Lucas: Sink Or Swim

By Adam Lucas

LAS VEGAS—Hubert Davis was as surprised as the rest of us.

It felt like his team had everything it needed to put forth a tenacious effort on Saturday. It was a nationally televised game. It was a marquee opponent, a showdown between two of the three winningest programs in the history of the sport. Exams were over. Nothing but basketball between now and the second week in January. A fun road trip to a destination location. The Tar Heels were clad in black uniforms they had specifically requested at one of the first Davis-led team meetings this past spring.

And then this.

"This" was a 98-69 loss to Kentucky that marks the second desultory effort in the first 11 games of the season. There had been plenty of talk since the first such performance, a loss to Tennessee in Uncasville, that the Tar Heels had learned from it, didn't want to repeat it, and were moving on from it.

Instead, he got…this.

"We didn't play like I thought we were going to play," Davis told Jones Angell on the Tar Heel Sports Network after the game. "When we found out we were going to play Kentucky before we got on the plane, I told the guys in the locker room and all of them had a big smile on their face. It made me feel good that all of them had the energy and will and want-to and toughness and desire to compete at the highest level against Kentucky. I really believed our energy and effort would be there, and it wasn't."

Carolina led 2-0 and that essentially concludes Saturday's highlights. Perhaps a tip of the cap to Armando Bacot, who had another double-double (22 points on 8-for-13 shooting plus ten rebounds), but that's it for the individual standouts. Other than Bacot, there was, as Davis said, a noticeable lack of energy and effort.

Two areas were most troublesome: the backboards and the defense, or lack thereof, on Sahvir Wheeler. The warning signs were there early. Less than eight minutes into the game, there were two loose balls on the Kentucky end of the court. On the first, Daimion Collins dove to the ground to retrieve it while Carolina looked on passively. On the second, Collins went flying into the bench area to save an offensive rebound.

The Wildcats secured 11 offensive rebounds before Carolina got even one. And while that might make you think of a bruising performance, it was more hustle than muscle. Kentucky took shot…after shot…after shot…after shot on one first half possession before finally scoring to stretch the lead to 16 points.

"I've talked to them a number of times about what you're required to do is show up every job and do the job to the best of your ability," Davis said. "I don't understand not having the toughness and will and want-to to play as hard as you can."

Carolina has largely corrected most first half issues and played more effectively in the second half this season. That wasn't the case on Saturday, as Kentucky luxuriously enjoyed a no-contest dunk two minutes into the second half, then got a dunk two minutes later when Carolina was too casual getting back on defense.

Of the Wildcats' 39 field goals, over half (20) were layups or dunks. To put that into perspective, when Carolina thumped Michigan earlier this month, the Wolverines had exactly six layups or dunks. Carolina's defensive performance is most closely reminiscent of the showing against Tennessee, when the Volunteers had 22 layups or dunks out of 38 field goals. Not coincidentally, each of those opponents posted 54 points in the paint against the Tar Heels.

The Tar Heels tried multiple defenders on the 5-foot-9 Wheeler and never slowed him down. Of his 12 field goals, ten were layups. All five of his second half baskets were layups.

Even in the immediate aftermath of the defeat, Davis was reflective. "I told Coach Calipari that I appreciate this," he said. "I told him he's put us in a position where we're either going to sink or swim. It puts us in a humble position to move forward and be the team we want to be."

The head coach is right, of course. There's no way any Tar Heel can be satisfied with the performance, individually or collectively, against Kentucky. No one who shows up at practice on Sunday afternoon will have any illusions about whether they need to get better. It's entirely possible that the sinking or swimming might be accompanied by some new faces. D'Marco Dunn earned some first half minutes with his recent practice performance, and Dontrez Styles and Justin McKoy combined to grab four rebounds in 16 minutes, which would make them the third-leading rebounder in the game for Carolina. The next two days of practice before Appalachian State should be very, very competitive.

The improvement has to begin quickly. A string of 19 straight conference games is less than ten days away. Keep in mind that Carolina could very easily win the next four games—that home ACC opener against Virginia Tech looks like a big one—and we could all feel much better in two weeks. But in order to do so, the Tar Heels will have to answer a question that was perplexing Davis as he sat outside the Carolina locker room on Saturday evening.

"Kentucky was highly motivated after losing to Notre Dame," he said. "But that's not an excuse. Why would someone be more motivated than us?"

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

D'Marco Dunn

Justin McKoy

Dontrez Styles

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