Tar Heels make history, but not the kind they were expecting
The North Carolina fans who came to the Smith Center expecting to see a coronation nearly had a collective coronary instead, subjected to what was certainly among the worst halves of basketball played in the history of the program.
That wasn’t exactly the milestone the Tar Heels were prepared to celebrate Saturday.
Roy Williams will stay tied with Dean Smith for the time being, and truth be told, as much as the coach hates the awkwardness associated with this particular rung in the record books, he’d be the first to admit it would have been a travesty to pass his mentor if the Tar Heels had somehow found a way to wriggle off the hook in the second half against Georgia Tech.
The Smith Center had literally never seen anything like this, a first half that saw the Tar Heels wait more than 14 minutes for their first field goal and face the largest halftime deficit in the history of the building, down 20 on their way to a 96-83 loss.
North Carolina’s historically bad 27 points managed to scrape ahead of both of N.C. State’s historically bad halves in the same game last season, although the Tar Heels managed to avoid misidentifying the greatest player in school history on the scoreboard, so there’s that at least.
But there wasn’t much else.
“I apologize to all the North Carolina fans, people who care about our basketball program, former players, everybody that cares about us,” Williams said. “Because we stunk it up tonight, and it’s got to be my responsibility. It’s the most negative I’ve ever been about myself, the most negative I’ve ever been about my team.
“We weren’t ready to play, right from the first five minutes of the game. ... The most disappointed, most upset I’ve ever been in my life at coaching a basketball game. It’s not even close.”
‘We kind of freaked out’
It was 19-2 at one point, as the Tar Heels, in Brandon Robinson’s words, “kind of freaked out.” At halftime, Georgia Tech had as many dunks (six) as the Tar Heels had field goals, thanks to the unimpeded rampaging of James Banks and Raleigh’s Moses Wright inside. North Carolina turned the ball over four times on basic frontcourt inbounds plays. Garrison Brooks did what he could to shoulder the offensive burden, piling up a career-high 35 points, but he isn’t a natural scorer. Neither, though, are any of his teammates with Anthony out.
The Tar Heels gathered themselves at halftime and quickly cut the Georgia Tech lead to single digits, only to fall back into old habits at both ends of the floor. Brooks’ fast-break pass to the back of Christian Keeling’s head put an end to any hopes of a comeback in what on this day was characteristic fashion.
“We were letting them score however they wanted,” Brooks said. “That’s the hard part about it. Sometimes shots don’t fall, but we can control our effort on defense and we weren’t doing a good job there.”
It doesn’t require the breaking news ticker to note the Tar Heels are in serious trouble losing a game like this anyway, but the manner in which they lost sent up even more red flags than were already flying. Freshman Jeremiah Francis — already “Poor Jeremiah,” in Royspeak — isn’t yet ready to shoulder the burden at point guard, and with Cole Anthony out, no one else is up to the task.
More worrisome, there’s a lack of awareness and even effort at both ends: Not only are the Tar Heels not doing the right things, they appear at times to have very little concept of what the right things to do are.
Flashbacks to 2002
Georgia Tech has now won in Raleigh and Chapel Hill in the same season for the first time since 1996, and North Carolina is spinning back through the past as well. The comparisons to 2013 have turned into comparisons to 2010 and are now veering into 2002 territory. But that 8-20 team hustled, at least, issue-ridden as it was.
There were times early Saturday when the Tar Heels appeared to switch off completely on defense as Georgia Tech ran around them, provoking what may have been the angriest timeout in Williams’ entire tenure. First his assistants screamed. Then Williams screamed until his face was bright red. By the second half, his jacket was off. Not that it helped.
Williams almost always tries to deflect the blame onto himself after difficult losses, but was clearly running out of patience Saturday.
“To miss 18 shots in the first half and not have any points on second-half opportunities is just beyond belief with me,” Williams said. “I don’t think anybody’s emphasized rebounding more than I have my entire career. I mean, it was zero, wasn’t it? Zero offensive-rebound points in the first half. It sort of sounds like I’m blaming them, and part of that is true. I know I’ve coached that part of the game.”
His teeth clenched, Williams thumped his fingers on the table.
“I know I’ve coached to care about the game,” he added.
It’s possible there’s only so much anyone is going to be able to wring from this particular set of players without Anthony to paper over cracks that have become canyons.
This group may have hit bottom in the first half on Saturday.
Or worse, it may not have.
This story was originally published January 4, 2020 at 9:28 PM.
