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University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: Jerome M. Ibrahim
Lucas: Begin Again
January 18, 2023 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Carolina won Tuesday with the type of effort that likely won't be enough when the more challenging schedule begins Saturday.
By Adam Lucas
Now the real season begins.
After Carolina's 72-64 victory over Boston College on Tuesday night, the Tar Heels are 13-6 and 5-3 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. But those numbers mean very little, because the primary verdict about the Tar Heel season will be shaped in the upcoming weeks.
Of the eight ACC games so far, five have come against the bottom five teams in the league. Two of the losses have come without potential conference Player of the Year Armando Bacot. It's mid-January, and you could coherently either make an argument that the Tar Heels might win the league…or might finish anywhere in the top half.
That will change in the very near future. Through today, the Tar Heels have played just two games against ACC teams listed in the top 60 by Ken Pomeroy's rankings—a loss to Virginia Tech and a loss to Virginia, both without Bacot.
But five of the next eight games will be against top 60 opponents. And of Carolina's five remaining opponents outside the current top 60, four of them will come on the road. The schedule, in other words, is about to get much tougher.
That means Tuesday night will be one of the last nights when the Tar Heels can play somewhat casually and still expect to win. Under Earl Grant, Boston College is a disciplined team committed to doing exactly what they do best. They don't shoot well from the perimeter, so they simply don't do it—they attempted just six three-point shots and became the first Carolina opponent since 1990 to go scoreless from the three-point line. The previous low three-point attempts by a UNC opponent this season was 13, and the average number of trifectas attempted by an opponent was 22.5.
But Grant's team isn't proficient at perimeter shooting, so they didn't do it. Carolina, meanwhile, has also not been a great three-point shooting team. Take out RJ Davis, who went 4-for-7 from three-point range on Tuesday and is now hitting 38.3% from the arc this season, and the Tar Heels as a team are making only 30.2% from three.
But yet, rather than running the offense consistently through Bacot, they hoisted 29 of them against the Eagles.
"We settled for a lot of jump shots," Hubert Davis told Jones Angell on the Tar Heel Sports Network. "We took 29 three-pointers. That's not sustainable and that's not good. We have to attack the basket through post or penetration. What's been good for us is going to the free throw line and scoring in the paint. When we do that, that's what opens up assists. We only had eight assists tonight. We had turned a corner where we were hitting the open guy and taking care of the basketball, and going from good to great. Tonight we went back to where we were at the beginning of the season. We have to fix that for the remainder of the season."
As Davis noted, there is evidence that the Tar Heels are capable of playing that way. This is still a team that distributed 20 assists against Ohio State in perhaps the best win of the year. Unlike last season at this time, when there was a very real concern that maybe Carolina couldn't compete or defeat the best teams on the schedule, this year's Heels already have victories over the Buckeyes and Michigan, plus handed the only loss of the season to the College of Charleston. Carolina also solidly defeated Wake Forest, which looks like a legitimate top half of the league squad.
In those games, they've been focused for most of the 40 minutes (or more). The forthcoming schedule will require that type of effort on a more consistent basis.
"We have to stay disciplined," RJ Davis said. "We have to be tuned in to the details."
Just as there are reasons to believe that an ill-focused Carolina team would struggle in the schedule ahead, there are also reasons to believe that a tuned-in, disciplined Carolina team could legitimately make a conference title push. At some point, the Heels will get a full deck of personnel available—they played on Tuesday without Jalen Washington, who suffered a fluky ankle injury during shootaround. The Tar Heels have a deeper bench than last season and at various times this season have received game-changing performances from not just the starters, but several different reserves, including Puff Johnson, D'Marco Dunn, Seth Trimble and Washington (and there's still looming instant offense from Tyler Nickel). There have been flashes of a solid defensive team, and the coaching staff has made multiple in-game and overall tweaks that have enabled the Tar Heels to raise their ceiling.
They have a Player of the Year candidate in Bacot, a stellar RJ Davis, and one of the most unusual players in Carolina history in Caleb Love, who again struggled overall on Tuesday…but also again made some of the biggest plays of the game, including five straight points after the Eagles had closed within one point and drawing a charge that Hubert Davis called, "Maybe the biggest play of the game."
But all of those attributes will only matter if the Tar Heels are focused and consistent throughout the upcoming stretch.
