Back to back games against ranked opponents
Back to back 12 point halftime deficits
Back to back results
Back to back experience vs. inexperience
Well if you would have told me that we held Garza to 16 points I would have said “hey that’s great” , but unfortunately they had 3 other players score in double figures and they hit 17 3s (only 2 shy of their program record of 19). It all led to a 93-80 loss. We got off to another slow start that we couldn’t afford especially against the #3 ranked team in the country. We look lost on defense, particularly Love and Davis. No one wanted the ball in their hands and there was little effort to get the ball down low early on. Iowa was packing it in and making entry passes difficult. They made us take jumpers and we still couldn't make shots. Our first points were off an offensive rebound, but those were the only second chance points we would get the entire first half. We had a +5 rebound advantage but only 5 offensive rebounds. Luckily free throws weren’t a factor in the first half, but turnovers were. We had 9 turnovers which led to 11 points for Iowa and we turned the ball over on a 4th of our possessions. Love had 3 of them with 4 assists. At least as a team we had 11 assists. Love and Davis continue to struggle as they don’t know when to help. They have helped down several times unnecessarily and it led to multiple 3s. Iowa made 11 of them in the first half and shot 50% from behind the arc. Something we knew we needed to be able to guard and we are still running out on shooters with little to no control. Sharpe had a solid first half with 5 points on 2-2. At least he is playing hard. Kessler had a nice turnaround jumper and Johnson had a nice defensive sequence which is a nice change of pace. Brooks only had 6 points and 4 of them came off of back to back dunks around the 5 minute mark. Starting out in man was an interesting choice and it was clearly ineffective. I thought Brooks would start out on Garza, but Bacot did. It worked. One of the only things that did work in the first half. We are lucky to only be down 12 after Iowa’s offensive showing in the first half. It was the second consecutive game that we have trailed by 12 at half.
We started out the second half with 3 straight dunks, and we again made adjustments at halftime that worked. We looked a lot more aggressive and there was a renewed emphasis to get the ball down low. Unfortunately my notes for this game look a lot like this “Davis/Love overhelped, man hits 3” or “bad shot by Davis/Love.” No kidding that is my entire google doc from this game. Once again it was an experienced back court against an inexperienced back court and the experienced back court took the freshmen to school. Welcome to college basketball boys. The boys from Iowa kicked your ass. Pardon my language but they did. Davis got beat off the dribble twice before the under 16 timeout in the second half. Really RJ? I know that guy isn’t faster than you. Stop standing flat footed and playing too close. He also got beat on a back door (has happened multiple times this season) and then turned the ball over on the next position. The defensive position before that, Love lost his man on defense and it led to a 3. That was a 5 point swing because of our inexperience. We lead 66-65 with 9:50 to go. By the 7 minute mark we were down 13. Again welcome to college basketball freshmen. Love finished with 11 points, 4 rebounds, 6 assists and 4 turnovers. Davis finished with 12 points, 8 assists, and 3 turnovers. Davis did have some nice offensive sequences, but they aren’t there yet on the defensive end and it’s killing us. I sound like a broken record, but i will keep saying it until the cows come home (right now they aren’t coming home). I don’t care how many points you put up on offense if you give it back on the other end of the floor. Bacot, Brooks and Sharpe found themselves in foul trouble. Sharpe picked up 2 fouls in a matter of 15 seconds and had 4 fouls with 14 minutes left to go in the game. He finished with 13 points and 6 rebounds on 5-6 shooting. He played hard and clearly affected Garza some, but he has to be smarter. We need him on the floor. Shoutout to Platek for possibly drawing the only charge that has been called in college basketball this year. That was a huge emphasis last year, not so much this year. Side note… jump balls are the new emphasis and it’s flat out idiotic. They are calling jump balls when there is no dual possession. Anyway Platek had a good game with 10 points. Honestly let him start over one of our freshmen guards. We need consistency and Platek doesn’t turn the ball over. Bacot only had 4 points, but gathered 11 rebounds. Brooks started out slow, but ended up 17 points and 8 rebounds. Another solid performance, but we couldn’t afford all the foul trouble down low. We shot 48% from the field which isn’t bad but only went 12-20 from the free throw. It was a tale of two halves especially in that regard. The refs had the whistle shoved in their pocket the first half, but weren’t shy about blowing it in the second. Hot take, but Iowa got some home cooking from the Big 10 zebras. That is all I am going to say about that. Iowa converted our 18 turnovers into 23 points. Davis and Love combined for 7 of those turnovers. Iowa beat us in the second chance category 21-14. We had a 12 point advantage in the paint, and an 18 point advantage on fast break points. We did a better job of running in the second half. We won the rebound battle by 9 (47-38) but only won the offensive rebounding battle by one (15-14). We had 22 assists which is a massive improvement from past games. Leaky Black also had a solid game with 9 points and 9 rebounds. Again just too many mistakes and bad defense. We needed to guard the 3 and we didn’t. We needed to win the boards by a bigger margin and we definitely couldn’t afford to lose the second chance point battle. Free throws and turnovers are still a problem. Add up second chance points, 3s and points off turnovers and that is the game summary right there. At this point in the season we are clearly a second half team, but we have proven we can’t completely dig ourselves out of first half holes when playing legitimate competition.
