Lucas: A Long Game

By Adam Lucas

BERKELEY—With 15:24 remaining in Saturday's game at Cal, Carolina came to the sideline for the second stoppage of the second half. Caleb Wilson had just dunked and then Luka Bogavac followed it with a drive and a basket, and the score was 63-48 in favor of Cal but for the first time all afternoon it felt like the Tar Heels had some momentum.

"It's a long game," assistant coach Marcus Paige told the Heels as they returned to the huddle. "It's a long game."

At that moment, it felt like it.  The Bears had already called one timeout in the half. The terrific Bay Area UNC turnout had a "Tar…Heels!" chant going and Cal looked wobbly and after three very bad halves on this California trip, it finally felt like something good was going to happen. There was time left. We've all seen it before. You can absolutely be forgiven if you turned the game off at halftime in frustration. But there was just a moment there in the second half when it felt like it might be one of those comebacks.

And it would be wonderful to report that Carolina lost, 84-78, because the Tar Heels simply ran out of gas after a furious comeback. And they did mount a significant fight, closing to within four points with the ball with 1:06 left.

But the fact is that the Heels didn't expend enough energy in the first half to say they were exhausted in the second half. After watching Cal shoot 55.9 percent in the first half, including 62.5 percent from three-point range, Carolina should have had fresh legs for the final 20 minutes.

As Derek Dixon—who started his first game as a Tar Heel and was responsible for four of Carolina's nine three-pointers—yelled as he ran off the floor at halftime, "We've got to guard somebody!"

Both Carolina and Duke were on the West Coast this week. On Wednesday, Stanford scored 50 points in just the second half against the Tar Heels. They scored 50 points in the entire game against the Blue Devils today. On Wednesday, Cal scored 56 points in the entire game against Duke. They scored 54 points in the first half against Carolina on Saturday.

As you might infer from those numbers—or any of the other figures that include UNC ranking last or next to last in ACC games in points allowed, opponent field goal percentage and opponent three-point percentage—the defensive execution hasn't been good enough to win conference games so far in January.

The season doesn't end today, and this number surely has to come back to earth at some point (doesn't it?). But if it did finish on Jan. 17, Carolina's ACC opponents would end it hitting 44.9 percent from the three-point line. The highest three-point percentage by ACC foes in the last 30 seasons is 39.5 percent against the 2018 team.

This year's Tar Heel opponents would have to miss their next 21 three-pointers in a row just to get down to 39.5 percent--the previous worst mark.

These two games will get lumped together because of geography but are actually different—Carolina led for nearly 38 minutes at Stanford and never led against Cal—other than two key ways. First, the UNC defense wasn't good enough in either game. And second, the Heels simply couldn't make the right plays in the final two minutes.

If you're going to make a huge comeback, you have to do almost everything correctly. The first half had already eliminated any room for error. So there was no cushion to muff a two-on-one fast break and then go 0-2 at the free throw line, part of a 60.7 percent team performance at the line. You can't allow Cal to get 18 second chance points. You can't permit the Bears to score twice in the final nine minutes at the shot clock buzzer. Those plays could have been inconsequential with a little better performance in the first half. Instead, they were magnified by the deficit.

So were the late game struggles. On Saturday, the visitors again couldn't find Caleb Wilson down the stretch, leaving him with four free throws but one field goal attempt (a desperation three-pointer) over the final ten minutes. Even when they cut the deficit to four points with 90 seconds to go and had possession, Cal prevented Wilson and Henri Veesaar (another double-double, this time with 14 points and 10 rebounds) from getting a shot, and the Heels went empty.

With Cal applying double teams to Wilson, it might seem reasonable that Veesaar would be available. But he took four shots over the final 10:26, and three of those four were three-pointers (he is Carolina's best percentage shooter from distance, but they don't want him out there 75 percent of the time).

It's true that the Heels were trying to make a comeback and needed big points, and it's also true that Cal was trying desperately to take away Wilson and Veesaar. But it's also true that 14 of Carolina's final 19 shots were three-pointers and they only made four of them.

"This is the first time that this team has really hit a little adversity," Hubert Davis said on the Tar Heel Sports Network after the game. "Every team goes through it. We have to find a way to fight through it. And this team will."

They must. Or else there will be some very long games.

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Luka Bogavac

Derek Dixon

Henri Veesaar

Caleb Wilson

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