Carmichael Comments: Have To Get Healthy

The substitution area in front of the scorer's table was a lonely place to be on Sunday evening at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut.

For the second straight game, the No. 25 Carolina women's basketball team was playing without guards Kayla McPherson and Paulina Paris, who have both bounced between starting and a key reserve role for the Tar Heels in the early going of the 2023-24 season.

With a shorter rotation, the task of beating UConn in what was essentially a true road game (Mohegan Sun Arena is a neutral court, but is just an hour, give or take, from the Huskies' campus) was a difficult one. The resilient Tar Heels were ready. Despite falling down by nine at the end of the first quarter, Carolina surged ahead before halftime, keyed by true freshman Reniya Kelly's six points off the bench. Kelly hit her first career three in Carolina's 26-point second quarter but exited the game following a hard fall in the lane late in the quarter. Soon after, the teams headed to the locker room tied at 36. The Tar Heels were 20 minutes away from a potential season-defining win that would dominate national headlines, if for no reason other than the opponent.

But before Carolina head coach Courtney Banghart and her team returned to the bench for the second half, she received word Kelly would be unavailable to continue. A rotation that was already down two potential game-changing guards – have you watched McPherson's speed? Or seen Paris' grit late in games last season – was now down a third, a player playing with momentum and confidence. So the Tar Heels soldiered on with just six players seeing the court after halftime, and no substitute scholarship guards available. The close game quickly turned into an 18-point UConn lead, and despite a lockdown fourth quarter defensively, the fatigue became too much in a 76-64 Huskies win.

Another close game with a ranked foe, another "what if" for the Tar Heels. For Banghart, who often praises the fight and "warrior" mindset of her players, a healthy future immediately sprung to mind while processing the defeat.

"We've got toughness," she said. "(We've) got a lot of guys logging a lot of minutes and playing tired. I like this group, we've just got to get healthy."

The good news is that there is still a lot of season to go. The UConn game was the 10th of the regular season, the one-third mark of the 30-game journey. If the number of players available grows into ACC play, there will be ample opportunities for massive victories, memorable moments, and national headlines. The physical and mental benefits of having nine or 10 high-caliber players in a rotation instead of six are numerous and are necessary in the grind of conference play.

In fact, the irony for Banghart is that the discussions into the season revolved around playing time for such a talented and deep roster on paper.

"There was a lot of talk about how I was going to manage the depth," she said. "There's a lot of talent on this roster."

That depth might be limited right now, but it doesn't change the fact that you have to show up and play the schedule in front of you and figure out a way to win anyway. That was the primary message from Banghart to her team on Sunday.

"We're built for hard things," she said. "You don't set your goals and walk away from them when you hit some adversity."

Even in a "unique year," the expectations persist for a Carolina team projected to be among the ACC's and nation's best. Perhaps a stretch of just two games over 20 days from Dec. 11-30, with the schedule truncated for exams and the Christmas holiday, is just what the Tar Heels need to be at their best come ACC time – and just to get healthy.

Here's what else caught my eye this week…

Bright Lights and Big Stage at Hall of Fame Showcase
The Basketball Hall of Fame Women's Showcase, an annual event that has grown from a single game to a tripleheader in its 10 years, has quickly become one of the premier showcases in all of women's basketball. The Tar Heels are no strangers to big events, having played in and won last season's Phil Knight Invitational and annual participants in the Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte (more on that in bit). Carolina joined Iowa and Caitlin Clark in the Gulf Coast Showcase this year as well. Part of the ongoing mission to both be mentioned in the same breath as other programs on the national stage – the UConns and South Carolinas of the world – and to match their success, is to be invited to events like the Hall of Fame Showcase. The invitational nature of the event's stacked six-team field (UConn, Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, UCLA, and Florida State) raises its profile even more, something that isn't lost on Banghart.

"These are games that you can't ask to play in, you have to be asked," she said. "I would have been happy to play in this game when I was at Princeton, or even my first year at Carolina, but you have to earn your way."

