Heels Hoops
UNC basketball for the analytically inclined
Seven national championships and counting...
Phew!! Far better to have a sloppy win than a bad loss. The Heels won a close won vs Brown on the backs of heroic offensive efforts from RJ Davis and Armando Bacot. Offense is super promising! My notes: - Davis has become a great outside threat clearly. If he's here as an upperclassmen I think he could have some eye popping scoring numbers - Manek and Garcia are going to add a lot in ACC play when we can't so easily dominate inside and need better spacing than we had with Brooks/Sharpe/Kessler - Love still forced a couple shots, but does look a lot smarter with the ball. That'll be a big help - Don't think Bacot would have looked so good against high-major bigs, but he's come a long way with his post-moves after looking awkward most of the time as a freshman. He can be All ACC - McCoy doesn't look comfortable at all. He may be adjusting to the offense still, but he looks stiff and doesn't have very good ball skills seemingly Defense: not so much: - Bacot is a good defender and did a great job on switches onto guards. Otherwise it's hard to say much positive... Leaky was good for the most part but still gets beat on drives sometimes - Davis is just too small, and then doesn't have defensive skills/awareness to compensate for that. Starting him and Walton would be frightening against teams with good guards - Walton, Manek, and Garcia don't have great athleticism or strength for their positions. I don't think we're going to see the rebounding we're used to, and we're going to have to great rotations to overcome for the lack of impact potential on D - Love has the tools to be a very good defender and has some good stops, but took lots of bad risks tonight and gets back into his sloppy technique at times. He had one of the most egregious defensive plays you'll ever see in college where he just gave up after a turnover, I'm surprised Davis didn't take him out. Given the dearth of other talent on this team he's got to step it up - I don't know if Harris, McCoy, and Puff (when healthy) are ready to hit open threes, but if so I think they've got a chance at getting more minutes. This team has plenty of playmakers in Love, Davis, Bacot, Manek, and even Garcia, but what we need is someone who can play good D while keeping the other team's defense on offense. Unfortunately I don't think Leaky can do that. Watch the highlights via the ACC Digital Network:
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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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