UNC basketball struggles to find its shot against Duke as Tar Heels fall to Blue Devils
February was supposed to be the time North Carolina developed clarity. After the Tar Heels’ 63-57 loss to Duke on Saturday, it’s clear they’re going to have to fix their offense.
The Heels (15-8, 7-5 ACC) shot 34 percent from the field, marking the third time in the past four games they were held below 40 percent. Their 57 points scored as a new season low.
“I feel like it was a mix of trying to play hero ball and a mix of lack of concentration, a mix of nervousness — just a lot going on and I’m not sure why,” said Leaky Black, who had a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds. “We’ve been in that position a lot, we just didn’t make the plays we needed to make.”
UNC forward Pete Nance scored his first basket of the game to tie it at 57 with 3:57 left, but the Heels found no easy baskets and went on a scoring drought that lasted the remainder of the game. It was the third such scoreless stretch that lasted three minutes or more in the game.
Carolina again fell into a habit of launching 3-pointers in the second half instead of attacking the basket. In Wednesday’s 65-64 loss to Pitt, the Heels shot a total of 27 3s including going 1-for-14 after halftime. Against the Blue Devils, they also shot 27 3-pointers. Their 19 attempts in the second half accounted for 54 percent of their field-goal attempts.
UNC coach Hubert Davis didn’t criticize his team for taking 3s, rather he inferred that UNC didn’t get enough foul calls. Davis was careful in his postgame comments not to blatantly criticize the officiating, but he repeated how many free-throw attempts the Heels took in the game on several occasions.
Carolina’s three free throw attempts tied the mark for the fewest ever in a game since joining the ACC in 1953.
“I don’t think just because we shot 27 makes it we turned into a 3-point shooting team,” Davis said. “The stat that I’m looking at is, going into the game we shot 150 more free throws than any other opponent in our conference. And we shot three, zero in the second half. So that’s what I’m looking at.”
Davis pointed out that Armando Bacot, who leads the ACC and is 27th nationally in free-throw rate, according to Ken Pomeroy, only shot two free throws. Bacot gets to the free-throw line on 65 percent of his attempts to score.
He has typically been their security blanket when the Heels needed a basket all season. But Duke freshman Dereck Lively blocked Bacot’s first two shots en route to a program-record eight blocks for the game and was able to limit him to 14 points on 6-of-12 shooting.
“He’s a fantastic player and Duke is a fantastic defensive team,” Davis said. “They pressure you, they do a great job with their quickness moving their feet. Dereck is one of the best, if not the best, even if he doesn’t block it, his length and his athleticism can alter it.”
Black, who made all three of his 3-pointers in the second half, had a chance to put UNC ahead with a minute left on a wide-open attempt from the left corner. His shot missed and Duke’s Jeremy Roach gave the Blue Devils a two-possession lead with his driving layup on R.J. Davis, who was saddled with four fouls, with 23 seconds left.
Caleb Love and Davis scored 12 and 11 points, respectively. But both shot a combined 10 of 31 from the field.
“It was really just like a fight out there; it was an ugly game for both teams,” Bacot said. “We struggled I didn’t score my usual, none of us really got into a rhythm. But none of them got into a rhythm either. It just boiled down to the end of the game they made more plays than us.”
Black hadn’t reached double figures scoring since netting a career-high 18 points against Wake Forest on Jan. 4. But Black’s offense carried the Heels through a rough start to the second half.
Black’s 3-pointer from the right corner was their only basket in their first 10 shot attempts. It wasn’t until Black hit another 3 from the left corner that the rest of the Heels finally found a rhythm offensively. Carolina made four of its next six shots to erase a six-point deficit and take a 45-44 lead on a Love floater in the paint.
Puff Johnson also played a role in the spurt, replacing Nance in the lineup. Nance, the graduate transfer from Northwestern, had a rough time shooting in his rivalry debut. He missed his first seven shots from the field.
It was Johnson’s deflection and steal that stopped a Duke fast break and led to Carolina’s first fast-break points in the game with 12:14 left. Duke had outscored Carolina 16-0 in fast-break points in the first half and finished with a 20-2 advantage.
“We got to push it more with with the pass instead of the dribble,” Love said. “And we’re taught that in practice and we just got to translate — we do it in practice, but we got to translate it into the game.”
This story was originally published February 4, 2023 at 8:47 PM with the headline "UNC basketball struggles to find its shot against Duke as Tar Heels fall to Blue Devils."