Carmichael Comments: Embracing The Hard

On Monday, about 24 hours after an ACC road loss at Virginia, Carolina women's basketball head coach Courtney Banghart made a pit stop in Kansas City at the headquarters of Women Leaders in College Sports. Carolina's coach was in the midwestern city not to celebrate the Chiefs' NFL playoff win (after all, her son was wearing a Baltimore Ravens hoodie on Sunday), but for a recruiting trip and the chance to stop at the headquarters of the nonprofit.

While there, she addressed a group with a few inspirational messages, but one that stuck out and applied not only to a life journey, but the current spot of the Carolina women's basketball team at the halfway point of ACC play.

"Embrace the hard," Banghart said to the group in Kansas City and again to listeners a day later at her radio show, Holding Court with Courtney Banghart.

By embracing the difficulty of ACC play, Carolina reeled off three ranked wins in January to position itself near the top of the conference standings a month in at 7-2 in the league. Judging by the win column, Carolina is tied for first. But when the Tar Heels woke up Sunday, they were 7-1, and were given a reminder of just how hard ACC play is at John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Va. There, a group of nearly 6,000 Virginia fans saw their Cavaliers earn their first home victory against a ranked team under second-year head coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton in an 81-66 win over the Tar Heels. Outsiders may have expected that game to produce an opposite result, especially since Carolina had beaten the 'Hoos 81-68 at home just two weeks before.

The crowd in Charlottesville Sunday prompted Banghart to remark on her postgame interview – and for me to think during the broadcast – "now I know how people feel when they come to Carmichael." Virginia had been hungry for a big moment at home, and they simply outplayed the Tar Heels. Because after all, the ACC is good enough that any team can outplay another on any given day.

Flash forward to Monday's talk at Women Leaders and the message of "embracing the hard." Banghart had the chance to reflect on her own journey at UNC since her 2019 hiring, especially the early days. As she set to work building a championship contender again at Carolina, there were moments where she wished the process wouldn't be as difficult. A moment sitting in her car in her driveway stuck out.

"I was like, 'Stop wanting it to be easier,'" she recalled.

From that moment on, the message was received not only internally, but passed on to her Tar Heel players for years to come. After all, that's what great leaders do.

But on this Sunday in the rolling hills of Central Virginia, the Cavaliers were simply the better team. That's not to say Carolina played poorly, as Banghart was quick to point out in her postgame press conference.

"This group does things the right way," she said. "Totally prepared, totally locked in."

However, momentary lapses in discipline combined with Virginia's game of their season were enough to send Carolina to defeat.

"With how Virginia played today, there's not (a) much tougher team," Banghart said.

Now, the Tar Heels are staring down back-to-back games against ranked teams in NC State and Virginia Tech (more on those games later). It's a hard stretch for sure and will go a long way toward determining the outcome of the ACC and national landscapes.

Banghart herself was aware of how that message to a group of her peers a time zone away from home on Monday was applicable to her current team's mission. Rise to the challenge of February, and March glory can follow.

"It's not easy now, but that's not what we signed up for," Banghart said. "We signed up for doing something special and hard comes with that."

Here's what else caught my eye this week…

Reniya Renaissance
Even in defeat on Sunday, Reniya Kelly continued her rapid ascent since her return to the starting lineup on Jan. 18 at Georgia Tech. Kelly, forced to play all 40 minutes for the first time due to foul trouble to other Tar Heels, scored 20 points and rained in four threes in the win. Three of those four three-pointers came in the first quarter. The freshman registered a career high in scoring for the third straight game, doubling the previous best set Thursday against Miami.

It's truly remarkable to watch how Kelly has gone from a freshman with a high upside to a player capable of leading a team into ACC games on the road all in the span of a few weeks. It's one of the reasons why even with two Carolina-Virginia games in 15 days, the second game was between two very different teams than the pair who squared off at Carmichael on Jan. 14.

"(Reniya) really battled well," Banghart said postgame Sunday. "Glad she's a Tar Heel."

Force Them to Plan B
Miami battled back to turn Thursday's game at Carmichael Arena into a close contest, but it wasn't for a defensive breakdown from Carolina. In fact, far from it. Miami came into the game owning points in the paint in five straight games and scoring at least 30 points in the paint in seven in a row. Meanwhile, the Hurricanes were just under 27 percent from three-point range in their last five games and had hit four or fewer long balls in three of those games.

