UNC basketball on cusp of missing NCAA tournament after home loss to rival Duke
North Carolina coach Hubert Davis doesn’t believe the narrative that the Tar Heels have to win the ACC tournament in order to get a bid to the Big Dance. He was still mentioning the team “they could become” and only being focused on “what is real” after Saturday’s 62-57 loss to Duke in the Dean E. Smith Center.
What is real is the Heels are only guaranteed one more game this season and that’s as a No. 7 seed Wednesday against the winner of No. 10 seed Boston College against No. 15 seed Louisville in Greensboro.
Of note, Virginia Tech won the ACC tournament as a seventh seed last year, becoming the lowest seed ever to win it.
Carolina (19-12, 11-9 ACC) is fighting to avoid the dubious title of being the only preseason No. 1-ranked team to miss the NCAA tournament since it expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Most NCAA tournament prognosticators do not currently have UNC as an at-large bid.
“I told them in the locker room that even though that I was very sad that I wasn’t done at all in terms of my confidence and what kind of team that this can become,” Davis said. “And my confidence in this team is not going to waiver at all.”
The reason for his optimism may be in the fact that Carolina again was in a position where it had its chances to win. But for a neutral observer, it’s also reason to believe nothing will change in the postseason.
Perhaps the Heels have focused too much on what they could become instead of what they are. They held second-half leads or were tied late in losses to Iowa State, Alabama, against Pitt twice, at Virginia, at Duke and at N.C. State, but failed to close out strong.
“What’s frustrating is we know how good we are and we’ve all seen how good we can be and it’s been at times,” said Pete Nance, who was limited by foul trouble and scored just 3 against the Blue Devils. “The moment this group can bring it all together I think it can be a really dangerous thing and so we just have to have the belief in that.”
UNC was tied with Duke with 3:57 left in its loss at Cameron Indoor Stadium a month ago, and went scoreless the remainder of that game.
On Saturday, the Heels had a 55-54 lead with 4:19 left and did not make another field goal in the game, missing their last seven shots.
Armando Bacot’s free throws gave them a 57-56 led with 1:57 left, but twice in the final minute the Heels had shots to tie or take the lead, and both times R.J. Davis and Caleb Love came up short.
“We just didn’t get a good shot late in the game when we needed to make the plays that we needed,” said R.J. Davis, who tied Bacot with a team-high 17 points. “We got some good looks, but then also sometimes I think we were playing against the shot clock a little bit.”
Carolina faced its biggest deficit of the game at 43-36 and still hadn’t made a field goal six minutes into the second half. It was a bookend of futility shooting, as UNC missed its first seven shots from the field to start the second half just like it missed the last seven in the game.
When Love finally scored on a layup with 13:45, he sparked three straight possessions that the Heels scored baskets including a Davis 3-pointer to tie it at 43.
They last led 9-8 with 13:43 left in the first half and had three straight misses with a chance to take the lead, until Davis made his third 3 of the game with 9:02 left. Nance scored his only basket on the ensuing possession with a 3-pointer that followed Davis. But the Heels could not build on their 49-45 lead.
“It’s been a consistent theme all year, where, in that time, it’s a great opportunity to extend it,” Hubert Davis said. “There’s been a lot of times this year that we haven’t been able to do it.”
They finished shooting just 26.7 percent from the field in the second half and a season-low 30.4 percent for the game.
“It really just boils down to us is really hitting shots,” Bacot said. “That’s what we really got to do, we’re missing shots around the rim, 3-point shots, it’s hard to win a game.”
Hubert Davis also pointed to defensive mistakes they made down the stretch in allowing Duke to tie the game when they led by four. They wanted to take away Mark Mitchell’s drive to the left — and that’s how he scored. And they gave up a lob dunk to Dereck Lively on the next possession when the scouting report said his tendency was to always roll to the basket on picks.
“That’s a perfect example of discipline and details from a defensive standpoint,” Davis said. “Those are things that have been told and taught. Those are things that you just can’t do down the stretch and so it is very frustrating.”
There was a reason Hubert Davis harped on the three free-throw attempts Carolina had in its loss at Duke a month ago. Getting to the line is a big part of the Heels’ game and it was a factor on Saturday.
The Heels shot 18 of 21 from the free-throw line, but it was just as important to get Duke in foul trouble.
Lively, who dominated the first meeting with 14 rebounds and eight blocks, picked up two fouls in the first three minutes of the second half. He sat for a long stretch with four fouls and played just 17 minutes.
But the Heels didn’t fully take advantage of his absence. Duke still managed to outscore UNC 14-7 in second chance points and Bacot, who added 11 rebounds, only had one basket in the second half.
This story was originally published March 4, 2023 at 8:51 PM with the headline "UNC basketball on cusp of missing NCAA tournament after home loss to rival Duke."