Heels Hoops
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The Tar Heels rather easily dispatch Virginia Tech on Saturday, as the Hokies didn't have the size to matchup with Bacot and Ingram, plus we got good shooting from Davis and Ryan. Bacot was a monster against VT's undersized bigs, putting up 25 and 12 while featuring more offensively than he has of late. Would've liked to have gotten the bench a bit more time in this game, as Trimble, Washington, and Withers all put up solid relief performances. Fortunately this is a "bye week" of sorts for UNC, with no game until next Saturday against UVA. The Heels now at 20 wins probably have enough wins to make the NCAA tournament, even if they were to lose out the rest of the way. One additional win should definitely seal the deal. The ACC race is coming down to us, UVA, and Duke, with the game Saturday looming large for championship purposes. We should be pretty effective defensively as the Cavaliers don't have big driving guards nor athletic wings to take advantage of us. The question is, can we score at JPJ? Hasn't been the case recently.
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As you can imagine, it was tough seeing UNC lose a difficult road game. The offense was a bit flustered by the Syracuse zone, although good shooting from most of the team (45% from three on the game) helped cover up for difficulties getting into the teeth of the zone. Bacot apparently got hurt and was limited rebounding and defensively, as Mintz + Starling for Syracuse punished him repeatedly via high ball screens. Syracuse shot 63% on the game and an absurd 71% on twos, both numbers that will almost surely be highs for the season. This was due to: 1. Bad matchups with their big guards vs our small backcourt 2. The aforementioned limited Bacot 3. A healthy dose of shot luck. It seemed like Syracuse couldn't miss on mid-range pullups, and of course they hit that banked three Although disheartening, I am not too concerned by the loss. A more typical shooting game from the Orange would've looked quite a bit different. One issue is the Heels are now back into the 300s in the country in bench minutes, as Hubert has been unwilling to trust anyone besides Trimble. They need to give Bacot more of a break to help him heal, and Washington played well in this game. And as long as Ryan continues to struggle, I don't think he needs to go all 40 minutes (!). Give Withers a bit more run please. See highlights below. On to the next one! I'll be attending the Syracuse game tonight in person; my first UNC game since pre-COVID! I'm very much looking forward to it. A buddy and I got lower level seats near midcourt, so we'll be there cheering the team on in all our Heels gear. I'll make sure to report on the game afterwards.
Go Heels! It was a very disappointing game. It's a bad loss, no other way to put it. Here's my assessment of the team as we are right now: 1. Our defense was overrated by most of our fans. The defense is good as Bacot has become a very good all-around defender and we have some smart players. Early in ACC play though we were getting extremely lucky on 3-pt shots. It's just not sustainable to have teams shoot sub-20% from three, and lots of research back that up. We've had some teams start to shoot better against us, and consequently have looked more mortal on that end. It's still a good 2-pt defense and rebounding team, but not an elite defense. Why? Our backcourt is very small and we don't have great wing defenders. Our best non-Bacot defenders are backups. 2. Davis, Bacot, and Ingram are three of the best 6-7 players in the conference. That's really what's been powering this team. Davis obviously has been elite offensively, Ingram with shooting and rebounding, and Bacot off pick-and-roll, rebounding, and defense. The rest of the team has been pretty average. 3. We only really have two shooters. Other than Davis and Ingram, there's not really anyone else that's consistently a threat from out there. We thought we had Ryan, Withers, Wojcik, and Cadeau as potential shooting options, but none have done all that well (at best) here. That's the one thing that could keep our offense from being elite. And as others have pointed out, Ryan is a career 34% shooter, so it's not like we should've expected him to be a knockdown guy. We're really one wing player away from being much more complete. 4. This should be a 7 man rotation when it counts. Trimble and Withers are really the only guys providing reliable contributions, and even Withers is inconsistent. Washington has his spots, but his lack of rebounding and defense are major issues. Overall, while he's not a terrible player, there is a big drop-off from Bacot to him. I might even try Withers/Ingram at the 5 in certain must-win matchups when there's not a dominant 5 on the other team. High, Wojcik, and Okonkwo aren't really playing at an ACC level. 5. This is still a very good, if not elite team. We probably won't finish with a #1 seed, but we are still the odds-on favorite to win the ACC, win a protected seed in the NCAA tourney, and make the second weekend. That's a huge, huge step forward from what we've seen for most of the last 4-5 seasons. We are making due with one reliable forward (and even he struggles to score inside or take guys off the dribble), a PG who can't shoot, a very small backcourt, etc. It's not a perfect squad, but they've played very well so far this season. |
AuthorI'm a UNC grad and big-time Heels fan. I launched this site in October 2021 because I felt like there was a dearth of analytics for UNC basketball fans and wanted a spot to speculate, comment, and scrutinize all things UNC hoops. Hope you enjoy! Archives
February 2024
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