North Carolina saw this Clemson loss coming, and didn’t do anything to stop it
North Carolina had a bad practice Monday, halted halfway through for an attitude adjustment. The Tar Heels had a bad shootaround Tuesday morning. Several players showed up late for warmups Tuesday night.
They did everything a good team can do to play badly. They saw this coming.
And they didn’t do anything to stop it. They just let it happen.
So will Tuesday’s 80-76 loss to Clemson be some sort of wake-up call? It better be, because North Carolina has no one to blame but itself for Clemson’s second win in Chapel Hill since 1926.
No one.
“We’re a great team, but we’re not talented enough to turn it on and off whenever we want to,” North Carolina forward Armando Bacot said.
This was a bad loss for many reasons, but the inability to prevent it from occurring has to top the list. North Carolina was down 15-2 in a heartbeat, to the point where Hubert Davis called an early timeout and told the huddle there was no point in talking about basketball, because the effort and energy was so deficient.
It’s far too simple and easy to say that the Duke game beat North Carolina — hangover, letdown — whatever you want to call it. The reality is North Carolina beat North Carolina. Because of how the Tar Heels let the euphoria of Saturday’s victory dull their edge, to be sure. But also because they failed to react or adapt when it was clear what was happening.
Bacot, who has made his share of UNC history, chiseled out a more ignominious piece for himself Tuesday night by becoming the first-ever Tar Heel to lose twice to Clemson at home. He’s the only player left from the historic 2020 defeat, on either side. Technically, in a long enough timeline, everyone loses to Clemson twice. But the Tigers have now won two of three in Chapel Hill after losing 59 of the previous 59.
To be sure, Clemson played well. Played harder. Played hungrier, with their NCAA hopes on the line and perhaps even Brad Brownell’s job in question, although it feels like you can mark that on the calendar in February in pen. But North Carolina lost this game as much as Clemson won it, falling behind 17-4, trailing by as many as 16 in the first half and 10 early in the second half, and then, after clawing back to tie the score at 70, faltering in the late going.
It didn’t help that North Carolina lost Seth Trimble to a practice injury along the way, ahead of a night they really could have used his athleticism and defense on Joe Girard III. But that wasn’t the problem. Nor was Harrison Ingram missing several minutes of the second half with cramps in his left leg, although when he came back and hit a 3 straight off the bench, it certainly felt like the tide might have turned.
But these are the kind of things that end up taking on outsized proportions when a team like North Carolina puts itself in the position North Carolina put itself in. The Tar Heels have more margin for error than any of their ACC peers, but they found out Tuesday just how quickly that gap can close if they let it.
“It definitely leaves a bad taste in our mouths,” Bacot said. “We’re all upset. We’re all sick about it. Practice on Thursday will be pretty intense.”
It’s a tough lesson to learn, and one that really shouldn’t have been on the syllabus, but the Tar Heels will be put to the test quickly, going down to Miami to play a team that should be just as angry after scoring a paltry 38 points in a 22-point loss at Virginia.
It’s not a mistake they should, or can, make again.
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This story was originally published February 6, 2024 at 10:38 PM with the headline "North Carolina saw this Clemson loss coming, and didn’t do anything to stop it."
