Perhaps rumors of the UNC basketball team’s demise were greatly exaggerated.
Just eight days after a sleepy win over UNC-Asheville which drew more criticism than praise, the Tar Heels played their best game of the young season in a 72-51 win over No. 24 Michigan.
𝐁𝐈𝐆 𝐃𝐔𝐁.#CarolinaFamily | @WellsFargo pic.twitter.com/MoC7ofAttl
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) December 2, 2021
The Carolina defense, much maligned thus far, held the Wolverines to just 20-57 from the field (35.1 percent). Michigan came into the game averaging a 48.1 shooting percentage.
Neither team got much going offensively in the first half, due to entirely different reasons. An aggressive UNC defense forced six Michigan turnovers in the period, but the Tar Heels missed six layups and shot just 13-36. A late three-pointer from Caleb Love salvaged a 29-27 halftime lead for Carolina, but it easily could’ve been more.
The narrative completely changed for the offense in the second half. The 13-36 clip gave way to a blistering 18-31 (58.1) in the final 20 minutes, with Love appearing to take over at times. The sophomore guard shot 5-8 in the half and 2-4 from three-point range. He ended with 22 points, just three off his career-best. Love also stuffed the stat sheet with four rebounds, four assists and three steals.
“I’ve just gotta have fun with it,” Love said after the game. “I’ve just gotta lose myself into the team. That’s what Coach Davis has been telling me: just lose myself into the team, and lose myself into the game. That’s something also Coach Roy told me. I’ve just been doing that, and having fun with my teammates. I’ve gotta enjoy this experience, because it’s once-in-a-lifetime.”
A turning point occurred in the second half, when Michigan’s star big man Hunter Dickinson picked up two quick fouls to give him four on the game, one of which gave junior forward Armando Bacot an and-1 opportunity. The seven-foot, one-inch Dickinson, a friend of Bacot from their days playing AAU basketball, immediately left the game. The score was 33-29 in favor of UNC at that point. When Dickinson returned 10 minutes later, it had ballooned to 53-38 Tar Heels.
“It was huge,” Bacot said. “At halftime… we noticed that he had two fouls. And [head coach Hubert Davis] said right off the bat he was gonna go to me every single play until he got in foul trouble. And that’s what we did. We went to me, like, three or four plays in a row, and I just got into my bag, and did what I do. And we got him out.”
Carolina appeared as confident as they’ve been in quite some time on the court, which may be a credit to the team’s practices during the eight-day layoff. Bacot called the recent weeks “hell,” while Davis took a much more sunny attitude toward the interlude.
“How I approach it, and how I coach the guys is to focus on the preparation, the process and the practice,” Davis said. “If we just focus on the preparation, the process and the practice, then the play will take care of itself. And yesterday, we had the best practice that I can remember this year.”
Sophomore forward Dawson Garcia echoed Davis’ sentiment, indicating the practice could be a sparkplug for Carolina’s season.
“We all knew what we were gonna come in here and do tonight,” he said. “And I don’t see us looking back at all.”
“We just had to do some soul-searching,” Bacot said. “We just had to figure out, do we really want to be a great team, or a good team? I feel like we took a step in the right direction… some of the stuff that was said about us as a team, we didn’t like it at all.”
Don’t count on there being any negative headlines after this one. Carolina’s 21-point win was its largest over a ranked opponent since January of 2019. For a group of players whose careers have been defined by disappointing results on the court and pandemic restrictions off it, Wednesday’s blowout felt cathartic.
“Now they have their own story,” Davis said. “And to come up big, and to play well, and to experience that success… in the locker room, they were jumping around. They were hugging. They were smiling. And I told them that tonight’s win was 100 percent them.”
Featured image via Todd Melet. For a photo gallery of the game, click here.
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