slamming the ball into the Purcell Pavilion hardwood.
The Fighting Irish students rushed the court as the ball bounced high in the air. Paige, alone near midcourt, was swallowed up in the surge of humanity.
