Beyond The Arc: Tar Heels Shooting For More Perimeter Success

The UNC men’s basketball team made life much easier on itself Saturday afternoon against UAB – knocking down seven three-pointers to break the game open. But finding the range from beyond the arc has proven elusive for Carolina in recent years.

Going forward, how big is perimeter shooting for the Tar Heels?

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Sadly for the Tar Heels, they’ve grown far too accustomed to coming up empty from three-point territory in recent seasons.

As a team, Carolina has made 54 out of its 184 three-balls thrown up – that’s a 29.3-percent clip.

Hot off the recruiting trail, freshman standout Justin Jackson was highly touted for his ability to drain deep shots, but so far, he’s missed the mark. In 2014, Jackson has gone a woeful six for 27 from three-point land.

But perhaps in a sign of things to come, Jackson connected on two of his three attempts from behind the arc on Saturday. Jackson admits his confidence took a hit earlier on in the season, but says even if he can’t find the net, he’s confident in his team.

“It’s difficult at times. Obviously, you love to see the ball in the hoop, so whenever you don’t see it go through once in a while, it can kind of get to you. But if I’m not hitting, we have so many guys on the team who can score and do other things, I just try to contribute as much as I can,” Jackson says.

As important as the deep ball is, junior point guard Marcus Paige offers a different take. He says he’s trying to move away from shooting so many three-pointers and use better shot selection to open up the offense.

“It makes a huge difference. I told myself when I went home for break that I need to do a better job of varying my shots. Too big a percentage of my shots were coming from the three. In the second half [vs. UAB], I was able to get in the paint a lot more. That just makes it harder for us to be guarded as a team. It opens up everyone else and also allows me to make some shots that aren’t 30 feet away from the basket,” Paige says.

Big man Brice Johnson recognizes the freedom rediscovering the three-point shot can bring to his low-post game. He says success from the perimeter leads to easier baskets inside.

“It’s big. It’s the one thing that we’ve been lacking the past couple years. The point guards and small forwards haven’t been making as many shots as we’d want them to, but they were really knocking them down. That’s a confidence builder for them. That’s what we need. It opens it up for everybody else in the post,” Johnson says.

Slimmed- down sophomore Kennedy Meeks agrees. He says the lane clears up considerably when opposing defenses are forced to respect the outside shooting.

“It opens the lane up a lot. It opens it up for us when Justin, Marcus and those guys hit big-time threes,” Meeks says.

Team leader Paige, who’s been struggling to consistently find his shot all season, describes how the Tar Heel offense becomes a bear to defend when they add a three-point dimension.

“That’s usually our biggest weakness offensively as a team – knocking down shots from the outside. Justin hit two in a row, and I hit one after that. That kind of stretched the game out. When we’re making threes, we know we’re going to get production from Brice and Kennedy inside, but when myself, Justin and Nate [Britt] can knock down a couple threes, it makes the offense even that more dangerous,” Paige says.

Oddly enough, it’s athletic sparkplug J.P. Tokoto who sports the best three-point shooting percentage thus far, connecting on 35.7 percent of his attempts.

There’s little doubting the defensive intensity and rebounding abilities of this Carolina squad, but if the Tar Heels can somehow find their touch from behind the arc, 2015 could very well be a year to remember on the Smith Center hardwood.