Wake forest Recap:
An 80-73 win over the Demon Deacons was a tale of two halves. Our first half was terrible, and we can leave it at that. But I will address our struggles first. Our defense is still lacking especially on the perimeter. We can’t guard the 3 and Mucius who had made 4 3s all year made 7 against us. Wake Forest made 13 as a team. Our communication is still poor which leads to poor rotation which leads to open shots. We are still helping when it isn’t needed. Again leading to open shots. We still struggle to keep our man in front of us, but there was some improvement with that in the second half while our 3 point defense suffered.
Our defense did look better in terms of steals and causing turnovers. We caused 20 Wake turnovers and turned those into 24 points. We had 12 steals which was a season high and 5 different players had 2 steals. These led to run outs and 17 fast break points. Now that is more like the Carolina basketball we are accustomed to seeing. You could see black, Love, Davis and Harris having fun. Love got two dunks off the run outs. I am sure Roy got on him for the celebration after his first dunk. But I will let it slide. It was good to see Love’s hard work paying off. He went for 20 on 7-12 from the field which included 2-3 from behind the arc. It is good to see him find his shot after countless hours in the gym. Hard work pays off Caleb. Keep working. Our offense still lacks flow a lot, but hopefully better decision making will come with Love’s new found offense.
The best play of the game was undoubtedly Davis’s save to black which led to a Bacot Dunk. Our full court pressure got to the Demon Deacons at times and in this instance Davis jumped out of bounds and saved the ball behind his back to Black. Black then passed it to Bacot for a dunk. Our run and jump gave Wake a lot of open shots, but our full court pressure was effective.
Speaking of Davis and Black and Bacot, all 3 had good games. Davis had 13 points on 4-7 from the field. Bacot had 18 points and was a force down low. Black had 8 points, 6 rebounds, and led the team in assists with 8. Bacot’s front court counterpart, Brooks, added 10 points. Brooks and Bacot are our best duo downlow. Sharpe and Kessler SHOULD NOT play together. That is just too much freshman down low. Sharpe is currently missing shots that Brooks and Bacot are converting. As a team we could do better at cleaning up our offensive boards. We got beat 9-18 in second chance points. It is hard to get offensive rebounds when there is a foul called on various attempts.
Side note… The refs weren’t great and the ACC Network announcers are terrible. It is like the network hired a bunch of random people just because they needed a bunch of people to call games. I miss the days when Carolina basketball was always prime time and you got to listen to Bilas or other prime time color or play by play guys. But back to the game.
Walton had 7 points and struggled from behind the arc as he missed 2 wide open 3s in nearly the same spot at the beginning of the game. But we keep getting to see the evolution of his game. He dribbled himself into an open 3 and then made the right decision to dribble inside the arc on a fast break. He pulled up and hit the jumper. We shot 55% in the second half and 47% for the game.
Harris didn’t do much in limited minutes again, but his presence has elevated Love and Davis’ game. They know once he gets the full go ahead that he could possibly take away some of their minutes if they didn’t play better. They have answered the call the past two games. I would still like to see both of them be more of a point guard, but Love drove more this game and had a sweet finish at the rim. He attempted 7 free throws and converted 4 of those. There is still plenty of room for improvement, but the second half showed that the light is getting brighter. The best thing? Players weren’t necessarily happy with the win. Hopefully these guys stay hungry because the back half of our schedule demands it.
SERIES:
The Tar Heels lead the series against the Wolfpack, 160-79.
Have won 32 of the last 37 games.
Roy Williams is 37-5 as a head coach against NC State, including a 5-0 record at Kansas and a 32-5 mark at Carolina.
UNC is 78-23 vs. the Pack in Chapel Hill
The Tar Heels have won two in a row and 15 of 17 at home against NC State.
LAST MATCHUP:
Carolina rallied from a 17-point deficit in the first half but fell short, losing to the Pack, 79-76.
Carolina cut State's 17-point lead to seven at the half and closed within a point at 63-62, before falling behind by 13. UNC rallied to cut the deficit to two with 10 seconds to play and had two three-point chances in the final seconds that could have tied the game.
