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CHAPEL HILL – Among the many elements of North Carolina’s approach under Hubert Davis that differs from his predecessor can found on the offensive end of the floor.
Davis worked for nine seasons under Roy Williams, but when hired as the Hall of Fame coach’s replacement in April 2021, the former Tar Heel and NBA guard implemented some heavy tweaks to how the Heels go about trying to score.
Williams preferred mostly employing a freelance offense based on motion principles, the core of which were and still are spacing, screening, and cutting. He called set plays, certainly at the ends of halves and games, and at times throughout contests depending on the opponent and sometimes his club’s youth.
Davis doesn’t run the same freelance motion, though the Heels do run stuff not nearly as choreographed.
“If we get scored on, I call a play,” Davis said during the weekly ACC conference call Monday. “On a missed shot, I allow them to get out in transition and go into freelance.”
The Tar Heels do morph into freelance in the halfcourt offense, but only if a called set breaks down. They are taught to trust the plan, recognize matchup advantages, and try to use the sets in exploiting them.
But it doesn’t always work. Duke knew what UNC was running the entire night in its 63-57 victory over the Tar Heels, and rendered their ball screens ineffective as opposed to last year when the Heels raked in the buckets using ball screens.
“They were in a drop coverage, and once you came off the ball screen you (could) see four Duke players in front of you,” junior guard RJ Davis said following the defeat. “They were in passing lanes.”
Duke sniffing out UNC’s sets forced its hand, so the Heels regularly went into freelance, but usually fairly late in the shot clock. The effort was to get quick shot attempts once the sets crumbled.
“We had a lot of set stuff,” the New York native said. “But once we saw they were switching certain ball screens, (we ran) actions and trying to get the mismatch and try to space out and let the guards work, get downhill and get the basket or spread out for a three.”
Pittsburgh did much the same thing to the Heels. That’s how one of the higher scoring teams in the nation averaged 60.5 points last week. In addition, Carolina shot a combined 34.6 from the floor in the two games, including 12-for-54 from 3-point range, which is a paltry 22.2 percent.
Carolina still runs most of the fast break principles it did under Dean Smith, whom Hubert Davis played for a UNC, and under Williams with whom he was also mentored. When the bigs run the floor and get to spots before the transitioning defenders, the Tar Heels often get quick buckets and never have to run sets of slide into freelance.
But UNC (15-8, 7-5 ACC) managed just two fast break points against the Blue Devils, so it put Hubert Davis in a position to sometimes micromanage his team’s offense. Only the Heels struggled with that, too.
“In any one of our sets, if we don’t get anything out of our halfcourt set, we have an organized freelance that they automatically go into,” Carolina’s coach said. “Rarely do they go into freelance-freelance where there’s no play, there’s no structure, they’re just playing.”
Graduate wing Leaky Black says UNC’s sets “are pretty simple” but only when executed. A clear source of frustration for Hubert Davis last week was when the players on the floor recognized the set was snuffed out and it was time to execute a more independent approach set on taking advantage of their skills and instincts.
This is where much of the offensive futility originated. Too often a Tar Heel would abandon the set play and skip over the basic motion principles of the freelance trying to do his own thing. Pitt and Duke appeared prepared for that, too.
“The times we struggled is when we go off script and go rogue, and go outside of that and then try to do something other than what we’ve talked about in practice,” Hubert Davis said.
Junior guard Caleb Love has acknowledged flying a bit solo at times in his career, and trimming that issue has been a point of emphasis for the last two years. He went off script in both losses last week, but he wasn’t alone.
The fine line between when to remain in Davis’ sets versus when to break free and rely on their understanding of spacing, screening, and cutting remains a work-in-progress with the Heels, even as experienced as this group is, and 23 games into the campaign.
At times, it’s a non-issue. But when athletic, physical teams are determined to force UNC into going rogue, it has problems.
“We were just trying to execute our plays,” Love said inside Cameron Indoor Stadium. “And of course, we weren’t doing that consistently throughout the whole game.”
Or this season.
UNC ranks No. 193 in field goal percentage, No. 317 in 3-point percentage, and no. 214 in effective field goal percentage, the latter according to KenPom.
Carolina’s third game in February takes place Tuesday night at Wake Forest, which is No. 144 in adjusted defensive efficiency. This is an opportunity for Davis’ sets to run more efficiently and his players to stayed married to them a but longer than of late.
Or at least stay in true freelance if and when the Demon Deacons derail the called plays.
