UNC basketball can’t continue to trade second half rallies for slow starts
The trend of North Carolina’s second-half rallies is both a cause for concern and a reason for optimism.
The troublesome part for UNC coach Roy Williams is the No. 16 Tar Heels shouldn’t be falling behind by so much to start the game. And they were at it again, creating a double-digit deficit in the first half Tuesday night in their 93-80 loss to No. 3 Iowa in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. They trailed the Hawkeyes by 16 — which matched their deficit against Texas as the biggest of the season — and they trailed UNLV by 13. (Stanford should even get an honorable mention for leading UNC by eight in the first half.)
The encouraging part to this? Each time it seemed North Carolina lacked a sense of urgency, lacked the shot makers to get back into a game, or lacked the will defensively to dig in and get stops, it used the first 10 minutes of the second half to re-shape the game.
The Tar Heels have outscored every opponent this season during that stretch including topping Iowa by 11. That hasn’t always translated to a victory, but if the Heels find a way to harness their play, they will ultimately win a lot of games.
“It’s been a blessing and a curse both because teams have come out and hit us right in the mouth to start with,” Williams said Tuesday in his postgame remarks. “You have to learn it’s your opportunity to hit them back right in the mouth yourself. And so hopefully we’ll gain some from that.”
UNC’s freshmen
It’s worth re-stating that Carolina is ushering in six freshmen into its top 10 rotation. At one point against the Hawkeyes, all five UNC players on the court were first-timers. It’s starting an all-freshman backcourt with guards R.J. Davis and Caleb Love for the first time since the 2006-07 season when Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington teamed up.
But patience isn’t really a word associated with North Carolina basketball. Even Williams, after the game, said five games into the season, he didn’t want to hear about how he’s playing freshmen.
“Most of the teams we played like Texas and Iowa have a lot of veteran players,” UNC freshman forward Day’Ron Sharpe said in his postgame remarks. “We’re young and stuff.”
The ‘and stuff’ part translates to Carolina being able to rally from down 16 against Iowa and take the lead. Only to allow the same mistakes that created a deficit to sink them again.
The Hawkeyes took control of the game with about eight minutes left when Carolina had several breakdowns like Davis focusing too hard on the person dribbling the ball that he allowed Joe Toussaint to cut backdoor for a layup. Or three Carolina players failing to block out on an offensive rebound that allowed Iowa’s Jordan Bohannon to make one of his seven 3-pointers.
Davis, who scored 12 points and had a season-high eight assists, called it “carelessness” the way the Heels lost their focus once they completed the comeback to take a short-lived lead.
“We’re still preaching the same thing of limiting turnovers, knowing what’s a good shot and a bad shot in our shot selection,” Davis said in his postgame video conference. “I feel like if we come out the way we came out second half in the first half then we would have won this game.”
Time needed for ‘young Tar Heels to mature’
UNC’s offensive focus isn’t where it needs to be to start the game. Senior forward Garrison Brooks, who led the Heels with 17 points, said they need to play to their strength, which is getting the ball to the rim.
“Most of our points came at the rim at the begging of the second half,” Brooks said in his postgame remarks. “That’s something that we should have (taken) advantage of at the beginning of the game.”
It’s clearly going to take more time for the young Tar Heels to mature into a team that can be consistently focused from the start. They can take some solace in the fact that the way they begin the second half is proof that it can be done.