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CHAPEL HILL – Bubble talk, bubble talk, and more bubble talk.
That’s all anyone really wants to discuss when it comes to the North Carolina Tar Heels, aside from some chatter about the all-over-the-map play of sophomore guard Caleb Love, at least locally.
Otherwise, the Tar Heels are the most discussed and dissected team in the nation when it comes to being on the NCAA Tournament fence, which isn’t lost on the Heels. They can’t escape it. But the players also believe they are growing, and their coach says the chemistry has never been better.
For that, the question begs: Are the Tar Heels playing their best basketball of the season right now?
Could be.
The Tar Heels have won four consecutive games and six of seven since a 20-point loss at home to Duke on February 5. The fly in the ointment over the last month remains the highly perplexing loss to Pittsburgh in the Smith Center, a game UNC trailed by 21 points with less than nine minutes to play.
Perhaps that was the last straw for a team that has seen multiple examples of what happens when they aren’t ready to play, or don’t respond well within a contest to opponents’ runs.
UNC has lost eight games this season by an average of 17.4 points, four times losing by 20 or more. That is a bad look, and it is one of the main factors used by national pundits when gauging Carolina’s worthiness for inclusion into the NCAAs. Their 1-7 record in Quad 1 games is an eyesore, as well.
But the Tar Heels also have 22 victories, seven of which are true road wins. Only five other teams from major conferences, which includes the Big East, have more true road victories on the season.
Heading into Cameron Indoor Stadium this weekend in the final home game for legendary Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, the Heels believe they are starting to play their best hoops of the season at just the right time. And they say it begins with chemistry.
“Absolutely,” senior wing Leaky Black said Monday night, agreeing the team’s cohesion has grown strong. “I feel like throughout the season, we obviously know we’ve had some games where we had some mental lapses, but I feel like this team’s ability to pull this one out just shows the maturity and the growth we’ve had this year.”
“And HD (UNC Coach Hubert Davis) being his first year, I’m just so happy for him.”
Davis has received his fair share of criticism from Carolina’s fans, and not entirely without reason. First of all, that goes with the territory of leading perhaps the top brand in college basketball and a program that has won more NCAA Tournament games over the last 19 years than any other school.
It also comes with leading a club that has pulled some absolute no-shows and at times hasn’t displayed enough mental or physical toughness needed to navigate difficult sequences or nights. But that appears to have shifted course some over the last month.
On February 1, Carolina visited frustrated and fledgling Louisville, a proud program spiraling into a mess that will soon lead to the hiring of a new coach. The Cardinals pulled the Heels into an alley that night, and somewhat surprisingly, Carolina withstood the chaos coming out with a 90-83 victory amidst a parade of debris flying onto the court and unpleasantries hollered by the angry home fans.
Then Duke happened. The Blue Devils blitzed the Heels in the Dean Dome, beating Carolina by 20 in Coach K’s last visit, but three days later, the Tar Heels found a way to escape Clemson with a 79-77 victory. Armando Bacot fouled out that night, but UNC still fought on and survived.
A rout of Florida State had the Heels getting satisfied again. Fat and happy, perhaps. The effect was an embarrassing loss at home to Pitt that will remain in the Quad 4 column through Selection Sunday. It was inexcusable, but it’s part of who these Heels have been. And instead of running from it and making excuses, the Tar Heels appear to have embraced how that happened. That is how to best learn from the shocking defeat.
Four wins in four games since, including a physical grinder at Virginia Tech, a nerve-racking survival at home versus Louisville, a solid thumping of NC State on the road, and Monday’s thriller over Syracuse.
In three of the wins during the current streak, Carolina needed to make plays on both ends of the floor late, and did just that. The most stressful of the wins came over the Orange. Love scored 14 of his 21 points over the final 2:33 of regulation and overtime to lift the Heels.
A loss and they would have been in serious danger of not making the NCAAs, or needing to win out at the ACC Tournament next week in Brooklyn securing the league’s automatic berth. But after getting a clutch three-pointer by Love with 7.2 seconds remaining in regulation, the Heels opened overtime on an 8-0 run, pulling away from the Orange.
In addition, Armando Bacot has tied the program-record with 23 double-doubles, incluidng four consecutive games with t least 15 rebounds. Love has come up big late in multiple wins over the last month. Black is playing the best hoops of his career. And so on.
Defense, offense, unselfishness, ruggedness, spirit, and passion. All led to the big-time win that brought out a bit of celebration from the anxiety ridden Heels.
“One of the things that I've said to a couple people yesterday and today, I felt like this is the healthiest our team has been all season and I'm not talking about physical health,” Carolina’s coach said following the win over Syracuse. “I'm just talking about in terms of chemistry health. It's been the best it's been all season.
“There is a togetherness that we have right now that has manifested into something that's just really special. Our huddles are full of encouragement. We're lifting each other up. We're finding the joy and how hard it is to be successful out there as a team and individually. There's a collective togetherness that this group is forming more and more each day and it's a lot of fun to see. It's a joy to experience and it's unbelievable to be around."
In a way, the Heels should get some forgiveness for taking so long to hit their stride and develop the cohesion necessary to plow through cluttered paths. As January arrived, they lost reserve guard Anthony Harris for the season due to reasons the school has not revealed. And a couple of weeks later, former starting forward Dawson Garcia headed home to Minnesota to deal with family illnesses that have included multiple deaths over the last year.
The Heels were diving into ACC play and struggling with Garcia, whose last game was a 22-point loss at Wake Forest. It cemented Brady Manek as the starting stretch four, and as his play has grown more comfortable with his teammates since, as Carolina has won a greater percentage of games.
The Heels are 10-2 since Garcia left. And while the bench has been trimmed to the nub, the starters appear more in sync with each passing performance.
They assisted on 21 of 29 field goals versus Syracuse, and perhaps nothing illustrates Carolina’s improving on-court cohesion better than how Manek has meshed with his mates.
In 122 games at Oklahoma, of which he started 111, Manek handed out three or more assists just seven times. But in the 12 games since Garcia went home, Manek has done it six times, including tying his career-high of five in the win last Saturday at NC State.
That is just one example, and sophomore guard RJ Davis offered more.
“I think we were all able to buy into what we want as a team, and I think that was able to carry on over to team chemistry,” he said, perhaps suggesting the Heels were triggered by tiring of the ugly losses. “You could see today how we were able to share the ball. We didn’t care about who got the shots, who had the most points what not. It was more about getting the win, and I think that’s been huge for us.
“It’s also been huge for us in practice, and I think when we’re sharing the ball in practice and having fun off the court as a team, it carries on into the game of play.”
Carolina’s NET ranking moved up to No. 39 and could climb a bit higher with Michigan’s rout of Michigan State on Tuesday night. The Heels are certainly hoping the Wolverines can notch a few more wins and rise into the top 30, which would move the Heels’ win over them in December into the Quad 1 column.
Even if that doesn’t happen, the vibe emanating from the Carolina program is the Tar Heels are finally playing tough enough to deal with in-game adversity, loose enough to not be overwhelmed by all of the bubble talk, and content on sharing the wealth for the sum of the whole.
Love rejected the notion Monday night the Heels play each game with the NCAA fence talk weighing on them. Instead, he says it is about the task at hand, and nothing more.
“I feel like our mindset would be, ‘Just win this game,’” he said. ‘“Don’t worry about anything else, anything about the outside noise or any talk about the bubble talk or anything else. We know who we are, what we’re capable of.’”
And whatever that is, it appears North Carolina is heading in that direction.
