GAME INFO:
December 21, 2021
7:00pm pm pm Tip Off
Dean Smith Center (Capacity: 21,750)
Chapel Hill, NC
TV: ACCN
UNC is given a 90.3% chance to win by ESPN
Records:
UNC: 8-3
App St.: 6-6
Last Time Out:
UNC: Lost to Kentucky 69-98
App St.: Lost at Duke 67-92
SERIES INFO:
UNC is 4-0 all time against the Mountaineers
This includes 3-0 at home
Last matchup was in 2015, a 94-70 Tar Heel victory.
Team Leaders
Points:
UNC: Love (15.5 PPG)
App St.: A. Delph (15.3 PPG)
Rebounds:
UNC: Bacot (9.8)
App. St: J. Lewis Jr. (5.7)
Assists:
UNC: Davis (3.6)
App. St.: M. Almonacy (2.5)
The Heels have a chance to right the ship before conference play when they take on App. St Tuesday night in the Smith Center. The Heels are coming off of their second flat performance of the year. There was no energy, heart, pride or effort. Coach Davis promised he wouldn’t have to coach effort again. Well, here we are folks. The 3 losses on our schedule don’t look bad on the surface, but two of them were blow outs to teams we should have competed with. A chance at another ranked win now leaves everyone again searching for answers. How do you go to Vegas, get to wear jerseys you begged the coach to wear, play another blue blood program in primetime and not be able to get hyped for that game? It’s a head scratcher for sure. This team just gave up. Bacot was the lone good performer and even he looked soft at times. Dunn and Styles got some playing time and did some good things. I would like to continue to see them in the rotation especially with the lack of effort our normal rotational guys put in Saturday night. Practices should be highly competitive and wide open. There is playing time to be earned. I will throw out a racing phrase for ya… “You win your championships on your worst day.” That comes from the great Ricky Carmichael. If you don’t know who he is, look him up. You find out a lot about your team when the ball isn’t going into the basketball. How will they respond? Will they step up their defense to compensate or will they fold? On Saturday we folded. Our guards have a terrible habit of letting their offense dictate their defense. If they have an off night on the offensive end of the floor then don’t expect good defense. Good defense leads to offense, not the other way around. It’s a game to quickly move on from though. As App St. closes out the non-conference schedule. The ACC is weak this year and there is an opportunity to rack up a lot of wins. The App. St. game needs to be a reset point for the team before ACC play.
We have seen the same thing time and time against this level of opponent. The Heels let them stick around in the first half, they pull away a little in the early stages of the second half, build a double digit lead and then it just stays there. The game never really turns into a blow out, but the lead stays in double digits and you always feel comfortable that Carolina will win. The game ends up in a 15-19 point victory when it should have been a 25+ point victory. Carolina really needs to avoid that this game. The Heels need to put away the Mountaineers, so they have something to feel good about going into conference play. Even after the App St. game our second conference game is over a week away, so the guys need a good game to build off of in the week leading up to their home matchup with Virginia Tech.
The only real thing to take note of on App St’s schedule is that we have a common opponent (Furman). The Mountaineers lost 65-73, but put 4 guys in double figures (Delph, Forrest, Almonacy, and Lewis Jr). They are coming off of a loss to Duke. This was again another game that saw 4 players get into double figures (Almonacy, Forrest, Lewis Jr, and Delph).
The Mountaineers have changed up their starters some throughout the season with Huntley, Duhart, and Eads Jr. starting games. Huntley started against Vermont, Akron and Delaware. Duhart started against Hartford. Eads. Jr started against Erskine, Furman and Boyce. His best performance was off the bench against Hartford when he put up 20 points. The starters reflect the starters from the previous game. Starters and bench players are below:
STARTERS:
J. Lewis Jr. F (Senior 6-8)
D. Gregory F (Junior 6-5)
A Delph G (Senior 6-3)
J. Forrest G (Senior 6-2)
M. Almonacy G (Graduate Student 6-0)
BENCH:
C. Huntley F (Sophomore 6-10)
R. Duhart F (Junior 6-9)
T. Harcum G (Freshman 6-3)
M. Eads Jr. G (Sophomore 6-4)
C. Mantis F (Freshman 6-7)
X. Brown G (Sophomore 6-3)
The Mountaineers usually play a 9-10 man rotation, but have played 11 guys in some games this season. They are led by Delph who is the only Mountaineer that averages in double figures. He has been in double figures in 10 out of their 12 games including dropping 39 on Delaware. He went 7-11 from 3 in that game. Gregory, Forrest, and Almonacy have all been in double figures 5 times. Lewis has been in double figures 3 times. Huntley has scored in double figures twice off the bench. Eads Jr. and Mantis each have had 1 double digit game. Delph may be the only Mountaineer that averages in double figures but Almonacy and Forrest are close to bringing into double figures. They each averaged over 9 points a game. Gregory averages 8.5.
