UNC football coach Mack Brown channels Final Four run ahead of Tar Heels’ spring game
North Carolina coach Mack Brown believes he has more overall talent on his current team than in his previous three seasons in Chapel Hill. But that talent is young and unproven, so he’s being more detailed in discussing their approach to the game.
March Madness provided all the help he needed to show examples about competing. As the Tar Heels advanced in each round in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, all the way to the national title game, the talking points came easy for Brown.
Brown is hoping to see some of those lessons play out during Carolina’s Spring game on Saturday at 3 p.m. in Kenan Stadium. The game itself won’t begin until about 3:45 p.m., the pre-game will include a recognition for Heels junior receiver Tylee Craft, who was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and has started getting treatment. UNC will also recognize the women’s basketball team and coach Courtney Banghart. Plans to acknowledge the men’s basketball team’s run to the Final Four had to be shelved while the staff was on the road recruiting.
Brown embraces the basketball team’s success as beneficial for football and the university as a whole. He said he learned a lot from Bill Guthridge, the longtime Dean Smith assistant coach and former UNC head coach, whom he considered a friend and mentor during his first stint at Carolina.
It’s no wonder Brown easily translated the basketball games everyone was watching into ways his team could improve:
Baylor and bench play
Carolina lost a 25-point lead in a game after starting forward Brady Manek was ejected for throwing an elbow and starting guard Caleb Love fouled out. Playing with a lineup it hadn’t previously used, reserves Justin McKoy and Dontrez Styles came off the bench and helped the Heels win in overtime to knock off the No. 1 seed and defending national champions.
“I said we won the Baylor game because of our bench,” Brown said. “So you guys that aren’t starting, there’s a game you’re gonna win if you’re ready to play, but you got to seize that opportunity and be ready.”
Saint Peter’s and playing as favorites
Brown joked that he had to Google Saint Peter’s, “to see who they are and where they’re from,” as they upset perennial power Kentucky in the first round. He didn’t watch their Sweet 16 game against Purdue and assumed the Big Ten school overpowered the small team from New Jersey and was shocked when he found out otherwise.
“So we talked a lot about Saint Peter’s playing with confidence,” Brown said. “But when we played Saint Peter’s, we hit him in the mouth. And we sent a message to them early and they lost their confidence and they couldn’t hit shots. So that was a time where we can say if you have a better team, don’t let a lesser team stay in the game because they get more confidence the longer it goes.”
Duke and the turnaround
Brown admitted he thought Carolina would lose to Duke in the Final Four because he thought the Blue Devils would be so motivated from the Heels’ win in Cameron Indoor Stadium to close the regular season.
“They were so good against us the first game and we couldn’t play as good as we did the last game,” Brown said. “When actually I bragged on Hubert (Davis) and our team so much because they just continued to get better and get more confident.”
Brown pointed out at one time it seemed like UNC was a bubble team, but the players invested and believed in what coach Hubert Davis was trying to instill, and they turned the season around. It’s harder to do in football, but look and what can be accomplished when everyone buys into the team.
Kansas and finishing games
The Heels’ game against Kansas for the national championship brought back bad memories of the football team’s loss at N.C. State last season. UNC led the Jayhawks by 15 at halftime and appeared headed for its seventh national title, but it allowed KU to change the tone of the game to start the second half.
Football led the Wolfpack by nine with less than two minutes left when it got complacent and had several breakdowns in allowing an epic comeback for its rivals.
“In the Kansas game, we’re up at halftime, we had a lead at N.C. State,” Brown said. “We took our foot off the gas. We didn’t finish it right and so we’ve talked about that.”
Spring game
Brown has implemented competition into every play at practice that features offense against the defense. It’s a tangible way to reward the winners and make the losers want to bounce back the next session.
“We’re constantly taking everything we see and trying to use it to help learn from situations,” Brown said. “...We’ve got to get better at handling situations during the game because situations are the reason you win and lose.”
This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 11:50 AM.