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FORT WORTH, TX – Coaching can often be a lot like parenting.
Tell a child not to do something once usually isn’t enough. And sometimes, they need to learn tough lessons on their own.
North Carolina’s basketball team has had more than a handful of those occasions this season, mostly in the form of blowout losses to quality opponents. Sticking out the most was how the Tar Heels regrouped and embraced what went wrong in the week it was destroyed by Miami and Wake Forest on the road by a combined 50 points.
Perhaps of equal value was what the Tar Heels gained from the debacle at home versus Pittsburgh. Carolina waltzed into that game clearly not respecting the struggling Panthers and paid a dear price.
Pitt blew out the Tar Heels. It led by 17 points at halftime and by 21 with 8:26 left to play. If not for Caleb Love’s 15-point eruption from the 5:11 mark to the 1:21 mark, the full-on laugher would have been completed by a team that was 11-21 overall and 6-14 in the ACC.
It was the most embarrassing night of a season that provided such a moniker with considerable competition. It was so bad that UNC Coach Hubert Davis’ approach with his team wasn’t to love on them reminding each player that every goal remained intact, which was his message after losing in Coral Gables, FL, and Winston-Salem. This time, Davis was ticked off and his team knew it.
“I wasn't nice after the Pitt loss,” Davis said a few days ago in Fort Worth, TX, where the Tar Heels won twice to advance to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. “After we lost to Miami and Wake, it was, like, guys, I love you. After the Pitt loss, it was, guys, get over here.”
Sometimes parents have to raise their voices, or at least speak to children in a stern manner to finally get their attention. So, Davis did just that.
At particular issue with the first-year UNC coach was that his team just wasn’t into the game as was needed, and it wasn’t even close.
“After we lost to Pitt, we watched tape the next day,” Davis recalled. “And I put together 20 clips. And I showed them that 20 times from a defensive standpoint that we did something that wasn't drilled, wasn't coached, wasn't taught, and wasn't practiced.
“And I just told them it confused me that we would try to do something in a game that we had not taught, hadn't talked about, hadn't practiced, and hadn't drilled.”
Davis has harped on the importance of preparation since last summer. It isn’t the sexiest topic for players and fans, but it is perhaps the most vital. Prepared teams blowout Marquette by 32 points and then lead defending national champion Baylor by 25 with 10 minutes to play in NCAA Tournament games. Unprepared and casually motivated teams lose big at home to the Pitts of the world.
So, in a season of lessons being hammered home time and again, maybe the greatest reinforcement of Davis’ many messages was spawned Feb. 16 in what originally was considered by many a throwaway game for the Tar Heels. Just show up and win, though that wasn’t the case.
UNC finally understands the reality that it has little room for error regardless of the opponent. And that was the value of what happened that night.
“I would say our preparation and mindset, going to practice, into the games,” sophomore guard RJ Davis said. “We knew the potential of this team coming into this season. And we just wanted to turn it around. We knew after the loss to Pitt, that wasn't the way we wanted to play.
“So, from that point on, I think we just turned it around and started to compete. And everyone bought into their roles and that's kind of what we've been buying into.”
Confusing, though part of this team’s process, was that it had one of its best practices of the season the day after losing to Pitt and witnessing the ugly mistakes on film. It led to an enormous win at Virginia Tech, which one can trace back to without much dissent as the turning point of the season.
Carolina combined its sometimes-breathtaking skills with a mental and physical ruggedness that afternoon in frenzied Cassell Coliseum pulling off a win that changed the trajectory of the season. Perhaps that doesn’t happen without the Pitt game and the team finally allowing some lessons to sink in.
“And after practice, I said, ‘Why would you guys play this hard against each other and not play against an opponent,’” Hubert said, referring to the day after the Pitt game. “And for whatever reason, that seemed to resonate in them.
“And when we went up to Virginia Tech, we were more together than any time during the season. And we were up there to compete. And I really felt like that Pitt loss reminded us of the way that we felt on that bus ride coming back from Wake Forest, and that we didn't want to have that feeling again.”
The Heels may have taken more heat from the Pitt loss than any of the others, which were at least to NCAA-level teams. But one could surmise it was also the last bit of schooling the club needed to clip away that part of their collective hoops persona once and for all.
And without that night five weeks ago, the Heels might not be headed to Philadelphia this week, two wins from another trip to the Final Four.