I miss having experienced guards (insert crying emoji here). I know I keep saying it, but I miss Raymond Felton, Ty Lawson, Kendall Marshall, Marcus Paige, and Joel Berry. These guys knew that facilitating the offense was their #1 job. They prided themselves on their assist to turnover ratio. Marshall may have been one of the best passers to put on a Carolina uniform. Don’t get me wrong Ty Lawson was a natural scorer, but he knew his job was to run William’s offense. I even miss Coby White. White was the pure scorer Love wishes he was. When White was playing you could see when he was finally starting to get it. But even White knew his job was to run the offense and a lot of his points came through that. Not to mention White wasn’t supposed to be a one and done player. Guess what freshmen, Roy Williams’ system works. I hope Love has that light bulb moment that white did. Right now there are times he looks like he is going through the motions of the running of the offense. That running the offense is just something he has to do because it is in his job description. I really hope this improves as the season goes on.
Hot take, but our starting lineup needs to change. We have started slow every game. Platek should replace Love in my opinion and Sharpe should replace Bacot. We need Sharpe’s energy and Platek provides experience plus he probably isn’t going to dumb us out of a game. The storyline the past two games has been our inexperience vs. the other team’s experience and we have gotten beat both times. It is time to maybe start more experience in the back court. That is our weakness right now. We have lost 9 consecutive games to ranked opponents. Why? Because of our inexperience. You normally wouldn't consider being a redshirt freshman to be experienced, but we are missing Anthony Harris. He had some promising moments last year before he got hurt. He didn't turn the ball over near as much as Davis or love and was better defensively. He also probably learned a lot by getting to sit on the bench and observe. Sometimes its hard to notice things when you are actually out there. Watching everything unfold from the no stress environment of the bench, offers a different perspective. If he was available I would start him, Platek, Black, Brooks and Sharpe. We need consistency and a steady hand at guard and we don't have that right now.
I think the most frustrating thing about watching the games is that you can see that it’s there. There are some stretches where you think “yeah okay this actually looks like Carolina basketball” and there are others where you want to pull your hair out. It is all directly related to turnovers. When we don’t turn the ball over we get rolling, when we do turn the ball over it’s ugly. We turn the ball over way too much right now. But we took Texas down to the wire and managed to play with Iowa for half of the second half even taking a one point lead several times. Kessler has a nice turn around jumper and Sharpe has a nice hook. They both have nice moves with their backs to the basket and are relentless on the boards. Same with Bacot. Brooks has been steady outside of the first game. If Leaky can give us 8-12 points and rebounds a game I will be happy. Love and Davis want to play aggressive defense, but let's be honest they don’t know how. It is probably because they have never been made to play legitimate defense. They aren’t fundamentally sound on that side of the court. Walton and Johnson have made a couple of 3s. Johnson has a smooth stroke. Johnson had a good defensive sequence last night and if he can figure it out on that side of the ball then he will get more minutes. We desperately need shooters. Platek has had a good start to the year and he looks more confident, for worse or for better.
The conversations seems fair if not a little premature, but I am going to bring it up anyway. Is the “one and done” rule ruining college basketball? These kids come in and have no loyalty to the programs because they know they will only be there for a year. It is hard to build a team when your point guard leaves every year. By the time the team starts clicking, your leader is off to the pros. It is not necessarily the players’ faults. The travel ball/AAU circuit is insane now. I am 24 so I am about 8-10 years removed from it, but wow has it changed. Maybe it is because I am female and I only have the perspective of that side of it. But 10 years ago there were no teams sponsored by Nike or Adidas or NBA players. It is no longer amateur basketball in my opinion, not when these guys are basically already sponsored by an athletic brand before they get to college. There weren’t these massive showcase tournaments. That is all AAU is these days. When I played we had regionals, states, and nationals. Nationals at the Wide World of Sports in Disney was the best btw. We went to Ohio one year. That was dumb. Anyway we may have played in one showcase just for the hell of it. The people that wanted to play that weekend played, and we played because we were promised a set number of games. Shoot some of the regional stuff was the equivalent to the regionals in the movie “Dodgeball.” I am being a little melodramatic, but I played in a lot of church gyms or auxiliary gyms in high schools in BFE in the dead of summer with no AC. It wasn’t what it is now. Plus what the top recruits do in college doesn’t even matter. Harry Giles barely played at Duke and was a lottery pick. What did Cole Anthony do to be a top 20 pick? I know that was probably his connections from his dad but still. Winning a championship and being the Final Four MVP no longer even promises that you will get drafted. Joel Berry was the Final Four MVP and he went undrafted. Let these kids go to the NBA straight out of college or make them stay 2 years, so that at least the players and the program will develop some. Some of these kids will fall flat on their face, but I think that comes with the system. Besides that is the way it used to be. It’s also not like these kids are getting an education. They enroll in summer school and take easy classes so their grades are high enough so they don’t have to do anything during the season. The NBA is hurting college basketball. Just ask Duke or Kentucky. Coach K has expressed frustration with it. And well Coach Calipari is a great recruiter, but an overrated coach. Those programs have gotten top recruits and have underperformed. Why? Because experience wins championships in March.
On the bright side, Duke lost its second straight game against a ranked opponent on their home court and it wasn’t close most of the game. Virginia has lost to San Francisco and hasn’t looked good against other mid majors. The ACC is wide open this year folks. If we want it we can take it, but we have to get better.
We have a week and a half to prepare for another ranked opponent in Ohio State. I am not one for moral victories btw. We can’t play them close and lose and think everything is okay. We need to get wins over ranked opponents. We are North Carolina. Other teams get moral victories from playing us close not the other way around.
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