The Mountaineers have a lot of guys that average minutes. Again they are led by Delph. He is the only Mountaineer that averages over 30 minutes a game with 31.8. Almonacy, Forrest, and Gregory all average over 20. There are 6 players that average over 10 (Lewis Jr, Duhart, Eads Jr, Huntley, Brown, Harcum). Mantis averages 9.1 minutes a game.
The Mountaineers will throw a lot of guys at you, but it’s once again a favorable size matchup for the Heels. The Mountaineers' tallest player is 6-10 but only averages just under 15 points a game. They start a traditional lineup but their forwards lack size. Their tallest starter is 6’8”. The starters are experienced, but they bring a lot of youth off the bench. Only one upperclassman (Duhart) sees minutes off the bench.
They aren’t a great 3 point shooting team (said that about Kentucky so maybe I should stop). Delph is really the only player shooting a high percentage from 3 when you factor in attempts. He shoots 40.5% from 3 with 74 attempts on the year. Almonacy may also be a guy to look out for from beyond the arc. Despite Gregory’s lack of size he is not a threat from the perimeter. He is 0-4 on the year. The 3 point percentages are as follows:
3 point percentages
Delph 40.5% (30-74)
Almonacy 34.9% (22-63)
Eads Jr. 33.3% (12-36)
Huntley 38.5% (5-13)
Harcum 40% (6-15)
Forrest 20.6% (13-63)
Delph has the feel of an Alex Hunter type player from Furman. We had a hard time stopping him in the first half, but held him to 4 points in the second. Delph is a Carolina guy out of Gastonia, NC. You always know those guys play with an extra chip on their shoulder when they play the bigger NC schools. He is a guy we need to lock down. He is 6-3 so this will be Black or Love’s assignment. The other will most likely take Forrest. Davis most likely gets Almonacy just purely based on size. But Wheeler was smaller than Davis and had his way with him. Davis has been a defensive liability at times due to the lack of effort that was previously discussed and just being undersized. Almonacy is arguably their second best scorer. Davis can redeem himself with a solid defensive effort against Almonacy. I would imagine Bacot gets Lewis Jr and Garcia gets Gregory.
Offensively, it’s the same game plan as every other time we have played a team of this caliber. Get the ball down low. Don’t get bored with easy. Dump the ball into the post on every possession. If the bigs have their guys sealed, give them the ball. Double teams can probably be expected. Guards need to cut. Bigs can pass out of double teams early before the defense has a chance to adjust and it will lead to a wide open shot. Our 3 point shooting has been bad the past several games. This game is a good chance to find our 3 point shooting again.
Again this game can go one of two ways. It can go like all the other games against these types of opponents have gone or we can actually take care of this team like we are supposed to. It would be nice to have something to feel good about before the schedule completely transitions to conference play.
THINGS TO WATCH FOR:
Rotation (The rotation got a little deeper against Kentucky for the wrong reasons, but Dunn and Styles did some good things with the minutes they got. If they had a good practice on Monday then hopefully we will see them get more minutes in this game as well. It still all comes back to being able to put away a lower level opponent.)
Puff Johnson is Back (This goes hand in hand with what I said above. Johnson has gone through warm ups and has been dressed out for the past 2 games. Do we possibly see him?)
Energy and Pride (The Heels played with neither against Kentucky and that result was embarrassing, but props to us for wearing black to our own funeral. Can we find that heart and energy being back on our home court again? It means something to wear the Carolina uniform. You represent the name on the front before the name on the back. Will these guys show some pride after one of the worst losses in program history?)
Guard Play (Love and Davis played horribly against Kentucky. They both had their chance at guarding Wheeler and both offered little to no resistance to the smaller guard. When Love and Davis are having bad offensive games it translates to poor defense. Can both these guys have a bounce back performance before conference play? Can Hubert get them to understand that good defense leads to offense and not the other way around?)
Playing Down to our Competition (These are the games that are supposed to produce blow out wins and so far this season that hasn’t been the case. Can this team finally put a lower level opponent away early and give themselves some confidence before officially moving into conference play?)
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