Among UNC's Issues: Toughness
CHAPEL HILL – The simplicity in explaining to a novice the basics of how to play basketball begins, and sort of ends, with a need to put the ball through the cylinder.
Both teams want to achieve this as much as they can and, on the flip side, minimize how often opponents are successful at this uncomplicated mission. The variances that happen in between are wide ranging and tailored with numerous different looks and approaches, of which often affect the frequency, or infrequency, teams accomplish their assignment.
The better clubs find ways to keep the opposition from converting its attempts enough to win even when things don’t go so well on the offensive end. They have a toughness – mental, internal and physical – that carries them through more treacherous times.
North Carolina found itself in one of those moments Saturday, only that its wiring was off so much it led to a dysfunctional 83-62 loss to Louisville at the Smith Center.
Its shots weren’t going in, many weren’t even close, and the Tar Heels were completely out of sorts on offense. They weren’t going to light up the scoreboard on Saturday. It was, as senior Luke Maye said, “just one of those days.”
Maye converted only 3 of 14 shots from the field, one of which hit nothing before landing in the hands of a Louisville player. That was just one brief sequence in a 40-minute game that carried many that were quite similar.
Carolina lost ugly because it couldn’t win ugly.
“If you think you can only win when you shoot the ball (well) then you’re not very tough, and that really ticks me off,” UNC Coach Roy Williams said following the loss, in which the Heels were out-shot 51.9 percent to 34.5 percent.
“You’ve got to be able to win basketball games ugly. We’ve won hundreds of basketball games ugly. It’s just acting like a pansy, ‘Oh, my shot’s not going in.’ If that’s the case, go find your mamma and hug her.”
Interestingly, Carolina shot at least 48.4 percent in its first eight victories and not above 45.3 percent in its last four wins. Overall, however, UNC is at 48.9 percent in its 12 wins while holding opponents to 38 percent overall from the field, including 28.4 percent from 3-point range.
Conversely, the Heels have made only 40.5 percent of their shots in the four losses while opponents have 50.8 percent from the field, including 42.9 percent from beyond the arc.
In addition, UNC, which has a rebounding margin of nearly plus-12 per game, has grabbed just one total rebound more than its foes in the four losses combined.
None of this is rocket science to the Tar Heels. They know what the deal is.
“(Williams has) tried to talk about even if we’re not making shots, we need to crack down defensively and kind of win in a different way – win on the boards, win in transition, things like that to get easy baskets,” Maye said following the loss to Louisville. “And we didn’t do that today.”
Williams often says it requires toughness to take and convert open shots, but what he’s looking for right now comes from much deeper within, an iron ore kind of thing. In the end, however, the players have to see this, too, and maybe that sunk in Saturday.
“We got our butts kicked,” Cam Johnson said. “They came out and hit us in the mouth early and we struggled to get back. They made some shots, we didn't make shots. They kinda took it to us."
Next step: Fixing the problem.