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SOUTH BEND, IN – So what went wrong defensively for North Carolina in its 78-73 loss to Notre Dame at Joyce Center on Wednesday night?
In a way, it was a twist from the ills of the first three losses. Notre Dame didn’t pound the ball inside nor relentlessly drive to the rim like Purdue, Tennessee, and Kentucky did in some form to the tune of 150 combined points in the paint in UNC’s losses to those highly ranked teams.
Carolina couldn’t stop the dribble drive and struggled with help defense in the paint in those games. It had help defense issues in South Bend, again, but many of Carolina’s problems stemmed from its soft switching on screens. Notre Dame was fully prepared for this and exploited it out of the gate.
It helped the Fighting Irish get open threes, often from quick two and three-dribble drives before kicking out the ball, or pick-and-pop stuff. At times, multiple perimeter shooters were open. The only question was quick Notre Dame player would take the open three on that possession.
And so on.
“We wanted to switch one-through-four, and then when (Paul) Atkinson was in, we wanted to ice him and weaken his screens,” UNC junior forward Armando Bacot said. “But, we were just having trouble getting into all the defensive coverages. And it wasn’t even so much of the switching, it was more like us getting in a switch and them driving and us being too much in help, and they were playing the drive-and-kick and they were just knocking down threes.”
An example of the mess the Irish turned UNC into with the screens and help defense is that 10 of Notre Dame’s 13 made threes were assisted, and almost exclusively after screens. At times, it appeared as if the Irish were running game-rep offense the day before a big game.
They were on point because the Tar Heels weren’t.
The screens came first, then the soft switching, then the need for helpers. It didn’t work out.
“I just feel like we were helping too much on those drives,” Caleb Love said. “This team likes to shoot threes, and they weren’t really beating us on drives and getting to the cup or down low in the post, they were beating us on those wide-open threes and us over helping.
“And I just think that we tried to help too much on the drive instead of guarding the three, which this is a three-point shooting team.”
The appearance was Carolina never made any adjustments in an attempt to disrupt the screen-and-three game the Irish ran to near perfection. UNC Coach Hubert Davis said he tweaked things, but they just didn’t work.
When he made those adjustments is hard to tell. Nothing affected the Irish. They hit five threes in the first 9:47 of the game, four of which were assisted, and were 7-for-15 from three in the first half and 6-for-16 after halftime.
"We did,” Davis said, when asked about altering the approach. “We were reading one-through-four and then we were, in our terminology, icing, weaking (Notre Dame big Paul) Atkinson, and just didn't feel like that was working. And we changed it up and we just switched everything one-through-five so that there was no confusion and they were still able to get some open looks.”
Irish veteran and Tar Heel killer Nate Laszewski was scorching from the perimeter, hitting six of seven from outside, but Cormac Ryan was 3-for-4 as well. Ake Wesley, Prentiss Hubb, Trey Wertz, Dane Goodwin, and Atkinson were a combined 4-for-20 from beyond the arc, but it seemed like they were more accurate, perhaps because so many of the looks were wide open.
Fourteen games into the season, and UNC’s defense has been excellent at times and poor at times, and with Notre Dame’s approach Wednesday night, it isn’t just one or two elements Carolina has struggled with, as that list extended in this defeat.
It also shows future opponents will have multiple blueprints in how to attack the Tar Heels, depending on their strengths.
And for UNC, it suggests perhaps more tweaking is in order.
