Heels Hoops
UNC basketball for the analytically inclined
Seven national championships and counting...
I'm going to quote some stats from EvanMiya.com. You can find more info on his site here.
According to Evan's Bayesian Performance Rating metric, which compares players to the average Division 1 player over 100 possesions, Armando Bacot has easily (unsurprisingly) been our best player, at 6.58 points per 100 possessions better than the D-1 average. After Bacot there's a second tier of Ingram and Davis. Ryan falls well behind them but ahead of others, while Cadeau and Wojcik make up a fourth tier. It's extremely early, but so far neither is severely outplaying the other according to the numbers. Withers and Trimble are the only others even close to this group. We'll revisit these stats after the Bahamas. The +/- numbers tell a similar story, with Bacot, Davis, and then Ingram well ahead of the others.
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The Heels handily beat another creampuff. Yawn.
We're still struggling shooting, hitting only 31% of threes on the season. We supposedly added a bunch of shooting this year but it hasn't played out that way: Withers has mysteriously yet to even attempt a 3 as a Tar Heel after shooting 42% last year, Wojcik has only hit 1 three and I believe it was the first possession of the season, Cadeau is shying away from 3s, and Ryan/Ingram are off to poor shooting starts. We saw the aggressive Bacot doubling rear its head again, and we weren't able to punish it. It was encouraging to see outside shots falling for Washington and (!) Trimble. I don't think Cadeau was good enough offensively in this one. He had more turnovers than the rest of the team (sans High) combined. 4 turnovers is way too much given his minutes, usage, and the competition. Several poor passes and a strip, and a couple passes that could've been additional turnovers but he was a bit fortunate on. He was forcing things; against a high level team where he plays 33 minutes that's a 7-8 turnover game. He also still isn't comfortable shooting from the outside. He and Trimble were very good defensively. Cadeau looks clearly better than Wojcik, and he's rightly played more minutes than Wojcik the last two games. The season will really start on Thanksgiving; we'll see the minutes distro Hubert wants to use in tough games then. For these cupcakes I much prefer to see a mix of guys. I'm actually really refreshed by the frequent subbing this year; someone finally got in Hubert's ear on this! If Wojcik could hit some shots I could see trying to start him, as Davis/Bacot can soak up a lot of the early possessions. Cadeau is more valuable when one of them hits the bench than having all three of them out there and then later playing minutes with only 0-1 on the floor. I would try to have minimum 2 of those three on the floor at all times. Watch below for one of the most electric highlights you'll see from the Heels all season. Trimble!! Another comfortable win -- nice to see. Cadeau was much better defensively and had some good passes despite zero assists (also had a couple good drives for scores), but he has to shoot better or it'll be hard to be an impact player. The Lehigh defenders were sagging way off him, it wasn't good seeing him stand wide open at the top of the key and not shoot. Looked a lot like Trimble's game last year. I assume it's just early season jitters because he shot pretty well in high school, but his shot looks a little off so far. He doesn't look comfortable from the college distance, as he's shot several within a couple steps inside the arc and has clanked some 3s. He's also missed 3 of his 5 free throws so far. He would be more effective passing in half court offense if his guy has to guard him tightly. Easy to say after such a monstrous game, but Bacot looks great. He does seem to be more aware with the ball and in a bit better shape. I like Ingram's game so far too, but curious to see how he plays in Bahamas against better athletes. If Trimble and High can carve out any kind of offensive role they deserve consistent minutes. Great motors and defense; Trimble's started looking more comfortable on drives too and his free throws didn't have the big hitch we saw last year. I'm impressed with his year-over-year progress. Phew... can't say I'm mad to see Caleb Love in another uniform. He was stinky bad for about 38 minutes tonight. Before the closing possessions he had 7 points on 10 shots, with 3 assists but 6 turnovers. Several of his turnovers were of the cringey variety, such as dribbling off his shoe and making passes to no one. Overall that's 7 points on 16 possessions though, for a putrid 0.44 points per possession.
He did redeem himself some in the final moments though, making four crucial free throws and coming up with some defensive stops. Clutch Caleb returns to Cameron! Both of these teams looked pretty good, going 7-8 deep with talented guys. Duke was just too reliant on Flip's offense in the end, (25 points on 21 possessions, no turnovers) as the rest of their offense couldn't get going. Mitchell had some early inside power moves for layups, then barely scored the rest of the game. Roach was solid, but the rest of their team (besides the aforementioned three guys) combined for just 22 points in 30 possessions. Arizona's bigs did a great job as well, holding Ryan Young scoreless and piling up 15 offensive rebounds to 8 for Duke. UNC starts 1-0 after a relatively easy win versus Radford, with no injuries and plenty of bench play. That's all you can ask for in a game like this really. Some quick thoughts: I'm still wondering about this team's defense, but they played about like I expected. At the big spot, Bacot and Wash were dominant inside, but then Radford's bigs were pretty soft. I'll hand it to Bacot though, he looked great offensively. Quicker with the ball. I was hoping to see a bit more from High after the exhibition. Cadeau looked great offensively with his passing (less so shooting, as he was 1-3 on free throws and missed his only 3), but was getting beat a lot on D. Not sure how that's going to work if we end up starting both him and RJ against high end guards; someone has to defend the ball. Trimble looked even better than last year at defending the point of attack, but then we do need him to show some skill offensively to be playable in more situations. Right now I can understand why Hubert is rolling with Wojcik as a starter: it gives us more size, defense, and experience while also letting RJ do his thing with the ball. For the wings, we saw some solid shooting, combining for 6-13 from 3. That's a nice change from last year, although we didn't see Withers attempt any 3s. The shot creation was somewhat limited from this group, though they combined for a bunch of assists due to strong ball movement and willingness to hit the open man. They also held former 5-star prospect Bryan Antoine to 5-15 from the field. So far so good, but we'll need to see how they continue to fit within the offense. A note on depth: this team is shallow at the wing spot, with only Wojcik, Ryan, Ingram, and Withers being able to play much on the wing. We had to have our starter (Paxson) on the floor in the last minute because there was no other scholly guy to play. Hopefully we don't have injuries there. See highlights below: |
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
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