Maybe the Heels Have Shown Themselves, and That's Okay
CHAPEL HILL – While the presumed quest for North Carolina playing the perfect game as the postseason nears is a heavy recent topic, perhaps the Tar Heels are already in true March mode, and a 40-minute work of art is an unrealistic expectation.
If so, and going against what has been prescribed as a must for this team in these spaces and others, just maybe the Tar Heels have been hard-hatting their way to layering coat of armor after coat of armor. That resilience enables budding champions to deflect bad stretches, hot-shooting foes, and general misfortune while marching forward deeper in to the month of madness.
Less the ACC Tournament, and more the NCAA Tournament, advancing isn’t always about aesthetics. It’s simply about wins, and winning any way a team can.
Consider the 2017 national championship game, in which UNC defeated Gonzaga 71-65. The Tar Heels shot 35.6 percent from the field, 14.8 percent from 3-point range, and 57.7 percent from the free throw line. But they cut down the nets anyway, because that club was fortified with many similar ones the current Tar Heels possess.
Their beauty seven years ago was in the eventual outcome.
“It was an ugly game,” then-UNC Coach Roy Williams said after winning his third title at Carolina. “I mean, I don't think either team played exceptionally well offensively.”
The Most Outstanding Player of that Final Four was Joel Berry, whose grit on a rugged, veteran team stood out, especially during the postseason.
A badly injured ankle made for daily articles about his health and physical readiness. But he persevered, bringing a unique quality that clearly trumped sometimes blah numbers.
“He's been in the pool, hot tub, cold tub," Williams said that night in Phoenix after his team won it all. "They've been massaging it, doing everything they can possibly do, four and five times a day.
"But the games are going to be played. We can't get a delay and say, 'We're not ready.' You've got to play. And his toughness, I think, everybody on our club picked up on that. I think it was important to everybody."
The point here, and how it relates to the current Tar Heels, is that numbers matter this time of year, and in some ways they don’t, except two: the points scored by the two teams playing, and when most things are generally equal, the more connected club is usually the one finding ways to take care of business.
That is an obvious trademark of the 2023-24 Tar Heels. At 23-6 overall and 15-3 in the ACC, they are atop the league standings and in position to possibly earn a No. 1 seed in the big dance.
It isn’t, however, because Hubert Davis’ team blitzkriegs most of its opponents always earning style points along the way. Some blowouts have occurred, but for the most part, it’s about doing the card-punching things, their well-roundedness, and penchant for making game-altering plays at the right times have positioned them to contend for something truly special.
The last four games are a perfect example.
Armando Bacot led the Heels with 25 points in a win more than two weeks ago over Virginia Tech. Cormac Ryan’s 18 points paced Carolina in a win at Virginia, RJ Davis made history with his 42-point explosion last Monday at home against Miami, and Harrison Ingram led the team with 22 points in disposing NC State on Saturday.
In addition, in two of UNC’s last five wins, Elliot Cadeau has scored 19 points at Miami and 15 on Saturday against the Wolfpack.
“It really just speaks on our team,” Bacot said. “Harrison, he goes out there and scores a season-high. It just shows, you can blitz and screen on RJ, we got Harrison knocking down shots, Elliot will play big, you can double me and RJ will play big. You can shrink the flow on Harrison.
“We’ve got so many different guys that can step up, and I think that really just showed (Saturday), really how versatile our team is.”
In the meantime, the other Heels not posting prolific numbers in those games were plenty content in feeding hot hands and doing all of the dirty work and necessary things to ensure a victory. A dive on the floor here, drawn charge there, tip-out of a missed shot there, and gallons of sweat everywhere have marked UNC’s recent play.
Even when the Heels have gone through some supremely ugly stretches, which have seemingly met each game of late, the veteran club still finds ways to climb out of it and march forward.
Not always outstanding defensively over the last month, the Tar Heels have locked down.
Carolina limited Virginia Tech to 1-for-11 in a key stretch two weeks ago. A week later, Virginia had a 1-for-23 period, and this past Saturday, NC State missed 15 consecutive shot attempts. That's getting it done in game-changing fashion with sleeves rolled up.
Coupled with the collective mindset they haven’t accomplished anything is an important note to where things stand. The Heels have been a bit humbled the few times they’ve grown a tad satisfied.
So, standing atop the ACC standings in first place with promising projections about their future are nice, but none of that will happen if the Heels lose focus, their coach says.
“It’s nice to have success and it’s nice to be in first place, but I don’t think about that,” Hubert Davis said. “I don’t communicate that to the players. It’s not something that we talk about, it’s not something that we thinks about. I’ve always been a preparation and process guy. I got that from Coach Smith.
“When I was here in school, he took out the stats in the (student paper) Daily Tar Heel. We didn’t know what we were averaging, how many minutes were played. He always told us, ‘if you focus on your preparation and your practice, at the end of the day, your play will take care of itself.”
The clear selflessness about the Heels and their resolute approach are serious attributes. And as many observers and analysts continue seeking the near-perfect game from Carolina, perhaps lost in all of that is the true Tar Heels have shown themselves for a couple of months.
And so far, it has worked out okay.
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