CLEMSON, SC – North Carolina just couldn’t get anything going on offense Tuesday night and fell at Clemson, 63-50, at Littlejohn Coliseum.

The Tar Heels not only had trouble scoring, but they had a difficult time getting shots because of turnovers and not grabbing their own misses.

UNC used an 11-2 run in the second half to cut the margin to 42-38 with 12:38 left, but struggled from that point on.

Day’Ron Sharpe led UNC with 16 points while no other Tar Heels were in double figures.

UNC dropped to 11-6 overall and 6-4 in the ACC, Clemson improved to 11-5 and 5-5.

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

Carolina came into the game having not played in a week, and when in the middle of the season’s grind, that can seem like an awfully long time to players. They appeared a step slow at times, reactions weren’t as quick as they were at Pitt, movement wasn’t as sharp, and they just appeared a bit off.

Credit Clemson’s sense of urgency for causing some of this. Roy Williams said after the game he told his team the Tigers would go after them, were a wounded team but quite capable of doing the boa constrictor thing on the Heels, and they did.

But Carolina didn’t defend well at all early and struggled on the glass for a good part of the game. Was the time in between games really an issue?

"I guess it could have. I didn't feel like it would be,” UNC Coach Roy Williams said. “We had two really good practices. We worked 10 times harder in practice the last two days than we did in the game tonight. And I felt that we would play well, I really did. I thought that we made some good strides defensively in the practices the last two days, but we let them shoot.”

Carolina came into the game having averaged 44 points in the paint over their last three games, and had 48 at Pitt last Tuesday and 48 at home a few days earlier versus NC State, but UNC managed only 18 here at Littlejohn. The Heels just couldn’t get anything going against the Tigers. Garrison Brooks had some nice high-low passes to Sharpe in the second half, but Clemson cut that off.

Armando Bacot had been UNC’s best player and its most consistent, but his play Tuesday resembled a poor stretch from his freshman season as he finished with one point missing his only field goal attempt and picking up four fouls in 19 minutes. He also grabbed just three rebounds.

His only field goal attempt came at the 18:39 mark of the second half. His free throw came at the 17:57 mark. UNC was 4-for-13 on layups and 2-for-3 on dunks, so it was 6-for-16 on shots right at the rim.

What did Clemson do to limit UNC’s effectiveness inside?

“I think that they’ve always been a good defensive team, but if you have 17 turnovers in a low possession game, you're not gonna have a lot of points from anywhere…,” Williams said.

“You look down there and none of the big guys, Day’Ron was 6-for-8, but Armando was 0-for-1, Garrison 4-for-10. So, when we did get it, we didn't necessarily make it, but it wasn't just that they cut us off inside, our whole offense.”

One way to attempt just 18 shots in the first half, as UNC did, and only 44 on the night is to grab just seven offensive rebounds and turn over the ball 17 times leading to 13 Tigers’ points. In fact, UNC didn’t even snare one of its own misses until 30 seconds remained in the first half.

Sharpe grabbed Caleb Love’s missed jumper, missed the put back but rebounded it and converted, giving Carolina its only second chance points of the half with 23 seconds left. Carolina scored just six second chance points on the night.

The Heels forced two turnovers in the first half leading to no points, and on the night forced just seven turnovers. So the Heels didn’t create many extra possessions and scoring opportunities, and their own turnovers carved away their chances at scoring as well. That’s not a winning formula.

So, 17 turnovers on 62 possessions, seven offensive boards and seven forced turnovers.

UNC’s field goal attempts over its previous seven games: 69, 61, 73, 62, 62, 68, and 61, but it attempted just 44 tonight and had only 37 with 4:30 left to play. If you don’t shoot you can’t score.

"Ten turnovers in the first half, one offensive rebound, or two offensive rebounds in the whole first half, so it wasn't just getting the ball inside," Williams said. "Our big guys were not as active as we needed them to be. If we were more active, we would have had more offensive rebounds in the first half, but that's about it.”

Clemson is usually an excellent defensive team, but many of UNC’s 17 turnovers on the night were more on the Tar Heels than caused by the Tigers. Clemson didn’t always apply a ton of pressure on the ball, though it did pack in the paint some knowing UNC’s chances at winning were much greater if it got its inside game going.

Nevertheless, the Heels tossed the ball away in the backcourt, poor lobs to open bigs inside and on the baseline, and even a pass to literally nobody by Leaky Black after his drive was stymied.

So, as noted above, 17 turnovers are a bad number in any game the Heels play, but in a low-possession affair, it’s worse. Carolina had 62 possessions, so it averaged turning over the ball 27.4 percent of the time.

“Oh, tonight, I think it was everything," Williams said. "We had a player that drove from the corner to the middle, turned around and made a bounce pass to the corner. There was nobody there. Some of the turnovers were really bad, really bad.

"And 17 turnovers is 10 times worse in a low possession game. I don't have my points per possession chart to say how many possessions it was, but I feel like it was a lot fewer possessions than what we've been having recently.

"So, Coach (Dean) Smith used to say that turnovers are usually selfishness, which means the guy's trying to make a great play or careless. And I think some of them were selfishness, but more of them were carelessness. And give Clemson's defense some credit, too.”

After a poor start to the season from the free throw line, it appeared Carolina had found its form and would be fine from the stripe the rest of the way. Not to be. UNC was 8-for-18 from the line versus NC State and 7-for-14 last week at Pitt, and here at Littlejohn, UNC was 11-for-21. That’s 26-for-53 in the last three games, which is 49.1 percent.

Making the night even worse for the Heels, two of the misses didn’t even count because Clemson was called for a pair of lane violations. Add those two misses – because those would have counted had the shots gone in – and the Heels were really 11-for-23 tonight and are 26-for-55 over the last three games, which is 47.2 percent.

This stretch followed a three-game period in which the Heels were 53-for-72 (73.6 percent).