Well I feel like all that can be said about the Notre Dame game has been said, so I will keep this part of the post kind of short. I enjoyed the first half of football that I got to watch Friday afternoon, not really sure what I watched the second half on the offensive side of the ball. For once, our defense kept us in the game. They were on the field the majority of the second half and still managed to give our offense several opportunities. Obviously our offense failed. I would like to sum the game up by going over my checklist that I presented in the preview on this game. We needed to protect Sam Howell to win the game. We didn't. We lost. Howell was sacked 6 times, and didn't look comfortable in the ever collapsing pocket. Notre Dame made major adjustments in the second half and shut our offense completely down. That's what a top 5 program does. Shockingly, we aren't close to a top 5 program yet. We needed to run the ball. We didn't we lost. We had 87 rush yards on the day. We couldn't beat ourselves. We had 9 penalties for 90 yards. One penalty was an offsides on a 4th and one from Notre Dame's own 24 yard line. They lined up to draw us ourselves and we were more than happy to oblige. That is just flat out stupid. That drive ended in a touchdown. It was a costly mistake. I could honestly spend the rest of this blog talking about how stupid that penalty was, but I won't. We needed to create pressure on Ian Book. We did a fairly decent job at this. We needed to get Ian Book on the ground. We didn't. We lost. See the pattern? We often ran right past Book or we tried to arm tackle him. For example, we couldn't get him to the ground and he threw a shuffle pass high into the air on a 3rd and 5 and somehow it landed in the hands of a Notre Dame receiver for a first down. We didn't win any of the battles we needed to win and we lost. It's simple.
On to the basketball part of this post. I would like to say that my reaction to the first game may have been a tad harsh, but I am use to seeing players like Marcus Paige, Brice Johnson, Theo Pinson, Joel Berry, Justin Jackson, Kennedy Meeks, etc. The guys that have been there three or four years, and have chemistry with each other out the gate. It is a new era for Carolina basketball I believe as we start landing more one and dones. I understand that the chemistry will come as the season progress. I am also aware this will be more of an up and down season than usual because of all the young players. I get it. We just look like a team that has definitely been affected by the rona, but I guess everyone has.
After every game and in between games I read Adam Lucas' articles that he puts out. I follow him on twitter and I read every article he post. Give him a follow if you haven't. He quotes Caleb Love talking about a bad shot he took at the end of the Charleston game. We were up 16 with under 4 minutes to play and he hoisted a 3 pointer early in the shot clock. He admitted that it wasn't a good shot and he knows he doesn't have to do it all because he has a lot of play makers around him. I like the maturity that Love showed in that moment, and I think it is that mindset that will make him fun to watch this year. He did have a solid debut. I really like Love and Davis' willingness to play defense. They want to play defense and they pride themselves on it. It still needs to be more under control though and more fundamentally sound. Ya'll will get tired of me mentioning that "f" word. Players and coaches at the D1 level are going to make adjustments if players are constantly overplaying. With that being said, you can teach fundamentals. You can't necessary teach the want, so it's a good start. How our defense improves will be something I'm going to watching for throughout the year. That will come with communication and practice.
UNLV dropped their first game to Montana State 78-91. They were led by Bryce Hamilton who scored 27 points. They had two other players in double figures, but didn't get much help past that. UNLV has 2 guys that are 6'11". One played 30 minutes and scored two points and the other didn't see the floor. As a team, UNLV only racked up 29 rebounds and Hamilton was their leader rebounder for the game. I suspect that will once again we should be able to dominate the paint. Brooks should have a better game, and Kessler should get more playing time. UNLV committed 24 fouls in their first game, so our big guys should have plenty of free throw opportunities. UNLV went 11-25 on 3's, and we typically have a problem guarding the 3. When Charleston moved the ball around they got quite a few open looks. This could be a spot where we struggle if we overplay and don't communicate, and it is UNLV's best chance to pull the upset. They committed 18 turnovers against the bobcats, so Caleb Love and RJ Davis should have some opportunities to push the ball. Look for Puff Johnson to get some more minutes. He has a sweet stroke and we need a consistent shooter. He got pulled against Charleston because of defense mistakes though, so he will need to take care of business on that side of the floor if he wants his minutes to increase. Realistically we should be able to put away UNLV, but Kentucky and UVA have already been upset by mid majors.
The game is being played in Asheville with limits our travel which is nice. But that is not why I am mentioning the location. The game is being played on a Cherokee Reservation because Indian Reservations are their own separate entities (they don't have to abide by the same government regulations). If you don't find the political humor in that then we don't have the same sense of humor and that is fine. But for those of you that do, I hope you got a little chuckle out of it.
Lastly, I wanted to call out some NC State fans. I have been experimenting with some ads on Instagram to promote this blog a little bit. Two State fans clicked the ad which took them to my profile. They then went and found the original post and commented "Go pack." First things first, thanks for doing exactly what I wanted people to do when they saw that ad. Second, it is hilarious that you were so bitter that that ad showed up on your feed that you went through the trouble to comment on it. I do know a couple of State fans that have read some of my blog posts, so shoutout to ya'll.
I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday/weekend. Go Heels!
I apologize for the copious amounts of grammatical errors that I thought I scanned for but clearly didn’t 😅 taking a dirt sample with your head while riding a dirt bike will do that to you... mostly kidding 😂 I will do a better job of cleaning it up next post.