Defense also cost Carolina the game against Georgia Tech.
When an ACC basketball team misses its first 15 shots from the floor and goes more than 13 minutes without making a field goal, that is bound to get most of the attention. However, it was only part of the reason the Tar Heels trailed the Yellow Jackets by 20 points at the break.
While Carolina wound up shooting only 30 percent for the half, Tech made 56 percent of its shots and a number of them were dunks allowed by UNC’s porous defense. Although the Heels mounted a comeback in the second half to make the final score look respectable, the Jackets shot even better at 63 percent.
When a poor shooting basketball team, last in the ACC, misses so many attempts around the basket, what happened can still only happen if the defense is as bad as the offense. A great coach named Smith once said some days the ball just won’t go in, but there is no excuse for not coming to play defense every game.
Georgia Tech, 7-7, was far more athletic than 8-6 Carolina, with better ball handlers who found cutters down the lane and along the baseline. At one point, the Jackets looked like they were the old Doctors of Dunk against a pretty pathetic display by the home team.
Garrison Brooks, who broke his personal college scoring record with 35 points, made Carolina’s first field goal on a short jumper with 6:50 left in the first half, and the Smith Center crowd erupted in what was a half-sarcastic cheer. But until the final minutes of the 96-83 loss, the fans were trying their hardest to get behind a rally.
While the deficit was cut to nine points early in the second half, Georgia Tech followed a short scoring lull with more timely 3-pointers and easy baskets against more lapses on defense by whoever Roy Williams put on the court, and in all he tried seven different players off what is usually a far shorter bench.
Post-game, Williams delivered a much more dramatic apology to fans and criticism of both himself and his players than he usually does after loses. But, truth is, he didn’t have anyone besides Brooks and Justin Pierce who played worth a damn.
With Cole Anthony still out, the Tar Heels were so embarrassingly bad they now risk being labeled the worst team in the ACC.
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