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CHAPEL HILL - North Carolina made the quick turnaround off a tough weekend at The Mohegan Sun to take on UNC-Asheville Tuesday night at home, and an attempt at improved defense was on the Tar Heels’ menu.
And after a rough start to the season on that end, the Tar Heels put together their best effort on that side of the court in a 72-53 victory at the Smith Center.
Carolina came in giving up 83.8 points per game, with opponents shooting 47.8 percent from the field. Teams have only been shooting 37.6 percent from beyond the arc, but 53.4 percent from inside the arc. Tonight, the Heels held Asheville to well under those numbers.
“The positive was we held them to 26 percent from the field,” UNC Coach Hubert Davis said. “Over the weekend against Purdue and Tennessee, from a defensive standpoint, we didn’t play defense the way that I felt like we can play defense.
“Tonight, to hold a team to 26 percent, I’m really encouraged by that … There were a lot of frustrated, upset, motivated guys in the locker room, and they responded on the defensive end.”
As Davis mentioned, the team really struggled defensively over the weekend against two good basketball teams. Purdue shot 55.7 percent and scored 93 points, and Tennessee shot 54.3 percent and scored 89 points. Carolina had a big opportunity in Connecticut, but didn’t capitalize on it, which was cause for frustration among the players and their first-year coach.
Junior forward Armando Bacot echoed that sentiment, with the first thing targeted for improvement the Heels’ effort in stopping opponents.
“After the weekend, it didn’t go the way we wanted, and we were all pretty upset about that,” Bacot said. “Coming into this game, we knew we wanted to get out there and compete on defense … We tried to just really get after it on defense.”
Being more disruptive was major point of emphasis, as its effort has been challenged early on. The Tar Heels made sure that wouldn’t happen Tuesday.
“We played super hard on defense today,” forward Brady Manek said. “Everybody’s gonna give up a play, everybody’s gonna give up a drive by, everybody’s gonna miss a block out. It happens, it’s basketball, but we played our butts off on the defensive end.”
Not only did UNC hold Asheville to 26.5 percent shooting, but it also gave up just 53 points, and didn’t allow a single fastbreak point, after allowing 16.7 fastbreak points per game over the last three. Transition defense was there.
While there still were lapses on defense, the Tar Heels took a step into the right direction. It’s not going to fix itself overnight, but Tuesday reflected some progress.
“Defensively, I definitely feel like we took a step forward today,” sophomore guard Caleb Love said. “We just gotta put a full 40 minutes together on that end.”
Six games into the season, defense has plagued this UNC team. However, versus Asheville, the Heels put together their best performance on that end, and gave themselves something to build off of. That was the first of what the Heels hope are many steps in the right direction on that front.
