5 Takeaways From Carolina's Loss At Virginia

North Carolina never got on track offensively and as a result couldn’t overcome a very slow start in falling 60-48 at No. 9 Virginia on Saturday evening.

The Tar Heels spotted the Cavaliers a 21-4 lead, and while they used an 11-1 run to cut the margin to 22-15, they couldn’t get any closer, only occasionally getting the margin under 10 points for most of the second half.

No Tar Heels scored on double figures, and they were led by Walker Kessler for the first time this season, as the freshman forward scored nine points. Kerwin Walton was next with eight points, and Armando Bacot added seven.

UNC has lost seven consecutive times at John Paul Jones Arena and failed to score 50 or more points on its last four visits.

Carolina dropped to 12-7 overall and 7-5 in the ACC, the ninth-ranked Wahoos improved 15-3 and 11-1.

Here are 5 Takeaways from UNC’s loss at Virginia:

When teams get the ball to the rim against Virginia, it’s imperative they convert an overwhelming majority of those looks. Getting the ball there against the Cavaliers isn’t easy, so take advantage when you do. UNC didn’t do enough of that Saturday.

The Tar Heels had issues when UVA doubled the post, but there were enough times the Heels got some good looks out of it. The bigs were usually aware and executed a fair amount of the time, but too many misses at the rim were costly. And it wasn’t just through the regular offense, either.

UNC was 10-for-25 on layups on the night, including 6-for-13 in the first half. UNC had just four second chance points at the half on six offensive rebounds, but picked it up a little in the second half, finishing with 13 points after grabbing 2 of its own misses. That helped the interior scoring numbers, as the Heels ended with 28 of their 48 points coming in the paint.

Still, it wasn’t enough, and the missed shorts around the rim were hugely frustrating for UNC Coach Roy Williams.

“It's extremely frustrating,” UNC Coach Roy Williams said. “We work on our post moves every single day, hard, trying to get them to concentrate on the rim and not see the defensive players come.

“But you have to give Virginia credit as well. They had five blocked shots, they bid on all those things, they try to defend the basket area really well. Armando’s 3-for-7, Garrisons 2-for-7, so that’s 5-for-14. Walker’s 3-for-5, so that's 8-for-19. And then Day’Ron’s 3-for-8, so four of our five big guys shot less than 50 percent. And you’ve got to give credit to Virginia's defense and our lack of attention to detail I guess.”

In all, UNC’s three primary big men all had off nights. Garrison Brooks was 2-for-7 with five points, Armando Bacot was 3-for-7 with seven points, and Day’Ron Sharpe was 3-for-8 with six points. Combined, that’s 8-for-22 with 18 points from Carolina’s main post players, and that’s never going to cut it against any opponent.

RJ Davis offered his take from a point guard’s perspective.

“You see it throughout the game, every time we dumped it down low, they doubled the post and made it hard for our bigs to get a basket,” Davis said. “So, the perimeter guys tried to do our best to make ourselves available and come to the ball.”

The missed chippies were a big part of UNC’s issues Saturday, but there were also other things that didn’t go well. UNC had just three field goals over its first 18 possessions and finished the game with a 40.7 scoring rate on 59 possessions, up from 29 percent on 31 possessions at the half.

Much of the improved numbers came over the final 12 minutes of the game when the Heels were trying to carve into UVA’s margin and increased its scoring rate for a stretch, especially late. An example, UNC scored 20 of its points over the final 12:31 of the game.

A positive? UNC turned over the ball just eight times, and it did get some good looks, but the Heels failed to knock them down going 20-for-58 on the night (34.5 percent), including 2-for-16 from beyond the arc (12.5 percent), and in the end, that’s what defines offensive efficiency.

Walker Kessler’s freshman season has been about development as much as anything else, and some of the progress he’s clearly made was on display at JPJ. Kessler played 12 minutes, tying his season-high from when he also played 12 minutes in a loss at NC State in December, and he finished with a career-high nine points. His previous high was seven in a win over UNLV in Carolina’s second game of the season.

The 7-foot-1 freshman was 3-for-5 from the floor and 3-for-4 from the free throw line. He grabbed five rebounds, including two offensive, and finished the night minus-4 on the floor, which was the third best number among any of the regular players in UNC’s rotation. Anthony Harris was at minus-1 and Bacot at Minus-3.

Kessler still has plenty of growing to do, and looked raw Saturday, but he looked quicker with reactions around the lane, and he played with confidence. Did he play so much because of his performance or was it because the other bigs had such off nights?

“A little bit of both,” Williams answered. “Garrison was really struggling. He's 2-for-7 for the night and didn't box out one time just as plain as day, so I took him out at that point. Walker did some nice things. He's got to finish those lob plays for dunks, we need him to finish those. That would help us and help his confidence as well.

“He didn't call out the screen on the time that Anthony Harris got clobbered and was down on the floor and that’s something we try to emphasize a lot. But no, I was just trying to find something to see if something would work. And Walker's been doing a nice job and trying hard in practice and so, you’ve gotta try something.”

One of the things UNC had to guard against heading in was the excellent perimeter shooting from UVA’s big men, and the Tar Heels saw firsthand just how excellent Jay Huff (the five man), Sam Hauser (the four) and Trey Murphy (three) are. The trio was 9-for-14 on the night, with Hauser converting 4 of 6, Huff, a 7-footer, hitting 3 of 5, and Murphy going 2-for-3.

In all, the Wahoos were 10-for-22 from the perimeter, and that, along with UNC’s many missed chippies, was the difference in the game.

“Not a very good job,” Williams replied, when asked how he thought his bigs did defending perimeter stuff from UVA’s big men. “A lot of them came with screens on the ball and we didn't communicate the way we'd like to communicate. So, either a big guy or the point guard is guarding them out there, instead of one guy chasing the point guard and the other guy guarding nobody, being caught in between.

“So, we did a very poor job of that. It’s hard to simulate that in practice. We don't have a four and five man on the blue team that can go out there and make all those shots like they did. Four-for-6 and 3-for-5. Your big guys are 7-for-11 from the three-point line and 6-for-9 from the free throw line. And so, it was not a good job for us, we didn't do what we wanted to do defensively. They're hard to guard and those kinds of things, but we’ve got to do better.”

A truly remarkable trend continues Saturday, as Carolina finished with only 48 points making it the fourth consecutive time the Heels have played at John Paul Jones Arena in which they failed to score at least 50 points.

The average score in those four games has been Virginia 57.5, UNC 46.8. The stats?

UNC is 70-for-206 overall from the floor in the four games, which is 33.9 percent, including 15-for-69 from three-point range, which is 21.7 percent. The Tar Heels have scored just 46 total second chance points in the four games while turning over the ball 53 times leading to 66 Cavaliers’ points.

The 2017 national championship team lost 53-43, the 2018 squad fell 61-49, last year the Heels lost 56-47 and then Saturday’s final score.