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It was a one-point defeat, but Carolina lost long before that.
The Tar Heels gave away their second straight game at Wake Forest and are now in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years. That hasn’t happened at UNC since the Matt Doherty days.
The next game is Saturday against 17th-place Boston College, which lost by 19 points to struggling Virginia earlier in the evening, so you can mark that 2:15 home game as a “W.” But what comes after that will determine if Carolina can even stay on the Big Dance bubble.
Winning on the road in the ACC is hard, but it shouldn’t be when the home team misses all six 3-pointers in the first half and finishes 2-for-15 from the arc. Carolina gradually lost most of a 9-point lead by fouling the Deacons enough to attempt 16 free throws before halftime, which offset their 29 percent shooting overall.
UNC, now 12-8 and 5-3 in the ACC, fell behind by eight points in the second half before a late rally made the 67-66 final score deceiving. The Heels were desperately playing catch-up by making five long balls in the second half but did not go to the free throw one time while the 7-1 Deacons made 8 of 11 and dominated the backboards despite coming in rated at the bottom of the ACC in rebounding margin.
Wake Forest was No. 77 in the NET rankings and will jump up after beating No. 38, joining the Tar Heels on the bubble with a 15-4 record by improving to 10-0 at home. After playing BC, Carolina goes to Pitt and Duke, comes home for a rematch with the Panthers and then visits Clemson, all three teams rated higher and will be favored to win on their home courts.
“I thought our guys really competed, and we played well enough to win here on the road,” Hubert Davis said. The stats do not bear that out after shooting 40 percent overall (26-for-65) and 25 percent from outside (8 for 32). That, despite winning points in the paint and points off turnovers, was not enough to prevail in Winston-Salem, where the Heels have now lost four straight times.
Losing to Stanford and Wake make what had looked like a promising season now difficult to avoid scrutiny by the NCAA selection committee, chaired by UNC athletic director Bubb Cunningham, who must leave the meeting room when Carolina is discussed.
Once the tough stretch ahead ends, the Heels may find themselves in the same place they were in Davis’ first season, when a win at Duke assured an NCAA at-large bid. Carolina certainly can win one or two of those games but continues to be inconsistent.
“Wake Forest does a really good job protecting the paint, and we knew we would have to knock down some 3’s in order to space them out, and we just couldn’t do it,” said Davis.
Featured image via Associated Press/Chuck Burton
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
“UNC athletic director Bubb Cunningham, who must leave the meeting room when Carolina is discussed.”
How far away can he go after he leaves the room? Can he fly out to California and join Folt, who brought him here for his two disastrous coaching selections?
I assume the “two disastrous coaching selections” you are referencing are Mack Brown and Hubert Davis. To be fair, it has been widely discussed among the various circles of UNC sports that Bubba didn’t really have much of say in those two hirings. The big doners/Rams Club wanted Mack (he was brought on board like 24 or 36 hours after Fedora was let go, whom Bubba also hired) and Roy wanted Hubert (if memory serves, Roy retired on Thurs. 04/01/2021 and Hubert was hired that following Tuesday). I don’t really think Bubba had a realistic chance of saying ‘no’ and no legitimate coaching search was ever really performed. However, after Mack flamed out, Bubba deserves kudos for actually conducting a real coaching search in football this time around. Will Belichick work out? Who knows, but it does demonstrate an ‘all-in’ commitment on the football side and generated a ton of buzz around the program. If Hubert misses the tournament again, it will certainly ratchet up the intensity. If Hubert misses the tournament with a losing record, oof … we may see the basketball offseason play out in similar fashion as the football offseason, an actual coaching search and new hire.
I agree with your analysis about ole Roy picking Davis. But, Coaching at UNC is not a play thing for the former coach. The dynamic that has changed at UNC is the entrance of the new Chancellor who is not going to tolerate mediocre
Good coaches adjust their scheme to work with the players they have. With lesser talent this year, Davis’ free lance playground style offense doesn’t work. 32 three point attempts. Are you kidding? A stagnant offense, too much James Harden one on three, settling for 3’s is a recipe for failure. That goes on the players, sure. But it goes on the coaches even more when the same issues go uncorrected game after game.
UNC plays a spread out NBA offense without NBA skill players. I suggest that either RJ or Cadeau be on the floor one at a time but not both at the same time
I got so sick of watching 3 point shots taken last night, I reverted to data analytics to work out frustrations. Pretty sad I know, but then my degree from UNC is English and I wasn’t going to write poetry.
In the Wake Forest game each three point attempt was worth .75 points. Each 2 point attempt was worth 1.09 points. Plus, 2 points attempts are more likely to result in a foul. Last night each Wake Forest foul resulted in .35 points. Why on God’s green Earth do teams rely on actions which fail 75% of the time instead of those which succeed 55% of the time?
For UNC this season, 3 point shots have been worth .96 points versus 2 point shots being worth 1.14. Foul are worth .91 points overall this season.
As Aretha said THINK!
Cadeau was playing great the first 10 minutes and then Davis switched to the spread offense which was stagnant. Davis is an on the job training project that is not working out. He had zero head coaching experience. He seems like a nice human, but he is not the guy to lead the Tar Heels. He is harming the heritage of greatness of UNC basketball
To play a bit of devil’s advocate – pun fully intended – the head coach 8 miles down the road also had zero head coaching experience. He won an ACC Tournament title in his first season, reached the elite 8 last year and is arguably the title favorite this year. Both Hubert and Scheyer had the unenviable task of following their respective school’s legendary coaches. The difference is that Duke’s model (NIL, putting players in the league by embracing one and done, etc., etc.) generates an abundance of talent. Can Scheyer actually coach or does he simply have enough talent to mask any coaching flaws? Only time will tell. The same can be said for Hubert if he’s able to reel in a loaded class. To be clear, I’m not in disagreement that Hubert’s hire is looking tenuous at best to this point, but simply saying ‘no head coaching experience’ is a hard sell argument when the guy down the street – and, oh by the way, your biggest rival – has the same credentials as Hubert, but also his program humming along without skipping a beat from his predecessor.
Maybe it is time for Bubba to place a call to Phil Jackson, if we are going to be consistent.?
I don’t think it’s all players problem Davis has to many others just sitting there and Davis want even try to give them playing time and another thing I heard he has son and he haven’t played any at all how unfair is that so this just my opinion it’s more the coach fault than the Players if he would sit down some of one making mistakes and try with the ones that isn’t getting any playing time maybe that would make a different if that don’t work maybe it time to find another coach..