In a game hurriedly scheduled due to COVID protocols, UNC looked like a team with barely 24 hours to prepare. Kentucky did not.

Carolina came out slow against the No. 21 Wildcats at the CBS Sports Classic in Las Vegas and never recovered, suffering by far its worst loss of the season in a 98-69 blowout.

The Wildcats, who were coming off an upset loss at the hands of Notre Dame, looked every bit like a team which was ranked in the top 10 of preseason polls. Carolina, meanwhile, may have to wait a long time before it can break back into the rankings. A win likely would’ve sent them back in. A close loss perhaps wouldn’t have hurt. A loss by 29 points, though, the program’s worst in almost 10 years, stings.

“They played harder than us,” said head coach Hubert Davis after the game. “And if you want to compare it to Tennessee, from my perspective, that’s the part that I was shocked by. Talking about energy and effort, not just in a game against Kentucky, just in a game in general. I don’t get that.”

Offensively, junior forward Armando Bacot proved to be Carolina’s only reliable weapon. In a game where UNC set a season-low for scoring, Bacot put in 22 of its 69 points on 8-13 shooting. He and sophomore guard R.J. Davis (10 points) were the only Tar Heels to score in double figures.

“He came to play,” CBS commentator Bill Raftery said of Bacot on the television broadcast. Such praise was not reserved for any of the other Carolina players.

Sophomore guard Caleb Love, who came in averaging upwards of 16 points per game, scored just eight and missed both of his three-point attempts. Kerwin Walton’s alarming slump continued, as the sophomore sharpshooter missed his only shot of the game in a paltry eight minutes of action.

On the other end, the Wildcats scored at will against UNC’s defense, breaking a streak of five straight games in which Carolina had held opponents to 63 points or fewer. The 98 points allowed by the Tar Heels are a season-high.

Kentucky guard Sahvir Wheeler torched any defender who stepped in front of him, pouring in 26 points, one shy of his career-high.

“We did not have an answer for Wheeler,” Hubert Davis said. “He was faster than any one of our players. And he was able to get anywhere he wanted to. We knew that he’s a dynamic guard that can get into the middle, and that he can make plays. He’s terrific at distributing the basketball, he’s terrific at penetrating. And plain and simple, period, the end, he was better than any one of our guards.”

The Wildcats’ star big man Oscar Tshiebwe was a force inside, leading a collective effort by the Wildcats on the boards to out-rebound Carolina by a 45-25 margin. Thanks to their 17 offensive rebounds, Kentucky took 19 more shots than the Tar Heels and held a 15-6 advantage in second-chance points.

The Wildcats also knocked down eight three-pointers. Carolina hit a season-low one.

The loss is UNC’s third to a ranked opponent, and third straight on a neutral court, this season. After it appeared the team had turned a corner following a disappointing 0-2 weekend at the Hall of Fame Tip-Off in Connecticut, this game seems to have sent the Tar Heels back to square one.

One more game against Appalachian State stands between UNC, now 8-3, and a break for the Christmas holiday. Though the Tar Heels are 1-0 in conference play thanks to an earlier win over Georgia Tech, there remains much work to be done if the team plans on making noise in the postseason.

“We just didn’t execute our gameplan,” said R.J. Davis. “We weren’t the aggressor. We didn’t show any energy or effort. So, we’ll learn from this. Hats off to Kentucky, but we’ll learn from this and then grow.”

Carolina can only hope the old saying is true: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

 

Featured image via CBS Sports


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