While Friday’s 87-71 loss to Syracuse was both staggering and humiliating for North Carolina’s basketball team, the experience should provide the Tar Heels with a valuable measuring stick.
For an inexperienced, still-uncomfortable team, which Carolina is, Syracuse amounted to the perfect early-season storm.
The most important factor was the flex zone Orange coach Jim Boeheim plays and has perfected over the years. Why lots of other programs haven’t duplicated his defensive strategy is proof positive that coaches can be stubborn to the extent of stupidity.
Even veteran point guards usually struggle against quality zones, in part because they so rarely face one.
For UNC’s Larry Drew II, who rarely played last season, the Orange zone completely confused and confounded his rhythm, which spilled over to the team’s floor flow.
Drew and Carolina’s trouble went beyond the mere turnover total of 19.
It was that the Tar Heels, even with 19 offensive rebounds, simply could not get comfortable with the ball. That was the case throughout, even though Carolina led by a bucket at halftime.
Any time UNC is held to 38 percent shooting, the opposing defensive strategy was the primary game key.
Eventually, Roy Williams believes Drew, wingman Will Graves and subs Dexter Strickland, Leslie McDonald, John Henson and Justin Watts will gain more confidence against zones and more experienced teams.
Drew almost certainly will improve as the season progresses. He’ll never be a Raymond Felton or Ty Lawson, but Carolina shouldn’t need an all-world playmaker to be a top-5 team at season’s end.
Of more importance later in the season will be perimeter shooting. Graves, Drew and Strickland certainly can’t go 2-for-16.
But it’s too soon for Carolina fans to panic. There have been big early-season losses in the past that didn’t equate to long-range doom.
The 1996-97 team opened it season with an 11-point loss to Arizona, reached the Final Four — and lost to the Wildcats again.
Ten seasons later, Williams’ fourth team lost early to Gonzaga, in the same building as Friday's loss, but went on to win 31 games.
