Lucas: Now It Begins

By Adam Lucas

ATLANTA—Now it begins.

Carolina's 74-73 loss at Georgia Tech on Tuesday night ends an unprecedented month of January that has seen the Tar Heels—for the first time in program history—play six Atlantic Coast Conference road games in one month. They went 5-1.

But the one is the most recent one, which makes it feel like the most important one, somehow—and this doesn't make sense, but it surely feels this way—cancelling out that tough win at Clemson and a strong second half at Florida State and getting some revenge at Pitt and solid wins at Boston College and NC State.

Those games happened, too. Just like this one did, in which Carolina had perhaps its overall poorest performance of the league season. The Tar Heels shot terribly—36 percent from the field, 28.6 percent from the three-point line, 52.9 percent from the free throw line. Read those numbers again. Combine them with ten first half turnovers that kept Tech close, and it's honestly surprising the Heels were even in position to be miffed about some uncalled contact on the game's final possession.

"This season, we've made more free throws than Georgia Tech has taken," Hubert Davis said on the Tar Heel Sports Network after the game. "Both of us shot 17 free throws tonight. That's an indication of us not attacking the basket, and of not being strong when we did attack the basket."

For the vast majority of this season's 21 games, it has felt like RJ Davis was having a Player of the Year type season while managing not to be a one-man team. Tuesday was the closest in several weeks it has felt to seeming like he had to do it on his own. Davis put up 28 points (but needed 24 shots to do it), and no other Tar Heel was in double figures. Jalen Washington, who went 3-for-3, was the only visitor to hit more than 50 percent from the field.

Hubert Davis will get to go back into practice on Thursday with an extensive list of areas that need to improve:

Defending without fouling.

All forms of shooting.

Being more careful with the ball.

Consistent bench production.

A better commitment to getting the ball inside, and to doing something with it when that happens.

And now he has the film to prove it. Because after all, if those areas are enough to cause a loss at Georgia Tech, they are surely enough to cause more losses during an upcoming stretch that includes home games against Duke and Clemson, plus a road trip to Miami.

Carolina was never going to go undefeated in the ACC. Inherently, we all knew that. It's just that we never thought this would be the night to end the streak…just like we never think any night will be the night to end any streak.

We've seen this team perform very well when good things are happening. Now, for the first time since mid-December, they've got some adversity. The last time this occurred, they committed to tightening down defensively, to communicating more effectively and taking more pride in accumulating stops, both individually and as a team.

Now the questions are just as numerous offensively. The Heels must shoot better and more consistently. They must keep Elliot Cadeau on the court. They can't have long stretches of carelessness with the ball.

That's why it is so very difficult to be an excellent team. It's not enough to do a couple things well. It requires doing all the things well, virtually all the time. Take one night off, and all of a sudden you've lost to Georgia Tech. Of course it makes no sense that this Carolina team lost to this Georgia Tech team. Of course the Tar Heels have more to play for than the Jackets, will almost surely have a more eventful March than Tech. When we look at this game this summer, we'll struggle to figure out how this could have happened.

It's pretty simple: because it's a basketball season, and because on Tuesday night Georgia Tech was better.

A basketball season requires a team to maintain their level, night after night, for such a long period of time. A season is incredibly long. We're 21 games in and halfway through the league slate, and virtually nothing that has happened so far will ultimately be part of how you think of this season. It was nice to win nine league games in a row and rise to a national top three ranking…but it would be nicer to win the league and perform well against Duke and make a deep NCAA Tournament run. We haven't even started that portion of the season yet.

Back on January 1, if someone had told you the Tar Heels would finish January at 9-1 in the ACC and would start 5-1 on the road in the ACC, most of us would have been thrilled.

In reality, this one game has a greater chance of being significant because it sparks positive results in February and March than any win on Tuesday night would have been. No one was going to look back in April and fondly remember a win at McCamish Pavilion. There's a better chance—but not at all a guarantee—that we think of this loss as one that generated some improvements. This team is good enough that it doesn't require a turnaround. As bad as you feel on Tuesday night, this is still a good team. But it can clearly get better.

Because it's almost the first of February. And the 2024 Carolina basketball season is about to begin.

"You have a choice when things don't work out of staying down and whining and complaining and pointing fingers and making excuses," Hubert Davis said. "Or you can get up and move forward. I'm very proud of this team thus far this year. We have regrouped and grown from mistakes. We want to make sure in our next game we don't make those same mistakes."

Players Mentioned

Elliot Cadeau

RJ Davis

Jalen Washington

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