UNC missed its final seven field goal attempts over the last 2:19.
The loss snapped the Tar Heels' seven-game win streak at NC State.
Armando Bacot (16 points on 7 of 9 from the floor) led UNC in scoring and led all players on both teams with a plus-14.
BY THE NUMBERS:
Unc is 9-5 (4-3 in the acc)
NC state is 6-4 (2-3 in the acc)
State is coming off 3 losses and 2 postponed games. Their last game was against FSU where they lost 73-105.
The Tar Heels take on the Wolfpack at 2pm in the Smith Center Saturday afternoon. The game will be aired on ESPN. Maybe we will get some good commentators for this game. We all know how the first game went. NC State got whatever they wanted on offense and amassed a 17 point led. Even with that big of a lead, we still had our chances to tie or take the lead and were never able to take control of the game. State went on a 14-2 run after we got it to within a point and Davis and Love missed 3’s as time expired to give State a 79-76 victory.
I would like to think we are a better team at this point especially shooting wise. We shot 2-12 from behind the arc that game and Walton has become a bigger part of our offense. Love and Davis have both found their shot in the past couple of games, but still lets hope the game doesn’t come down to the final possession. We had 4 players in double digits the first game and had relatively balanced scoring, but our defense was the ultimate reason we lost. Well and turnovers, but I will get to that in a second. State shot 46.9% from the field and 47.1% from behind the arc. Daniels and Moore combined to go 5-7 from 3. Daniels had 21 points. Moore had 17. Bates added 14, and we managed to hold Hellems to just one point. We were terrible in ball screen situations and State did whatever they wanted for the majority of the game whether it was driving, ball screens, kick outs, etc. We also allowed 12 offensive rebounds which led to 15 second chance points. We won the overall rebounding battle 45-34, but 12 offensive rebounds is too many. Black played so poorly defensively the first game that he lost his starting spot the next game. I wouldn’t expect a repeat performance. Expect a much better Leaky Black and expect him to draw the assignment on Daniels. Daniels is taller and stronger than both Love and Davis and when he wants to be, Black is our best defender. We also have Harris back which adds another great on the ball defender.
State also has Funderburk back who wasn’t available in the first game. The story line is that State is coming off of 2 postponed games due to rona issues within the program. At one time they had 5 players in covid protocols. I couldn’t find any news on who specifically is available and who isn’t. But based on an article I read Funderburk, Hellems, and Daniels are definitely available. One would argue they are State’s 3 best players. I would rather play a depleted State team than a full strength State team, but I couldn’t find any solid news on who would be playing tomorrow for the Pack.
Turnovers were a huge problem in the first game as well. 18 turnovers led to 19 State points and was a strong contributing factor to the loss. We dominated the paint scoring 52 of our points there and won the fast break point battle 19-2. Once again, State is unable to run with Carolina even when our fast break is more like a slow break. Roy’s words not mine. If we can play better defense and get some steals we will be able to run even more. Adding Harris helps with on ball pressure and if we can speed State up a little bit then we can cause some turnovers. We have to do it under control though. When we run and jump and miss traps, it leads to easy buckets for the other team. Most of the time, it leads to an easy 3. Full court pressure has the potential to affect NC State. Look for us to go to that some.
We need to continue to pound the ball down low. Look for Love to drive more as his confidence grows. We should dominate the paint again even with Funderburk back. Funderburk and Hellems do present matchup problems on the defensive side of the ball as they can both shoot. I would expect Brooks to start on Hellems and Bacot to start on Funderburk. We still need to rotate and communicate better on defense. That point of emphasis remains the same… guard the 3 point line and keep your man in front. Limiting turnovers would be the other point of emphasis. Those two things were the biggest reasons we lost in Raleigh. State is a good team, but I think we have more talent and obviously a better coach. We win as long as we don’t beat ourselves, but you can say that about almost every loss this season. It is a must win game in the ACC going into a 3 game road trip.
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