UNC suffers post-Duke hangover. Three takeaways from Tar Heels’ home loss to Clemson
In the moments after their emotional victory against Duke here on Saturday night, several North Carolina players spoke with anticipation of the celebration that was to come. They were going to enjoy it, said Armando Bacot, the Tar Heels’ fifth-year forward. They were going to soak it in.
Franklin Street. The reveling. The party that was sure to last deep into the night.
It was understandable, perhaps, given the stakes of the rivalry and the traditional rushing of Franklin Street when UNC beats Duke. It’s all part of the college experience at UNC, both for students and players. And yet the Tar Heels didn’t have the benefit of a break.
The turnaround between late Saturday night and their 7 p.m. game here on Tuesday, against Clemson, was a short one. And for long stretches of the first half, especially, UNC looked as though it was hung over after Saturday — if not literally then emotionally during its 80-76 defeat.
The third-ranked Tar Heels trailed by as many as 16 points in the first half and never led. Their halftime deficit was nine, and it wasn’t larger only because RJ Davis and Harrison Ingram made a pair of 3-pointers that allowed for a bit of hope.
The Tar Heels had their chances late, and plenty of momentum after tying it at 70 with about four minutes remaining. From there, though, UNC’s sloppiness struck again.
Clemson lost its first 59 games in Chapel Hill before winning here for the first time in 2020, in what turned out to be Roy Williams’ second-to-last season as head coach. The Tigers are now 2-60 in Chapel Hill, but they’ve won two of their past three games here.
Here are the takeaways from UNC’s fifth loss of the season:
A post-Duke malaise, a belated awakening
An emotional letdown after the kind of victory the Tar Heels experienced Saturday is understandable, if not expected. No team can sustain the kind of energy it reserves for its most important rivalry games. The most disappointing part wasn’t necessarily the start – the Tar Heels were down 15-2 before coach Hubert Davis saw enough and called a timeout – but the response.
Or, more accurately, the lack of a response.
During that timeout, Hubert Davis told his team its predicament wasn’t a result of anything rooted in X’s and O’s, but instead in the intangibles. Effort. Enthusiasm. Energy.
“I didn’t particularly enjoy or like the practices leading up to the game tonight,” Davis said, and he echoed what several of his players said: mainly, that they felt something had gone missing after the victory against Duke. Bacot said he felt something amiss during pregame warm-ups.
“We weren’t as live as we usually are. Everybody just — it kind of felt flat. I mean, that’s something we all noticed and tried to get ourselves going but it’s too late, once you start having to do that.”
Said Harrison Ingram, UNC’s junior forward: “I think they were the hungrier team. They came out from the beginning like they really had nothing to lose. They played harder than us. They bullied us. They played better defense, better offense — they were the better team today.”
Well, that about covers it. It’s also worth noting that Bacot said a few UNC players were late to pregame warm-ups.
“We just didn’t get out there on time,” he said. “And that’s something we haven’t done all year. Like we’ve always been on time. We’ve been punctual about all those things and just, all the little things added up.”
In the first half, an anxious Smith Center crowd kept waiting .... and waiting ... and waiting for the Tar Heels to make a run. It never quite came. UNC labored to run its offense against a Clemson zone that flummoxed the Tar Heels, who often missed open shots when they had them.
UNC’s run, finally, came at the start of the second half, when it outscored Clemson 12-6 during the first five minutes after halftime. The Tar Heels during that stretch cut their deficit to three, energizing the crowd and prompting coach Brad Brownell to call a timeout.
That spurt allowed the Tar Heels to hang around, and hang around, until they finally tied the game with about four minutes remaining, at 70, on Harrison Ingram’s 3 from the corner in front of the UNC bench. Ingram’s shot came moments after he re-entered the game, after leaving it with an apparent left leg injury. The shot sent the Smith Center crowd into a state of delirium.
From there, though, Clemson scored the next seven points to take a 77-70 lead. The Tigers led 78-72 with a minute left and UNC couldn’t overcome that — or its play throughout most of the game.
Tar Heels really missed Seth Trimble
Trimble, the Tar Heels’ sophomore guard, has developed into the team’s most important player off the bench. He provided a spark, especially, during the victory against Duke Saturday, and he’s undeniably UNC’s best on-the-ball defender.
He did not play Tuesday night, after suffering what the team described as an upper body injury against Duke. UNC missed his defense, yes, but also his scoring, and the lineup flexibility Trimble presents. It didn’t help matters, for the Tar Heels, that freshman point guard Elliot Cadeau struggled through one of his worst games.
With Trimble out, UNC coach Hubert Davis experimented some with his lineups. Part of that, undoubtedly, was that he was trying to find something that would work — especially in the first half. At one point, Davis employed an unusual lineup of Cadeau, Paxson Wojcik, Harrison Ingram, Jae’Lyn Withers and Jalen Washington.
Wojcik was the biggest beneficiary of Trimble’s absence, and played 21 minutes — his most since he played 20 in UNC’s Battle 4 Atlantis victory against Arkansas in November. Would Trimble have made a difference in the result against Clemson? It’s difficult to say. It certainly was not UNC’s night, regardless of its personnel.
“We would have loved to have had Seth available,” Davis said. “But the way that Clemson played and the way that we played, I’m not sure if that would have been any different.”
At least there was Armando?
There were not a whole lot of bright spots for most of Tuesday night for UNC, with the exception of Bacot. He served notice with his performance against Duke — 25 points and 10 rebounds — and spoke after that game as if he’d be on a mission between now and March (or early April?).
One of the questions, though, was this: Could Bacot, who has been something of an enigma this season, maintain that kind of consistent level of production? Answer: Yes. At least for Tuesday.
He finished with 24 points and 13 rebounds, and he was the reason UNC had a shot, late, after the Tar Heels appeared sluggish for most of the game. This was a deflating loss for the Tar Heels, who had a chance to build on their victory against Duke and further separate themselves atop the ACC. It was a performance, too, that calls into question UNC’s mental fortitude, and its ability to maintain its energy and effort from game to game.
Individually, though, Bacot appears to be surging at the right time. As Hubert Davis said after UNC’s victory against Duke, the Tar Heels need Bacot to be “a dude” if they’re to reach their potential. He was, for the second consecutive game, Tuesday night. The problem was that he didn’t have a lot of help.
This story was originally published February 6, 2024 at 9:15 PM.
