Lucas: Step Up

By Adam Lucas

SOUTH BEND—All the excuses and rational explanations were assembled and ready for Hubert Davis following Carolina's 78-73 loss to Notre Dame on Wednesday night.

The Tar Heels had played with just eight scholarship players and were without four players who fairly could have been assumed to be rotation players when practice began. Carolina was making a second straight lengthy plane trip, and has now boarded four planes in the last five days. Quirky scheduling and unfortunate Covid circumstances mean the Tar Heels haven't played a game in the Smith Center in over two weeks.

Davis didn't want to hear any of it. His assessment was as cold as the -10 wind chill temperature outside the Joyce Center.

"It doesn't matter," he said to Jones Angell on the Tar Heel Sports Network after the game. "I don't care how many guys were out. If you put on the North Carolina uniform and step on the floor, you're expected to play at the standard of this program and this University."

For too many of Wednesday's 40 minutes, Carolina did not play to that standard. The game could be broken up into two distinct—but equally problematic—areas.

For the first 36 minutes, the Tar Heels largely seemed to treat the scouting report as a well-intentioned suggestion rather than a rule. It wasn't a big secret coming into the game that Notre Dame is a proficient perimeter shooting squad that ranks among the Atlantic Coast Conference leaders in both three-point shots made per game and three-point percentage.

The focus in practice leading up to Wednesday's game was simple: keep the Irish guards out of the paint to prevent them from kicking out for open three-point shots, and stay with the shooters.

The Tar Heels did none of it. Mike Brey's team took advantage of Carolina's defensive switching to create mismatches, and Tar Heel defenders too often failed to communicate and rotate properly, leading to open shots. Notre Dame took more three-point shots (31) than two-point shots (30) in the game, and they made 13 of those trifectas.

But again: neither the quantity nor the quality of Notre Dame's outside shooting was especially surprising. Nate Laszewski's 6-for-7 performance from the three-point line was out of character with the rest of his season so far, but Carolina has seen it before from him—he's now made 14 of his last 18 regular season three-point shots against the Tar Heels.

"We talked about this being a team that the number-one thing they do on the offensive end is shoot three-pointers," Davis said. "We didn't consistently do what we practiced."

So that was the first 36 minutes. But here's the incredible part: despite all that solid shooting, despite a depleted Carolina team, despite turning it over 14 times to just seven for the Irish, despite getting just five points from the bench and needing two Tar Heels to play at least 36 minutes (Armando Bacot and RJ Davis, both of whom had very good efforts that will go for zero because of the loss) and four play at least 33…despite all that, Carolina had a one-point lead with three and a half minutes to play.

You've watched Carolina basketball before, so you know this script. The Tar Heels hadn't played especially well but somehow had a late lead on the road. They were going to find a way to pull this thing out, sneak away with the win, and leave the leprechauns wondering what happened.

But it didn't happen. Bacot scored to give the Tar Heels their only second half lead. Laszewski immediately hit a three-pointer that should have been a two but wasn't reviewed. And from there, Carolina's offensive possessions looked like this:

A Davis miss, followed by Bacot unsuccessfully trying to fight through contact to get the offensive rebound.

An offensive foul on Caleb Love.

A Davis three-pointer.

Too much dribbling ending in a forced (and missed) Love shot.

A missed Leaky Black layup.

And that's how you lose a winnable ACC road game. You can complain about some dubious whistles and non-whistles in the final minutes, but those are the plays you have to survive and laugh about later in road league wins.

Understand that it's very difficult to win three straight road conference games, much less three straight road conference games at the front of the ACC schedule. Only one Tar Heel team in history—the 1983-84 squad—has done the latter. And as for the former, well, Carolina hasn't won three straight road ACC games since the 2018-19 season. That's not all that amazing a stat. Plenty of other ACC schools are in the same predicament. But this is Carolina, stealer of brownies, winner of road games.

The way to return to Tar Heel normalcy on the road is very simple, and Davis identified it immediately after the game.

"In order to get wins in the ACC, especially on the road, you have to step up," Davis said. "And we didn't do that."

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

Leaky Black

RJ Davis

Caleb Love

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