Hubert Davis is right when he says, “It is what it is.”
He says it a lot and he said it again after Carolina’s hard-fought and frustrating loss to Duke at a Smith Center that was ready to pop Dean’s Dome but, once again, its home team couldn’t make the plays to reward the gallant effort.
The jam-packed Senior Night crowd was as loud as you’ve ever heard it. Like their favorite team, the occupants of each seat along the last row of the upper deck had their backs to the wall and tried to be a factor by exploding at every UNC basket and roaring at every chance to disrupt Duke.
Davis isn’t necessarily right about who he plays and for how long or for coaching an offense so limited that it seems easy to defend. But, sadly, he is right about his current team’s proclivity to miss good shots or ones that roll agonizingly off the rim.
The Tar Heels’ first five points might have been their best: Armando Bacot slammed a pocket pass from R.J. Davis; Leaky Black penetrated and scored in traffic; Caleb Love stole the ball and was fouled on a flying dunk attempt, making one of two free throws for a 5-0 lead. It did not get any better.
“We had open shots and chances around the basket,” Hubert Davis said. “After Pete (Nance) hit the 3 that put us up by four, I thought we would extend the lead but we never did. At the end of the day, you just have to make some of those shots. It is what it is.”
For the second time this season, the more experienced but slightly smaller and marginally less talented Tar Heels lost to the younger, bigger and better-coached Blue Devils, who probably aren’t good enough to go deep into the NCAA tournament but are already in the field and may have kept Carolina out.
“I told the team we still have time and opportunities, although it may be limited,” Davis allowed after the 62-57 loss on a great night of nationally televised basketball and might have been for an anxious Chapel Hill and Tar Heel Nation had a few more dad-gum balls gone in. The Heels shot a season-low 30 percent (17 for 56) and only 28 percent from outside (5 for 23), their fewest field goals since a win over BC last year.
Carolina finds itself with a 19-12 record (12-3 at home) and the seventh seed in this week’s ACC tournament in Greensboro, where it now has almost no choice but to play itself into the Big Dance with almost the same team as last year’s Cinderellas who got in based on a Quad 1 win at Duke.
UNC faces the winner of the Boston College-Louisville survivor (bet on BC) in Wednesday night’s first game at the Greensboro Coliseum. A win there would mean a third game against No. 2 seed Virginia, with which the Heels split their home-and-home series. That could yield a spot in the Friday night semifinals against Clemson, N.C. State, Virginia Tech or Notre Dame, all beatable by a better-shooting Carolina.
And if the upper half of the bracket saw top-seeded Miami lose, there could be a third Saturday night Duke-Carolina meeting in the championship game. That winner, of course, receives an automatic NCAA bid but just getting to the finals could result in an at-large invite on Selection Sunday, the next afternoon.
Davis also said he loves Leaky Black “and anytime he’s on the court I am happy.” But surely his game plan was not Black taking 16 shots (most on the team, compared to only 8 for Bacot) against a Duke defense that was basically daring him to shoot from outside or drive into the Blue Devils’ seven-foot forest. Leaky went 3-for-16 that included missing 6 of 7 long balls he came into the game making 10 of his last 21.
Wasn’t it Dean Smith, Hubert’s mentor, who liked to say, “We don’t want to take what the other team gives us, we want to do what we want to do.”
Duke 7-foot freshman center Kyle Filipowski nicknamed “Flip” had 22 points and 13 rebounds in 35 minutes while staying out of foul trouble despite aggressively backing down leaner defenders Nance and Black most of the night.
The other Blue Devils, who have now failed to shoot 40 percent in two close wins over their archrivals, went 15-for-41. Junior leader Jeremy Roach was held to 4 of 16 but made the biggest basket of the game when he used a ball screen to blow down the lane and put his team ahead by three points with 48 seconds remaining.
Carolina could not counter as the four-minute stretch of 0-for-7 from the floor was the death knell and Duke completed its first regular-season sweep since 2020.
Bacot battled relentlessly against bigger or bulkier foes and finished with his 19th double double (17 and 11 plus 4 blocked shots) of the regular season. AB was absorbing so much contact that he shot 10 free throws and could not have “lost himself in the game,” but warrior R.J. Davis certainly looked like he did with 17 points and 3 of UNC’s 5 makes from the behind the arc, sparking small second-half runs.
