North Carolina basketball routed by Miami Hurricanes. Tar Heels lose by 28 on the road
It’s not the losses for North Carolina. No one was expecting perfection out of this team and first-year head coach Hubert Davis. It’s the way that the Tar Heels have played during their losses that has been so perplexing.
That energy, effort and toughness that Davis said he’s tired of talking about will surely continue to be a point of emphasis after the Heels’ 85-57 loss at the Watsco Center on Tuesday night.
“Times throughout the year, I feel like there has been a change in mentality and effort and in toughness, and then we have a game like this,” Davis said.. “And (I’m) just very disappointed, very disappointed.”
Miami (14-4, 6-1 ACC) ran out to a 49-22 halftime lead — the largest halftime deficit since they trailed at Duke 53-26 on March 6, 2010 in a game they’d lose by 32. Carolina (12-5, 4-2) has now lost two games by more than 28 points in the same season for the first time since the 2001-02 season.
The loss to Tennessee was supposed to be the example of a lack of fight that wouldn’t happen again. Then it was the loss to Kentucky in Las Vegas. Now, it’s Miami.
Davis was asked what players emerge as leaders when the team is facing adversity like Tuesday, but he didn’t have a clear cut answer for that. He said it’s crucial for a team to have a player-led voice in the locker room that can bring everyone together.
“I’ve never seen a good team absent of that,” Davis said. “At this moment, we do not have any. That’s something that needs to change, that has to change, and must change. And my hope is that it will change.”
Here’s what we learned from Carolina’s defeat:
The problem with 3-point shooting
Carolina is sixth nationally and leads the ACC in 3-point shooting percentage at 39.8 percent and it has been even better in league play where it has shot 43.8 percent behind the arc.
The problem against the Canes was that they relied too much on shooting 3s. The Heels’ first five shots of the game were all from behind the arc. Brady Manek made the first one, then they missed five straight before Manek made a second.
Forward Armando Bacot, who was coming off consecutive 29-point performances against Virginia and Georgia Tech, didn’t make his first basket until 7:34 in the first half. Up until then, he’d only taken one shot from a touch in the post, his second attempt came after an offensive rebound.
“We couldn’t cut the water leak,” said UNC guard R.J. Davis, who had nine points on 3-for-10 shooting. “They were able to make shots on their end and we just weren’t able to get defensive stops as well as score and run our sets properly.”
Their over-reliance on shooting from deep skewed the way they have normally run their offense. Carolina entered the game shooting a little more than a third of all of its field goal attempts from 3-point range, according to Ken Pomeroy.
In the first half alone, that balance was way off. UNC attempted 17 3s out of 31 total shots, or 54 percent of their shot attempts were from deep. Judging by the outcome, that’s not a winning formula for the Heels.
“We just have to change our whole mindset,” said UNC guard R.J. Davis, who had nine points on 3-for-10 shooting. “There’s no ‘walk in the park’ kind of games. There’s no easy game for us. That’s our main thing. Moving forward, something’s got to change.”
Making more stars than Sean Combs
The Heels have had a knack in their losses of making an otherwise average player look like a star.
Tennessee freshman Zakai Zeigler scored a season-high 18 against the Heels. It was his only game in double figures through the Vols’ first 11 games and he’s only had three total this season.
Kentucky’s Sahvir Wheeler had 26 points against the Heels, most of them on layups despite standing just 5-foot-9. Wheeler scored a combined 30 points in his previous four games before UNC. He just recorded his second game of 20 or more on Saturday in the Wildcats’ win over Tennessee.
Notre Dame’s Nate Laszewski scored 20 points including six 3-pointers for his season-high against Carolina. Laszewski had seven 3s on the Heels last season. But he had only played a bit role in the Irish’s offense, at the time averaging 7.5 points per game.
On Tuesday it was Miami’s Sam Waardenburg’s turn. The 6-foot-10 senior from New Zealand scored a career-high 21 points and made a career-high five 3-pointers to pace the Canes. Waardenburg also entered the game averaging 7.1 points, but erupted early when UNC defenders, often helping on drives to the basket, left him open for 3s.
Hubert Davis said he put an emphasis on trying to stop Miami’s dribble penetration by staying in gaps. But it opened up the perimeter for shots when the Canes’ guards kicked the ball back out.
“In the first half, they were able to attack the basket extremely well,” Davis said. “Waardenburg hit his first (four) 3s, and he’s a guy that can shoot the ball from 3, but that’s not a strength.”
Bacot injured?
Bacot scored 15 points and had 12 rebounds to lead UNC in both categories. But he went down twice in the second half with injuries. The first time, he limped away favoring his right lower leg. But with five minutes left in the game, he came down on his left elbow after a collision. He sat out the remainder of play, with athletic trainer Doug Halverson working on bending it. Bacot did stay on the bench and did not head to the locker room early, and Hubert Davis said after the game that Bacot could have returned had he been needed.
“When he went to block Charlie Moore’s shot, he came down on a combination of his elbow and his hip bone,” Davis said. “And so as far as I know now, it’ll be sore tomorrow (Wednesday), but it’s nothing like an injury.”
.JPG "NorthCarolinaMiamiBasketball (1).JPG")
This story was originally published January 18, 2022 at 9:06 PM with the headline "North Carolina basketball routed by Miami Hurricanes. Tar Heels lose by 28 on the road."