5 Takeaways From UNC's Loss To Texas

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ASHEVILLE, NC – North Carolina couldn’t overcome a tough night by its backcourt, poor free throw shooting and too many early turnovers in falling to Texas, 69-67, in the championship game of the Maui Invitational on Wednesday at Harrah’s Cherokee Center.

The Tar Heels allowed a 14-0 run to the Longhorns in the first half and trailed by as much as 16, but they used a 12-2 to open the second half to turn the game into a battle the rest of the way, eventually catching the Longhorns at 63-63.

Garrison Brooks led UNC with 18 points, RJ Davis added 11 and Armando Bacot chipped in 10 points with 12 rebounds.

UNC dropped to 3-1 on the season.

Here are 5 Takeaways from UNC’s loss to Texas:

UNC fans must have patience with their freshmen backcourt because there will be more days like this. They are getting a big-time education, and sometimes players, teams, organizations, people need to make mistakes in order to learn from them. Both had those types of performances Wednesday.

Love is learning how to play against college athletes. At times, it appears he’s trying to do things that worked last winter in St. Louis but won’t cut it at this level. The film he got here this week will help resolve that sooner rather than later. He also needs to learn to see the floor better. Quality vision is crucial at the point, and Love must grow there. When those things happen, his shot selection will improve and his game will be cleaner.

His night: Five points on 2-for-13 shooting, including 0-for-4 from beyond the arc, no assists and four turnovers.

Davis plays with an edge and is certainly the aggressor when on the floor. However, drives that were met with little resistance in high school are ending up with him on the floor and the ball bouncing around for someone to pick up quite often at this level, especially when playing men like Texas fields. He’s done a solid job at times getting those shots off, but that was a real struggle against a team with the athletes, grit and length as Texas.

His night: 11 points on 3-for-11 shooting, including 0-for-2 from 3-point range, three assists and three turnovers.

“Yes, we have freshmen guards, but at some point in your life you got to stop turning the ball over, and so we need to do a better job of that,” UNC Coach Roy Williams said.

Texas eventually won the game when Matt Coleman hit a 15-foot jumper leaving UNC.1 second left, but one can say the Longhorns really won because of their 14-0 run in the first half that had the Tar Heels chasing most of the rest of the night and appeared to affect some of Carolina’s confidence.

UNC took a 15-10 lead when Day’Ron Sharpe cleaned up a Brooks miss with 10:51 left in the first half, but that’s when Texas’ run commenced. Two Longhorns’ layups and three 3-pointers later, Texas was in control. In the 3:29 run, UNC attempted only three shots, and one of them was blocked, yet turned over the ball four times.

Williams was so discouraged by what he was seeing he subbed three players in at the 8:58 mark, including senior point guard K.J. Smith.

“I think their attention to detail and their sense of urgency was much better than ours,” Williams said. “We turned the ball over way too many times.”

UNC eventually trailed 40-28 at halftime, and despite having that earlier lead, it just wasn’t how they want to play.

“The first half we came out really flat, just not playing hard and just not competing,” Armando Bacot said.

Much of the talk about having so many newcomers has centered around them adapting to playing in college and with each other, but this is also something Garrison Brooks is dealing with. The composition of Carolina’s team is nothing like last year’s, and generally speaking the fivesome on the court at most times just doesn’t resemble last year’s club much at all and the Heels are going about things quite differently.

Brooks had a ton of success last year because he was much more assertive once January came and started trusting his game more. He also ascended to the number one option and stayed there even after Cole Anthony came back. Through the first three games, however, Brooks didn’t look super comfortable, which wasn’t really a surprise. Adapting is important. But perhaps some of that changed here Wednesday.

He led the Heels with 18 points on 7-for-12 shooting and grabbed seven rebounds. He was 4-for-7 from the free throw line, and did this twice leaving the game after turning his ankle. This was a really positive sign for the Tar Heels because the longer it takes for Brooks to find a full comfort zone the longer it will take for the team to fully evolve.

“We're still learning, still getting better as a team every day,” Brooks said. “I think that it's an every day process to keep working every day and getting better, get used to how everybody plays and just keep growing.”

As for himself personally?

“Well, just for me personally, I think it's just something that's going to get better over time,” he replied.

Perhaps we saw this Tuesday and (to an extent Wednesday), but Carolina’s ability to dominate the glass is going to bail it out of some games this season. The Tar Heels have nothing short of awesome potential on the glass. The bigs do really well with positioning and using their strength so they are pushed around, and add what Leaky Black did here this week grabbing ???? boards, and this team really has a chance to post incredibly impressive numbers on the glass.

Versus Texas, the Heels owned the boards once again with a 50-32 advantage, including 20-8 on the offensive end, which led to a 25-13 edge in second-chance points. UNC outrebounded its three foes this week 147-90.

In October, Leaky Black was asked what a healthy Leaky Black looks like as a player and he went on to describe some elements to his game that weren’t really on display a year ago. Turf toe and a bad ankle will do that. This week, however, we got to see what that player looks like and he’s pretty good.

Black isn’t explosive, so people shouldn’t expect that from him, but he’s sneaky getting into the lane some and really did a nice job economizing his movements, and here versus Texas, he was really big when the Tar Heels made their push. He finished with eight points on 3-for-7 shooting, two assists and 10 more rebounds to go with the 17 he had the first two nights here. Make that 27 boards for Black this week.

He was even on the ball some in the second half when both Davis and Love were on the floor. Black certainly isn’t UNC’s biggest concern right now.