"We're really good," RJ Davis said, "when we're disciplined and locked in."
The true test of that discipline begins Saturday.
Now the real season begins.
After Carolina's 72-64 victory over Boston College on Tuesday night, the Tar Heels are 13-6 and 5-3 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. But those numbers mean very little, because the primary verdict about the Tar Heel season will be shaped in the upcoming weeks.
Of the eight ACC games so far, five have come against the bottom five teams in the league. Two of the losses have come without potential conference Player of the Year Armando Bacot. It's mid-January, and you could coherently either make an argument that the Tar Heels might win the league…or might finish anywhere in the top half.
That will change in the very near future. Through today, the Tar Heels have played just two games against ACC teams listed in the top 60 by Ken Pomeroy's rankings—a loss to Virginia Tech and a loss to Virginia, both without Bacot.
But five of the next eight games will be against top 60 opponents. And of Carolina's five remaining opponents outside the current top 60, four of them will come on the road. The schedule, in other words, is about to get much tougher.
That means Tuesday night will be one of the last nights when the Tar Heels can play somewhat casually and still expect to win. Under Earl Grant, Boston College is a disciplined team committed to doing exactly what they do best. They don't shoot well from the perimeter, so they simply don't do it—they attempted just six three-point shots and became the first Carolina opponent since 1990 to go scoreless from the three-point line. The previous low three-point attempts by a UNC opponent this season was 13, and the average number of trifectas attempted by an opponent was 22.5.
But Grant's team isn't proficient at perimeter shooting, so they didn't do it. Carolina, meanwhile, has also not been a great three-point shooting team. Take out RJ Davis, who went 4-for-7 from three-point range on Tuesday and is now hitting 38.3% from the arc this season, and the Tar Heels as a team are making only 30.2% from three.
But yet, rather than running the offense consistently through Bacot, they hoisted 29 of them against the Eagles.
"We settled for a lot of jump shots," Hubert Davis told Jones Angell on the Tar Heel Sports Network. "We took 29 three-pointers. That's not sustainable and that's not good. We have to attack the basket through post or penetration. What's been good for us is going to the free throw line and scoring in the paint. When we do that, that's what opens up assists. We only had eight assists tonight. We had turned a corner where we were hitting the open guy and taking care of the basketball, and going from good to great. Tonight we went back to where we were at the beginning of the season. We have to fix that for the remainder of the season."
As Davis noted, there is evidence that the Tar Heels are capable of playing that way. This is still a team that distributed 20 assists against Ohio State in perhaps the best win of the year. Unlike last season at this time, when there was a very real concern that maybe Carolina couldn't compete or defeat the best teams on the schedule, this year's Heels already have victories over the Buckeyes and Michigan, plus handed the only loss of the season to the College of Charleston. Carolina also solidly defeated Wake Forest, which looks like a legitimate top half of the league squad.
In those games, they've been focused for most of the 40 minutes (or more). The forthcoming schedule will require that type of effort on a more consistent basis.
"We have to stay disciplined," RJ Davis said. "We have to be tuned in to the details."
Just as there are reasons to believe that an ill-focused Carolina team would struggle in the schedule ahead, there are also reasons to believe that a tuned-in, disciplined Carolina team could legitimately make a conference title push. At some point, the Heels will get a full deck of personnel available—they played on Tuesday without Jalen Washington, who suffered a fluky ankle injury during shootaround. The Tar Heels have a deeper bench than last season and at various times this season have received game-changing performances from not just the starters, but several different reserves, including Puff Johnson, D'Marco Dunn, Seth Trimble and Washington (and there's still looming instant offense from Tyler Nickel). There have been flashes of a solid defensive team, and the coaching staff has made multiple in-game and overall tweaks that have enabled the Tar Heels to raise their ceiling.
They have a Player of the Year candidate in Bacot, a stellar RJ Davis, and one of the most unusual players in Carolina history in Caleb Love, who again struggled overall on Tuesday…but also again made some of the biggest plays of the game, including five straight points after the Eagles had closed within one point and drawing a charge that Hubert Davis called, "Maybe the biggest play of the game."
But all of those attributes will only matter if the Tar Heels are focused and consistent throughout the upcoming stretch.
"We're really good," RJ Davis said, "when we're disciplined and locked in."
The true test of that discipline begins Saturday.
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