They say that stats never lie, and looking strictly at standings one may assume that a UNC team with a 28-9 record was a good team that was simply underrated by the selection committee with a sort of anti-ACC bias. However, this team has been up and down all season and I believe that the committee’s hesitance to rank them as a top seed was justified, even if the Tar Heels are proving them wrong when it matters most.
Watching this team all season, there was no clear identity. Throughout the 2021-22 regular season the Heels relied on elite, although streaky three point shooting and ACC player of the year caliber play from bigman Armando Bacot to bail out what was at best a lackluster defense. UNC ranked top 40 in PPG, APG, RPG, and FT % and it does not stop at just the counting stats, as they ranked 35th in the nation in offensive rating. It is no secret that UNC possessed the ability to put up points in bunches, the issues for this team came in a lack of consistency and defensive intensity.
Defense in basketball is tricky because it is the one part of the game that is more effort-based than skill-based. Defense is 75% effort, a player may not be the most talented or the quickest, or the strongest but if they put in the effort, they can become a reliable player on that end of the floor. Outside of Leaky Black, Carolina has lacked those effort guys this season and that is evident by their 175th ranked defensive rating. Sure, Bacot has been a solid rim protector, and Caleb Love certainly was not a turnstile during the regular season, but it was clear from watching them that most players on this team would rather put the ball in the basket than focus on the gritty side of defensive basketball, which you need to do to compete with the best of the best. This lack of defensive intensity led to a team that lived and died by their ability to hit the three ball. This is exemplified when looking at UNC’s game logs; in games where the Heels shot less than 30% from three, they were 3-5. That means over half of their regular season losses came simply because their shot was not falling. When the going got tough for this team and their shots were not falling, they did not have a solid defense to fall back on.
Fast-forward to March 5th in Durham, this is where the tide shifted on the defensive side of the ball. In the second half of the Duke game, UNC turned up defensively in a way that they had not all season, going on a 17-5 run to give Coach K a wonderful farewell. That night, the Tar Heels realized their full potential and understood what they needed to do if they wanted to make noise in March. Hubert Davis has received a lot of criticism in his first season, some of which was justified, some of which was overly-harsh from a fanbase that has come to expect nothing short of greatness after the Dean Smith and Roy Williams eras. There were always going to be growing pains, but Coach Davis has excelled when it matters most and made the Final Four as a first year head coach, something that has not been done for 20 years. All Davis needs to do now is win on Saturday and he will cement his spot inside of the Carolina Basketball Pantheon. He does not need a national title this year, he’s already made it much farther than anyone thought was possible.
Just. Beat. Duke