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WINSTON-SALEM, NC – North Carolina returns hope for a trio of games inside the Smith Center this week, looking to shift the course of a season that seemingly went off the rails this past week.
The Tar Heels once again lost a lopsided contest when they were defeated by Wake Forest, 98-76, in Joel Coliseum on Saturday night.
UNC, which also fell at Miami on Tuesday night, dropped two games this past week by an average margin of 25 points, as the Tar Heels’ road struggles continue. UNC currently sits at 3-6 in games played away from Chapel Hill and has lost back-to-back ACC games by 20-plus points for the first time since the worst season in program history, when the 2001-02 team went 8-20.
Carolina (12-6, 4-3) missed a significant opportunity Saturday night to earn a Quad 1 win, falling to 0-6 on the seasons against quad one teams, with Notre Dame moving up to No. 70 in the NET, that loss has moved into the Q1 category. As disappointing as this past week was for Carolina, the battered Tar Heels will not get much time to lick their wounds. Due to health and safety protocols, North Carolina's game against Virginia Tech initially scheduled for December 29 was rescheduled and will be played Monday night.
That means UNC will play three games this week, all at home versus Virginia Tech, Boston College, and NC State, and by the time it faces Louisville on the road Feb. 1, Carolina will have played five games in 11 days. But given the issues on the road, the Heels are looking forward to playing inside the Dean Dome for the next few games, and maintaining a short memory, as sophomore guard Caleb Love says.
"I believe that we just gotta have a short memory,” Love following the loss at Wake. “We gotta put this game behind us, but we got to learn from it as well. These games that we have ahead of us aren't cupcake games, so we just gotta have a short memory and on to the next, prepare for this team we have next, and like I said, we gotta figure this thing out quick.”
First-year head coach Hubert Davis has never faced a challenge this significant in his brief coaching career. Although this form of adversity is new to Davis, the former NBA player is no stranger to overcoming hardship, so Davis will do what he's always done when things got hard in his basketball career, get back to work.
"Get back to preparation, get back to practice; there is no other option," Davis said. "This past week wasn't a good week for us, so we can sit here and whine and complain and make excuses, or we can get back up and keep fighting, or start fighting and get ready for this upcoming week.
“That's just automatic for me it's just my personality, and that's what this team is going to do."
With sixty percent of the season finished, the Tar Heels face two realities. On the one hand, Carolina has not shown the mental fortitude necessary to be the team that can achieve its season missions. On the other hand, UNC only sits 1.5 games back of first place in the ACC with 13 contests remaining.
The Heels still have time to figure things out, but it starts with them turning the page and not letting a bad week on the road turn into a bad week at home.
“I don't want to go through what I went through last year, and I know this team doesn't want to go through what we went through last year as far as the team losing so many games that we know we should have won,” Love said. “We know we are better than what we have been playing like, and it's only us who can change it.
“There's nothing Coach Davis can tell us or any of the other coaches can do for us. It's on us, and we have to play better."
And that begins Monday night versus the Hokies.
