UNC Hoops: A Few More Takeaways

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CHAPEL HILL – With more to dive into from North Carolina’s 105-60 win over Charleston Southern at the Smith Center on Friday night, here we grab onto four more items from the Tar Heels’ performance and some of their trends:

Note: UNC is 9-3 overall, including 1-0 in the ACC. It has just ACC games remaining in the regular season. Its next contest is at Pittsburgh on Tuesday night at 7 PM.

Elliot Cadeau’s most recent performance wasn’t one of his best, as he went 2-for-7 from the field while handing out just one assist against two turnovers. That was in the win over Oklahoma.

Now, his shooting percentage hadn’t been bad, as he was 1-for-2 versus Kentucky, 3-for-4 against UConn, and 3-for-5 versus FSU. You’d have to go back to late November for his 0-for-5 effort versus Tennessee to find a truly poor shooting game. Yet, he had 10 assists against no turnovers that night, so it was essentially a wash. Only that it really wasn’t.

One of the healthy aspects of this UNC team is that everyone on the floor must be guarded. They can all score, so it’s important that Cadeau get the ball through the cylinder a few times each game. His ability to score must be respected like is ability to distribute.

In UNC’s previous five games leading into Friday, Cadea was 0-for-3 from the perimeter. Not only must he make a three every so often, he needs to shoot them. In the first six games, he was 3-for-9 from the perimeter, but at least attempted at least one trey in each of those contests. His not shooting as many over the last month is an indication his confidence hasn’t been real high.

So, with Cadeau’s 13-point second half against Charleston Southern, which included him converting one of two threes, he acknowledged he needed to see the ball go through the cylinder.

“It was great for me, especially going into ACC,” Cadeau said after the game. “I’m confident in myself now. First half was pretty rough, but the second half was good for me to see the ball go in, and I think I’ll carry that on.”

Cadeau is averaging 7.3 points shooting 44.8 percent from the floor overall, including 28.6 percent (4-for-14) from the perimeter.

After being outrebounded by 27 over its previous three games, UNC changed that course some in the win over Charleston Southern. The Tar Heels out-boarded the Buccaneers, 46-25, including 13-6 on the offensive glass.

Now, it’s understood this was against a struggling low-major, but it was an improvement, and tied the team’s mark for largest rebounding margin of the season. Carolina was plus-21 in the win over Lehigh in November.

UNC has won the rebounding battle in eight of its 12 games.

Here are those eight:

*Radford plus-3 (12-11 offensive)

*Lehigh plus-21 (15-8 offensive)

*Northern Iowa plus-3 (12-7 offensive)

*Villanova plus-5 (13-11 offensive)

*Arkansas plus-11 (13-6 offensive)

*Tennessee plus-3 (12-7 offensive)

*FSU plus-9 (11-9 offensive)

*Charleston Southern plus-21 (13-6 offensive)

The four it hasn’t:

*UC Riverside minus-1 (10-14 offensive)

*UConn minus-10 (10-11 offensive)

*Kentucky minus-10 (6-18 offensive)

*Oklahoma minus-7 (7-11 offensive)

UNC Coach Hubert Davis went out of his way to mention the Heels went from good-to-good in their shot selection for the whole of recent games to good-to-great in the win Friday night. For example, the Tar Heels have shot 50-percent or better in 10 of 24 halves thus far, with six coming after halftime.

In two games, the opener versus Radford and Friday night against Charleston Southern, the Heels were at or above 50 percent in both halves. What’s noteworthy is that since halftime of the Tennessee game, the Heels hit the 50-percent mark just twice before Friday night, a span of nine halves. They did it before halftime against UConn and after halftime versus Kentucky.

The only games in which the Heels have hit at least half their field goal attempts for the entire contest were versus Radford (52.5 percent) and CSU (56.2 percent).

“I felt like tonight, from an offensive standpoint it was good to great,” Carolina’s coach said. “We had 20 assists. I felt like for a couple of games the ball was stopping at good, and it stopped at great.”

One of the interesting things about UNC’s bevy of stats from Friday night is how it revealed the multiplicity of the roster. Six different Tar Heels hit at least one 3-pointer, and five of them either converted a layup or dunk in the halfcourt offense, too.

*Elliot Cadeau had a three and two layups.

*Cormac Ryan had a three and a layup.

*RJ Davis netted a trio of threes and a layup.

*Jalen Washington hit two threes, two layups, and had a dunk.

*Jae’Lyn Withers converted a three and had a dunk.

Now, Harrison Ingram drained three 3-pointers but he missed two layups. Paxson Wojcik converted a tough layup in which he was fouled and bloodied on, but he missed all three of his perimeter attempts. Typically, Ingram will convert one of those layups and Wojcik will hit one of those threes.

This is a new feature we will run a day or two after each UNC football and basketball game. There is so much stuff to dive into, and sometimes it's better to present topics this way instead of full story form. We will still do that, obviously, but our metrics and feedback suggests fans relaly enjoy the notes and tidbit items. So we will do more moving forward.