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ATLANTA – Silence the noise.
That certainly was North Carolina’s mission, or at least part of it, last week when the wobbling Tar Heels were tasked with hosting Michigan followed by a road game a few days later at defending ACC champion Georgia Tech.
Considering how the Heels played at the Hall of Fame Tip-Off in losses to Purdue and Tennessee, and the overwhelming narrative regarding their lack of interest on the defensive end of the court, they weren’t exactly being showered with accolades.
National media crushed them. Local media laid out all that wasn’t going well. And fans on various forms of social media didn’t hide their concern.
So, they wanted to silence those critics, the Heels said, which occurred in a 72-51 romp over the Wolverines. That blasting included a 43-18 run in the second half in which Carolina was exquisite on both ends of the floor and won the battle on the backboards.
Then, an even greater challenge was backing up that performance at Georgia Tech without the fuel of criticism. That stopped the minute Wednesday’s win over Michigan ended. Carolina 79, Yellow Jackets 62, courtesy of a 22-4 second-half run that change the game.
“I feel like we’re just locked in…,” redshirt sophomore Anthony Harris said Sunday, noting what the difference was in the Heels’ big week and what took place at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.
“Just priding ourselves on our defensive effort, just staying with one another, talking to our teammates and being positive.”
Now, UNC Coach Hubert Davis will work on getting his team to remain focused, to not attain a degree of satisfaction. One week of quality hoops well before Christmas does not make a team. The club that was shredded by the Boilermakers and Volunteers is comprised of the same roster that took apart Michigan and Tech last week.
There is nothing wrong with the Heels being honest with themselves and expressing those thoughts, though. They had a really good week after a dreadful one. They flipped the switch, junior forward Armando Bacot said.
“One hundred percent,” he said, before refusing to lose focus on the bigger picture. “We still got a bunch of big matchups. We got UCLA and we’ve got some other good games coming up. We just have to keep validating our wins versus Michigan and Georgia Tech by having big wins against these teams.”
One reason for the improved play, in addition to the team’s heightened internal focus and drive, was they got a chance to fix some of the things that weren’t going as well as Davis wanted.
In the stretch through the Mohegan Sun, the Tar Heels played a game on a Friday at home versus Brown, Tuesday at College of Charleston, and then Saturday and Sunday versus Purdue and Tennessee, respectively.
That is four games in nine days, with travel to Charleston, SC, and back and then to Connecticut and back. And then there was a Tuesday home game versus UNC-Asheville, which wasn’t exactly a UNC performance worth saving for viewing decades down the road. So, it was really five games in 11 days in three states with an NCAA-mandated day off in between.
The Heels just didn’t have much time to iron out some issues. But they had eight days before Michigan came to town, and that is when the staff and team rolled up their sleeves and went to work.
“I think sometimes, you play in so many games you’re in game-mode, but where you get better is in practice,” Davis said. “And so, from that UNC-Asheville game to Michigan, we had eight days off…
“We had an opportunity to reinforce our foundation and build principles that we had talked about all summer and all preseason. We were able to get back to our foundation.”
The foundation, the players said Sunday, is defense, enjoying each other’s success, and simply getting after it.
They did that in a pair of wins that could change the course of the season, one that remains young, but certainly has a different feel than it did a week ago.