The mystery man, as he has been all season, is Love, who wore his hoodie during Carolina’s loosey-goosey warm-ups compared to Duke’s more-regimented routine. While few can question how hard Love plays and his over-the-top confidence, he continues to be a shadow of the sophomore who shot Carolina to the NCAA championship game. Love went 0-for-6 from downtown Chapel Hill (3-of-12 overall), but he did have 6 rebounds, 3 of UNC’s 8 assists and 5 of the team’s 18 made free throws. The Tar Heels had 21 attempts from the foul line, seven times more than the three they had in Durham a month ago.
One of the least-active benches in the nation did not score in a total of 33 minutes, when Puff Johnson and D’Marco Dunn took the only three shots by reserves, whose little time on the court is proving almost useless against an opponent well-schooled on both ends by rookie head coach Jon Scheyer.
Davis has young shooters like Tyler Nickel who are never in long enough to get the ball much or comfortable when they do. Jalen Washington, who has the 6-10 size to match up with Duke, has seen his time decrease and was on the floor for only a minute Saturday night.
Maybe the young Dukies are just 3-5 points better than older Carolina this season and, if so, will lose at least two of those big dudes who can score from inside and out. Filipowski, with nine points of Duke’s decisive 17-8 run that erased Carolina’s four-point lead over the last eight minutes, is the runaway ACC Rookie of the Year and, almost assuredly, a first-round NBA draft pick in June. Fellow frosh Derrick Lively II, who had 6 rebounds and 3 blocked shots in his foul-plagued 17 minutes, is also on the first-round mock draft boards and likely to leave town with his one-year Brotherhood certificate. Two or three others may depart for the pros, so Scheyer can work with another top-rated recruiting class.
As for Carolina, time may be running out for the prestigious post-season tournament and the Tar Heels could conceivably end up in the NIT (where Roy Williams’ year-after Final Four team went in 2010), but three wins would not land them at Madison Square Garden, which is Hubert Davis’ favorite home-away-from-home court. This year, the NIT semis and final are in Las Vegas.
At this point, it is what it is until it is something else.
Featured photo via Todd Melet.
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A freshman coach with freshman players beating our NBA veteran player-became-coach who sat on the bench under Ol’ Roy for 10 years. Their freshmen play like seniors and our seniors play like freshmen! Is it the players’ faults? Or is it the fact that their coaches instill a “We won’t get beat” attitude in their players?(And our coach instills love and a “Welcome to the Dean Dome” feeling to our opponents?) Hmmm.
Wes Miller! He should have been hired but he never will be. Mack is at UNC to stay, Donna Papa is the softball coach until she steps down, etc… Why don’t we ever do anything with these folks? Because we’re a sweet, kind, welcoming liberal institution!!! And with Hubert, added to this is the fact that Roy ordained his hiring! And by the way, get used to State, Duke, and even Wake beating us in football regularly and in basketball often. They have gone out and hired excellent coaches and we’re settling on UNC guys!
Yep, Hubert is such a bad coach all he did was take us the the final game against Kansas where we lost by 3 point while playing with a very hobbled Bacot. Yep, definitely needs to be replaced.
I mean, we’ve lost a bunch of games by big scores, you know, like 1 and 2 points, with the largest being 12 against a pretty good Indiana team, played on their floor and after 3 games in 4 days on a west coast trip culminating in a 4 overtime game against a top 5 team, Alabama, and with Bacot playing hurt and only 30 minutes. Yep, time to fire coach Davis. This team has won every game when the shoot over 35% from three. Must be the coaches fault they can’ shoot this year.
You remind of the fellow that called Bacot a curse on the program in his sophomore year. Some curse.
“Wasn’t it Dean Smith, Hubert’s mentor, who liked to say, “We don’t want to take what the other team gives us, we want to do what we want to do.”
Yes, yes, yes. I have read all the other pundits, including thinly veiled Tar Heel cheerleaders, but for me, it ain’t over til I hear Chantsky Chant.
I like it best when Chansky channels Dean Smith.
Maybe Hubert could channel Coach Smith, too?
Dean’s double low post, with Nance closer to the basket then rotating out to the top of the key, would have been a better idea for this group.
This group got the chant wrong.
Last year, they chanted “Run it back.”
What they meant was, “Run it into the ground.”
Can not wait to hear Chantsky chant again, somewhere along the 4th game of Mack’s upcoming football season.
Thanks Chantsky, you’re the best