CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina may have hit a low point for the season Saturday, as the Tar Heels were blown out from the opening tip in a 96-83 loss to Georgia Tech at the Smith Center.

UNC missed its first 15 field goal attempts, trailed 27-4 at one point and at halftime 47-27, its largest deficit ever at the half in this building.

The Tar Heels dropped to 8-6 overall and 1-2 in the ACC while the Yellow Jackets improved to 7-7 and 2-2.

Here are 5 Takeaways from UNC’s loss to Georgia Tech:

It goes without saying, but here it is: When a team misses its first 15 shots in a game it stands a pretty good chance of losing, especially when it’s not doing much else to help itself, either. That was the case during the first 13:11 of Saturday’s game. UNC was 0-for-15 when Garrison Brooks hit a short jumper with 6:49 left in the first half cutting the Yellow Jackets’ lead to 30-8.

And it wasn’t that the Tar Heels were simply missing a bunch of open shots, they didn’t get many. The offense played in sand again and without a purpose.

“It’s tough. I mean, those are shots we work on every day, just seeing those not go in. I think the biggest problem was we were letting them score however they want,” junior Garrison Brooks said. “That’s the hard part about it. Sometimes shots don’t fall, but we control our effort and defense and we weren’t doing a good job there.”

While the Tar Heels missed their first 15 shot attempts from the field, once they finally converted with 6:49 left in the first half they then made 13 of their next 19 to cut the Georgia Tech lead to just nine points.

But it proved to be too little too late. Just like no team will continue to keep missing, as the Heels did to open the game, hitting 68 percent for an extended period of time isn’t likely, either. The Heels settled down and didn’t hit enough down the stretch to catch the Jackets.

“If we didn’t start off with them up 19-2, we would have won the game,” senior Brandon Robinson said. “But we just couldn’t ever get over that hump when we were battling back. I think we cut it to nine, the best we cut it to, and we just couldn’t ever get it over that hump.”

In a game in which the stats really do indicate very much what happened, Georgia Tech’s 10 dunks might be the most alarming stat if you’re rooting interest is with UNC. The Tar Heels just didn’t defend. Tech was 6-for-14 from 3-point range with most of the looks wide open, but the 10 dunks and 14 layups and drew eight fouls at the rim, helping lead to 18-for-24 free throw shooting for the Jackets. Tech scored 58 points in the paint, 12 of which were second-chance points, a hefty number given it shot 59 percent from the floor.

“I think two things,” Justin Pierce explained. “First of all, we turned the ball over a ton so that led out to a ton of easy runout layups – you’re not going to beat many teams when you give them easy buckets left and right.

“And the second thing, they just dominated us on the inside. (Moses Wright), he's tough to guard inside and I didn’t do a good enough job getting in front, and we didn’t do as a team boxing out, they just got too many easy buckets.”

Garrison Brooks has played the best basketball of his career since Cole Anthony went out with an injury. That continued Saturday with him turning in his best statistical performance scoring 35 points and 11 rebounds. He was 9-for-18 from the floor and an amazing 17-for-18 from the free throw line.

Brooks gave it everything he had sitting only for one minute until he fouled out with 2:21 left and the Tar Heels trailing by 11. After the game, however, Brooks wasn’t interested in discussing his numbers or performance, and he also declined to say he was trying to lift his team, not wanting to criticize any teammates.

“I feel everyone on our team wants to win,” Brooks said. “I’m not going to put anybody down to say they didn’t want to win. On our 18-man roster, I think they all want to win.”

In the five games since Anthony went down, Brooks has averaged 18.2 points, shooting 54.1 percent from the floor, and 9.8 rebounds. Three of his four career double-doubles have come during this stretch, too.

The first half went so poorly for the Tar Heels that their exasperated coach went much deeper into his bench to send a message and maybe find a spark than he has all season. It was also out of obvious disgust.

Shea Rush entered the game with 12:56 left in the first half and the Yellow Jackets leading 15-2. He played two minutes. Walk-on Robbie O’Han entered the game with 7:17 left in the first half with the Yellow Jackets leading 27-6. He played 38 seconds.

Even junior Brandon Huffman, who did not play in the win over Yale earlier in the week, got into the game in the first half.

Williams was looking for answers but had none, and he was also as visibly upset with his team as he’s been at any time this season.