No ‘Maui’ title for UNC, but a step in the right direction — and away from last season
This won’t be the omen North Carolina thought and hoped it would be, even if winning the Maui Invitational on the mainland might not carry the same weight as winning it in Hawaii. It can still be a springboard to better for the Tar Heels, who did so much wrong and still fought back to lead late, with the game hanging in the balance on the last possession.
At the very least, North Carolina turned the page on last season in its sojourn to the island paradise of Ashevillle, even if the circumstances of the Tar Heels’ defeat — a last-second pull-up jumper by Texas’ Matt Coleman that rattled off the rim, the backboard and the rim before dropping in, leaving no time for an adequate response — were eerily familiar.
It is always thus against Texas, UNC’s basketball kryptonite since the days of Dean Smith, winners in nine of the past 10 meetings against North Carolina, seven of those wins, like Wednesday, by a single possession, 69-67. It was reminiscent of the excruciating last-second loss in Greensboro in December 2010, the last time the Longhorns were ranked in the top 25 while facing the Tar Heels before Wednesday. Texas is 17th. North Carolina is 14th. They figure to switch places Monday.
Still, over the three days in Asheville, starting with overmatched UNLV and scrappy Stanford, the Tar Heels found different ways to win. Wednesday, they played dismally in the first half and lingered in the locker room before returning to the court. It shouldn’t take Roy Williams that long to say “pound the dang ball inside” but apparently he did and apparently they listened. Down 16 at one point, North Carolina fought back to take the lead with 2:35 to play, its only lead, as it turned out.
Coleman’s shot with 0.1 left on the clock put an end to North Carolina’s dreams of turning yet another Maui title into yet another NCAA title — as was the case in 2004 and 2008 and 2016 — and it made the Tar Heels pay, in the end, for the litany of mistakes they made, missed free throws and turnovers most notably, although a 1-for-9 line from 3-point range didn’t help either.
This still represents progress, not only over the course of the three days in Williams’ hometown but from last year, when the Tar Heels were often the team that saw leads wither, not the team doing the whittling. There are enough new faces to make that process easier, especially with the two talented but raw freshmen in the backcourt, still finding their way. For those who played key roles a year ago, whether that’s Garrison Brooks or Armando Bacot or Leaky Black or Andrew Platek, those memories weren’t far away. They’re farther away now.
The way the Tar Heels played in Asheville, they put a little space between now and then, even with how things ended Wednesday.
“We showed a lot of toughness, especially in the second game, winning a close game,” said Brooks, who played on after badly twisting his ankle in the first half. “Losing one like this, especially when we’re down, coming back, it kind of shows the toughness we have. We can fight and come back. We’re still one of the best teams in the country when we do what we’re supposed to do.”
It doesn’t get any easier for the Tar Heels, with No. 3 Iowa up next followed by No. 17 Ohio State and ACC rival N.C. State in quick succession before Christmas. But they showed some progress in “Maui” and some backbone Wednesday, some grit and some resolve. The absence of those can’t be easily fixed the way ball security and shot selection can.
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 7:23 PM.
