Carmichael Comments: Grittier

CARMICHAEL COMMENTS: Inside Carolina Women's Basketball
Vol. 3, Edition 8: Grittier

There's never such thing as a moral victory.

Especially in the ACC, and especially in a year where stacking together wins is difficult due to a shorter season with a greater percentage of conference games.
But considering how the Carolina women's basketball team had performed in its first two games back from a holiday and COVID-induced 21-day break, Tuesday's game at Syracuse was about as close as you can get to a moral victory. The No. 23 Orange won 88-76, denying Carolina the chance to sweep the ranked and talented Syracuse squad, but several factors across the box score and beyond point to signs of growth for a young Tar Heel team.

"A much better effort by our guys," Carolina head coach Courtney Banghart said postgame. "We sort of fell out of sync with our effort coming out of Christmas and the disruption, but I thought we got back to playing as hard as we want to play."

That effort spurred Carolina to the lead for portions of three different quarters on Tuesday, and a young group seemed more than capable of beating a ranked team for the second time this season. Perhaps unlike the Miami game on Jan. 10 and the Virginia Tech game on Jan. 14, the Tar Heels didn't wither at the first second-half push from their opposition, instead tightening their grip in critical areas such as the glass.

"We gave up 16 offensive rebounds in the first half and only three in the second half, so we continued to stay gritty," Banghart pointed out.

Another obvious area of improvement? Shooting. After shooting a mere 27 percent against Virginia Tech, the lowest for Carolina in nearly five calendar years, the Tar Heels connected on 44 percent of their shots on Tuesday.

Grittiness and shot-making will only take you so far, though, as evidenced by a fourth quarter in which Syracuse outscored the Tar Heels 27-9, hitting 67 percent of its shots while Carolina went only 4-for-17 (23.5 percent) from the floor. For Banghart, the key to Syracuse's success was the play of veteran point guard Tiana Mangakahia, who dished out seven assists and scored six points in the period.

"In the fourth quarter, Tiana was too hard for us to guard, we got a little stagnant off the ball, and didn't make enough shots," Banghart said.

Despite the loss, Tuesday's performance was a strong table-setter for Carolina's Sunday home game with Notre Dame.

"That effort's going to win you a lot of games," Banghart said. "If you look at it one by one, that's not going to help you, but that effort will win a lot of games and we've got an opportunity to come back and do it on Sunday."

Here's what else caught my eye this week…

Bailey's Range on Display
The most impressive 10 minutes of the week for the Tar Heels was Tuesday's third quarter, when Carolina scored 30 points to turn a halftime deficit into a 67-61 lead by the end of the period. Fourteen of those 30 points were scored by Janelle Bailey, who engineered a personal 8-0 run and scored 10 straight Carolina points near the middle of the quarter. At 6-4, Bailey is known as a force in the low post, and certainly demonstrated that skillset in the run, but also displayed a knack for sneaking into the middle of Syracuse's vaunted 2-3 zone defense and converting three straight midrange jumpers.

"The gap in Syracuse's zone is in the high post area," Banghart explained. "We knew that (Bailey) and Alyssa (Ustby) were going to share that spot throughout the game and I thought they were effective. For the most part, we stayed to our game plan."

When all was said and done, Bailey scored 22 points against the Orange for her second 20+ output against Syracuse this season. She had previously scored 25 in Carolina's Dec. 17 win at Carmichael Arena.

Watts Breaks Drought
A relief for Carolina fans occurred at the 5:06 mark of the first quarter of Tuesday's game. Stephanie Watts, who came off the bench less than 20 seconds earlier, connected on her first three-pointer since the game on Dec. 10 at Wake Forest. Her three snapped an 0-for-20 drought for the graduate student, who owns the two highest single-game three-point totals in UNC history with 10 in 2016 against Charleston Southern and nine in 2018 against UNCW. And Watts wasn't done there – she hit two more threes on Tuesday, her first game this season with a trio of made threes. Her 15 points snapped a career-long drought of six games without scoring in double figures prior to Tuesday, as well. Here's hoping that Stephanie's performance at Syracuse is a sign of things to come.

Will Anything Be Routine?
For several years now, the ACC schedule has been set up in a Thursday/Sunday format. Play a game Thursday night, then play another Sunday afternoon. It allows players and coaches to get into a rhythm once the conference season begins, and we know athletes are creatures of habit. Well, in case you haven't noticed, things aren't normal this season. The original ACC schedule saw the Tar Heels slated to play Duke and Virginia in consecutive games on Jan. 17 and 21, but both of those opposing programs have opted out of the remainder of the season. So, the stretch of Jan. 14-24 for Carolina now looks like Thursday game, Tuesday game, Sunday game.

The funky schedule has allowed for more practice time for Coach Banghart's team, which was appreciated after the 66-54 home loss to Virginia Tech.
"It's kind of how this year is," Banghart said. "We got right back to work, and we practice really well. We've got to find a way to come in with the same level of confidence from the practice floor to the game floor."

Up Next
In this anything-but-routine season, Carolina will once again be idle this Thursday due to the cancelation of Virginia's season. The Tar Heels were scheduled to visit the Cavaliers, but with Virginia done for the year, well, that game obviously won't happen.

So now, Carolina turns its focus toward Sunday, and a 12:00 p.m. visit from Notre Dame. The Irish got the best of the Tar Heels last season with an 83-65 win in Indiana, but many remember the 78-73 victory over Notre Dame in Carmichael Arena in 2019 when the Fighting Irish were ranked No. 1 in the AP Top 25. This season's Fighting Irish team sits unranked in year one under new head coach Niele Ivey, but with a pair of coaches early in their respective tenures, the matchup takes on a new flavor and still looms large. With Notre Dame having won nine of the 11 meetings, Carolina is itching to even things out a bit.

Our Tar Heel Sports Network coverage of the game begins with the Reeds Jewelers Pregame Show at 11:30 a.m. Catch the call streaming worldwide for free on the TuneIn app (search "North Carolina Tar Heels Women's Basketball"), GoHeels.com (click "listen" on the women's basketball schedule), and the GoHeels app. Additionally, fans in the Triangle can tune in on WCHL 97.9 FM/1360 AM.

In the meantime, check out this week's edition of the Courtney Banghart Show on the Tar Heel Voices podcast channel. Fans can listen after Thursday morning by clicking here, or by searching "Tar Heel Voices" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever else you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe to the channel to automatically receive each episode!

That's all for now! Go Heels!

-Matt