Carolina was able to completely prevent Miami from scoring inside – the Hurricanes finished the game with just 14 points in the paint, a season low.

"We did a really good job building our wall on the perimeter," Banghart said. "We talked about defending our paint, knowing that paint touches off the dribble were a key."

If Miami was going to have a shot, they would have to beat the Tar Heels via "plan B" – the three-pointer. And they nearly did, with 12 makes from long range for a season high.

"We needed to keep a good team like that off rhythm," Banghart said, later adding that the majority of Miami's threes were well-contested by the Tar Heels.

Close Games, Close Wins
A season ago, the Tar Heels played nine games decided by six points or fewer, and Carolina went 4-5 in such games. While that included enormous wins such as the regular season sweep of Duke, the losses included the games that eliminated Carolina from the ACC and NCAA Tournaments, as well as a heartbreaker in early January against Miami on the road. So when the Tar Heels fell to Florida Gulf Coast in November in Fort Myers by a single point, the loss felt all too familiar. But since that day, Carolina has earned some critical ACC wins in close-game fashion – Jan. 7 at Notre Dame by four, Jan. 18 at Georgia Tech by five, and Thursday against Miami by five.

In a close-game situation against the same team that got the better of them a season back, Carolina calmly went 4-for-4 at the foul line in the game's final minute and earned a critical stop on a Miami offensive foul to put the game away and win 66-61. The run of success in narrow situations is a culmination of a soul-searching process for Banghart and her staff.

"That was something I had to live with all spring and summer," she said. "We knew that these were going to be six-point or less games with how good our league is, and you have to win those."

Banghart pointed out that assistant coaches Sean Sullivan and Joanne Aluka-White are in charge of formulating situational drills for practice – "sidelines, endlines, everything from need scores to need stops.

"We all have to get better, and that was an area of growth for me."

So far, the results show growth and some enormous ACC wins.

Up Next
It's a huge rivalry week for No. 24 Carolina. The Tar Heels will play not only a pair of teams that have produced hotly-contested matchups of late, but a pair of teams ranked highly in the national polls, marking Carolina's eighth and ninth games this season against top-25 teams.

Up first is the short trip to Raleigh's Reynolds Coliseum to see No. 5 NC State on Thursday at 8:00 p.m. Picked eighth in the ACC preseason poll, State rocketed out to a 14-0 start to its season with wins over top five opponents UConn and Colorado in the non-league schedule. After two losses in three games on the road against Virginia Tech and Miami, the Wolfpack has won three in a row to rise back into the top five this week. This competitive series has resulted in a split in four of the last five seasons and five of the last seven, with Carolina knocking off a top-20 Wolfpack team in each of the splits. We'll be on the air at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday 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. The game will air locally in the Triangle on 97.9 FM/1360 AM WCHL, the flagship station of Carolina women's basketball.

Then on Sunday, another chapter of the wildly entertaining Carolina-Virginia Tech series unfolds. The No. 17 Hokies and Tar Heels have played eight times since January 2021, and while Tech has won six of the eight, the last three games all went down to the final possession of regulation.

Odds are favorable another thriller is in store. Tech's two ACC losses this season have come on the road at Florida State (just like Carolina), and a loss at Duke where star guard Georgia Amoore left early due to injury. Amoore and center Elizabeth Kitley return for the Hokies off a Final Four team from a season ago, and have Tech ranked and contending in the ACC once more.

Sunday's tip is at noon at Carmichael Arena, with the Reeds Jewelers Pregame Show at 11:30 a.m. As always, hear the broadcast worldwide for free on the Varsity Network App from Learfield, GoHeels.com, or the GoHeels app. The game will air locally in the Triangle on 97.9 FM/1360 AM WCHL, the flagship station of Carolina women's basketball.

Additionally, the next Holding Court with Courtney Banghart tapes on Tuesday, Feb. 6 at noon at the Sheraton Chapel Hill. As a reminder, the show is open to the public, and we hope to see you there! If you can't make it, catch the show on the Tar Heel Voices Podcast Channel or on Wednesday night, Feb. 7, at 7:00 p.m. on WCHL 97.9 FM/1360 AM.

That's all for now. Go Heels!

-Matt