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CHESTNUT HILL, MA – Hubert Davis has been doing a lot of preaching and teaching of late.
The first-year North Carolina coach had plenty of intel with which to work once Christmas came, so he combed over every aspect of his team’s ills and positives and developed a clear plan to combat the bad stuff.
In addition to the 30-day challenge to his team to daily exercise energy, effort, and toughness, he also emphatically insisted they get better guarding the ball and defending the paint, among other things.
So after watching the film of the Tar Heels’ 91-65 romp at Boston College on Sunday, Davis didn’t have many complaints.
“I really liked the way that we guarded the basketball and that we defended the paint,” Davis said Monday morning, during the weekly ACC conference call.
What UNC did to Boston College during a span of 14:42 in the first half was something not seen at the Power 5 level very often, and certainly not previously from this club. And looking at BC’s misses, it’s clear Carolina fully executed Davis’ week-long mantra.
During the demolition that took place on both ends of the court, UNC turned a 4-0 deficit into a 36-12 advantage. BC was 2-for-24 from the field in the stretch, at one point missing 11 consecutive attempts.
In that 24-shot span, the Eagles were 0-for-8 on layups, 1-for-6 on jumpers inside the arc, and 1-for-10 on threes. Points in the paint? Nope, none, which includes dumps into the post, putbacks on the offensive glass, and minimizing the dribble drives. And the 10 attempted threes were just five shy of BC’s per-game average attempted perimeter shots entering the game. That illustrates its inability to create many drives.
For the game, Boston College attempted 28 threes, 13 more than its average going into the contest, and it was 11-for-28 on layups.
Incredibly, BC was 4-for-31 nearly 17 minutes into the game. And on the afternoon, the Eagles were 21-for-67 (31.3 percent), including 8-for-28 from three-point range, and had just 22 points in the paint.
How Carolina played defensively reflected the constant message throughout this past week.
“Yeah, for sure just knowing our teammates got our back,” sophomore Caleb Love said not long after the victory inside Conte Forum, when asked about the mission Davis has mandated. “If we get beat, then the they're gonna be there for us. So just being like we're not really on the island, we're on the island but were not because we got four of our teammates locked in on defense.”
“And then the gaps in the midline so just guarding our man, we have a lot more confidence guarding our man and knowing that we can stay in front of them.”
The Tar Heels forced only eight turnovers, and of their two blocked shots, one came on the first attempt of the game, when Leaky Black swatted away a short jumper by DeMarr Langford.
Five of the 11 made layups were after offensive rebounds. Davis said his team needs to be better protecting the defensive glass, but still, BC finished with 12 offensive boards yet missed 46 shots, which is an acceptable 26.1 percent.
So, the efficiency on playing straight defense was clearly the highlight of the lopsided victory.
“One of the things that we’ve talked about a lot in terms of just redefining our in-game principles from a defensive standpoint,” Davis said. “Whether it’s in the halfcourt or in transition, we don’t want to give up any layups or dunks, don’t want to give up any uncontested threes, we don’t want to foul and put them at the free throw line, and we don’t want to give them any second-chance opportunities.
“I think especially in the first half, we did almost all four of them, with the exception of offensive rebounding… I thought we did really well from a defensive standpoint, (and) I think we’re starting to understand and accept and realize that our success on the offensive end is tied to how well we play on the defensive end.”
The defensive mandate and the 30-day challenge clearly go hand-in-hand, one cannot escape the other, and with another road game coming up Wednesday at Notre Dame, both will be put to test again.
But if Davis’ words are any indication, the needle could be pointed in the right direction.
*Deana King contributed to this piece.
