AJ: Eight Games In, The Heels Have Work To Do

RALEIGH, NC – North Carolina is nearly one-third through its basketball season, and while they have shown some noteworthy positives, Tuesday night’s loss at NC State underscores just how far away the Tar Heels are from being an average UNC team, which is something they should eventually become.

Should, but the leading indicators don’t suggest that will happen. Of course, that can change, but only if the team does.

Eight games is enough to have a decent handle on this club. They have talent and plenty of guys who can help in a stretch here and there, but other than Armando Bacot this season and Garrison Brooks last season, they don’t have anyone who has ever owned a college court for a lengthy period of time. And that’s a problem that grows as each game passes and nobody else steps up for anything more that a trigger here, a spark there, and so on.

Day’Ron Sharpe has come the closest, Leaky Black’s floor game has been impressive at times and Andrew Platek has found a nice role he’s executing fairly well.

Otherwise, Carolina’s 79-76 loss to the Wolfpack exposed literally every one of its warts:

*The Heels can’t shoot. Bacot is 35-for-47, but the rest of the team is shooting 40.2 percent from the floor. Platek is 9-for-21 from 3-point range, the rest of the team is converting 22 percent from beyond the arc.

In particular, freshman point guard Caleb Love is really struggling, and you can sometimes see it in his expressions and body language. He’s shooting 28.7 percent from the floor, including 11.8 percent (4-for-34) from beyond the arc. If it has become mental, who could blame him?

Love must think he has the weight of the world on him right now, and other than last Saturday’s win over Kentucky, he’s played like it. He will get better and at some point will bear little resemblance to the player that has some UNC fans scratching their heads. Maybe him, too. But the season is quickly moving, he needs to get it going. And it’s not just Love, RJ Davis is going through a rough patch, too.

Shot selection must improve, which goes hand-in-hand with how they run the team, which also must get better. Take wiser shots, distribute the ball more effectively, and the offensive efficiency will increase.

*Carolina can defend and has defended, but it didn’t Tuesday night, and that’s the most alarming takeaway from this performance because it’s directly related to lacking a sense of urgency. Don’t agree, take Roy Williams’ word on it, then.

“I think the difference in the game, to me, was their sense of urgency early in the game,” Carolina coach said. “The first 10, 12, 14 minutes, their sense of urgency was greater than ours. They shot 70%, got every rebound when they did miss a shot. And so, all of a sudden, it's 12, 14, I don't know how many we were down.”

Actually, it was 17 at 46-29 with 3:56 left in the first half. That was actually at the under-four timeout when Williams lit into his team. They went back out onto the court much more spirited and closed the half on a 13-2 run cutting the margin to seven by the intermission.

The Heels were quicker, faster, more alert and more responsive to situations because they had the right mindset. That stretch fueled Williams’ postgame message to his team.

“Obviously, the way we played those last four minutes of the first half, it should be played for both halves,” Davis said, repeating what his coach told the team. “So, once we put those two together, we'll be very successful.”

UNC has had some moments. Pulling away from the College of Charleston in the opener was littered with positives, the win over Stanford, the fight versus Texas, the 18:31 stretch at Iowa, and the grit in beating Kentucky.

But none of those performances will get the Heels to the winner’s circle much in the ACC. They need more, a lot more.

They need their older players to lead, someone to step up and hit some shots from the outside, the guards to make better decisions, for Love to play with confidence, for that sense of urgency to always be there, and to avoid falling behind big early, which the Tar Heels did here for the sixth time in eight games by at least 11 points in the first half.

It’s still early in the season, but not as early as it seems. Only 19 games remain and all are against ACC teams. The league may be down, but as much as UNC can win any of these contests, it can lose them, too.

However many the Heels end up dropping will depend entirely on what gets fixed. That’s Williams’ task right now, and it’s not a small one.