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The Tar Heels got Clemson an NCAA bid and didn’t do themselves any favors.
In suffering their first home loss of the season, Carolina nullified a lot of what came with the big victory on Saturday night and, ironically, didn’t seem like that game was completely out of its system even as this one started.
Before the normal pre-game festivities and starting lineups, the Smith Center showed highlights of the Duke win and far-quieter fans seemed like they were waiting for the team to fire them up rather than vice versa.
Clemson has been a good basketball team all season, shooting poorly in the first game with UNC and falling by 10 at home. The Tigers had three very close losses lately but were still No. 37 and a Quad 2 team in the NET rankings. Their fourth Quad 1 win, 80-76, in Chapel Hill takes them off the NCAA bubble.
Carolina is still in first place but loses that sense of toughness that has been building recently with the 10-game winning streak before the bad loss at Georgia Tech. While the Heels, now 10-2, are still in first place, their remaining ACC games are no cakewalks, with visits to Miami, Syracuse, Virginia and Duke. Same with three of their last four home games against Virginia Tech, Miami and N.C. State now that the Dean Dome invincibility is gone.
Yes, sophomore Seth Trimble, the defensive specialist, sat out with a concussion, but he could not have stopped Clemson’s stunning 17-4 start that caused Hubert Davis to call a rare early timeout.
Most of that lead stood up as UNC fought back to tie the score at 70 on a 3-pointer by Harrison Ingram, who had gone to the locker room with a bruise but came back from what appeared to be a phone booth with the big shot.
From there, Clemson closed the game with a smaller but decisive run over the last two minutes as the Tar Heels could not score from the field until the outcome was decided. The crowing crowd that left the last game on a cloud walked out in a fog, showing how much it had begun to believe in them.
Their fight for the last 35 minutes was gallant, but their second-half turnovers and forced shots against Clemson’s changing defenses were defining.
Now Carolina is in a dogfight for the rest of the ACC season, with a top-four seed to the ACC tourney and, of course, NCAA regional placement at stake. By shooting under 40 percent from the floor and 33 percent from the arc, the Heels looked like the personification of John Wooden’s old message to his championship UCLA teams: “Be Quick But Don’t Hurry.”
They hurried way too much, and now we’re all worried about where the basketball team we were learning to love is headed. Back on the road for two games, and what happens at Miami and Syracuse will be telling.
Featured image via Todd Melet
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The streak is just a fond memory at this point. Lost two of the last three to Clemson in the Dome.
60 & 2
I’ll take it. No one else comes close. Clemson is a very good team that played better than us on Tuesday night. Nothing new IMO as the dook game is so big it saps the players emotionally.
We’ll be fine.
Those clips of UNC players celebrating with fans on Franklin St after the Duke game — like they won a national championship and not just a regular season ACC win — sure didn’t age well.
What was Hubert Davis thinking allowing players to celebrate like that? That’s for the FANS. It should be business as usual (act like you’ve been there) for the players. Champions save the big celebrations until they reach their ultimate goal.