Transfers Find Their Comfort
The transfer portal is an amoebic concept in modern college sports, but the goal of portal recruiting is to add players who will make a program better on a quick timeline, unlike a traditional freshman recruit, who will need to adjust to the speed and rhythm of college basketball compared to the high school game. For a transfer, the adjustment is more tied to style of play and the difference between the Carolina system and their previous school. Every single game provides an opportunity to become more comfortable in the new system, and 10 games worth of experience is starting to show for transfers Indya Nivar and Lexi Donarski. Nivar, the Apex native who is back in the Triangle after a year stint at faraway school – er, ACC rival – Stanford, has become one of Carolina's most consistent rebounders of late. In two games this week, she grabbed nine and eight rebounds, respectively, playing with an aggression stemming from the trust Banghart has placed in her.

"She's playing with a bit more freedom than she's used to," the Tar Heel coach explained. "She was really structured at Stanford, so she's kind of unleashing herself."

As for Donarski, a proven three-point threat, a four-game lull of 4-for-17 from three from the Nov. 18 Elon game through the conclusion of the Gulf Coast Showcase now seems to be in the rearview mirror. Donarski is 11-for-22 from three over her last three games, including a 6-for-8 effort in the UNCG win. The Wisconsin native became the first Tar Heel to hit six threes in a game at Carmichael since Stephanie Watts in 2018 against UNCW. The analysis of Donarski's growth from her head coach was similar to Nivar's.

"She's starting to be a bit more shot-ready," Banghart said. "We're asking her to play with a little bit more freedom than she's been used to, and with that, she had a little bit of hesitation, but she's getting more and more comfortable with what we're doing."

Carolina fans can only hope that increased comfort and freedom leads to continued production from the guard duo.

Strange Quirk in Scoring Totals
A look at the box score for Carolina's matchup with UNCG revealed an unusual trend in the Carolina individual point totals. Six players – all five starters and reserve Anya Poole – scored 10+ points, the second time this season the Tar Heels had placed six in double figures. After going from Nov. 16, 2022, against South Carolina State until this year's season opener on Nov. 8 against Gardner-Webb without achieving the feat, Carolina had to wait just a few weeks to see it happen again. Rare, but still the fifth occurrence in the five-year tenure of Courtney Banghart.
Rarer? The fact that only six players scored in the UNCG win. Every single player who scored reached the 10-point mark, and not a single player finished the game with a single-digit point total. Has that ever happened before? I certainly don't remember such an occurrence.

Up Next
The Tar Heels will play their final two regular season non-conference games in the next week, a home tilt against Western Carolina and the second annual Jumpman Invitational matchup against Oklahoma.

Western Carolina's 13th-ever showdown with the Tar Heels serves as the annual Ugly Sweater Game for Carolina fans in the final home non-conference game of the year at 7:00 p.m. WCU will bring a 2-8 record to Carmichael Arena in a reunion of Coach Banghart and WCU Head Coach Kiley Hill, who each began their tenure at their current schools against one another on Nov. 7, 2019, a 92-55 Carolina win in Carmichael. We hope to see so many Carolina fans out to celebrate the holiday season and see the Tar Heels at home one last time before ACC play begins!
If you can't make it out to Carmichael, we'll be on the air at 6:30 p.m. with the Reeds Jewelers Pregame Show. As always, hear the broadcast worldwide for free on the Varsity Network App from Learfield, GoHeels.com, or the GoHeels app. Thursday's game will air locally in the Triangle on 97.9 FM/1360 AM WCHL, the flagship station of Carolina women's basketball.

The 12th and final non-conference showdown of the year brings the Tar Heels to the Jumpman Invitational at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte on Tuesday, Dec. 19. This season, the matchup pits Carolina and the Oklahoma Sooners, a fellow NCAA Tournament team from a season ago. Oklahoma has spent time in the AP Top 25 this season but will arrive to the Carolina matchup at 6-3 and coming off a loss against mid-major power UNLV. At the time of this writing, Oklahoma ranks in the top 20 nationally in rebounding and three-pointers made per game. But in the UNLV game, the Rebels controlled the glass 39-33 and held Oklahoma to 9-for-31 from three. Those are numbers Carolina will strive to replicate for the Sooners in this matchup.

Tip is a late one – 9:30 p.m., after the Michigan-Florida men's game at the home of the Charlotte Hornets. We'll be on the air at 9 p.m. with the Reeds Jewelers Pregame Show. As always, hear the broadcast worldwide for free on the Varsity Network App from Learfield, GoHeels.com, or the GoHeels app. Thursday's game will air locally in the Triangle on 97.9 FM/1360 AM WCHL, the flagship station of Carolina women's basketball.

That's all for now – Go Heels!

-Matt