I think we as North Carolina fans knew that this game wouldn’t be easy. The 6/11 matchups are starting to get towards the range that are tossups, and UNC was, of course, down their best player for the rest of the year. I confess, I didn’t quite guess the manner that this game would go south.
After leading by as many as 19 points, Carolina fell to VCU on Thursday night, losing 82-78 in overtime. There’s going to be plenty that’s said and written about what happens from here, but here are three quick
thoughts I had in the aftermath.
A tale of two halves
To be real, it was actually a tale of 33 minutes, and then 12 other minutes, but the point remains the same.
For the first 33ish minutes of this game, UNC was in control. Even early on when shots weren’t falling, Carolina was still moving the ball well, getting open looks, and just looking like a team where the run was coming. Then it did. They ended the first half on a run to take a double digit lead into halftime, and then increased it to as many as 19 to start the second half.
Then, for as much panicking as they didn’t do while building that lead, they more than made up for it after that. After not turning the ball over much, not settling, and not doing stupid things, they spent the entire seven minutes of regulation and overtime doing all of that. VCU was making some ridiculous shots to make things semi-close, but the final rally and then overtime was all on UNC as opposed to anything the Rams did well. It truly didn’t need to be like that.
Free throws, free throws, free throws…
We’ve all been saying it all season, that free throws could spell doom for UNC, and low and behold it did at the worst possible time. In terms of pure percentages, 12-20 wasn’t the worst we’ve seen from them, but it was the timing of some of the misses that made things bad.
In overtime, no time could really make a shot. With the game tied and under a minute left, Seth Trimble eventually with a chance to give Carolina the lead. He did, but went just 1-2. VCU then went down and hit the three-pointer that gave them the lead for good. On UNC’s possession to tie the game, Henri Veesaar then got fouled, but missed the first attempt, leading to Carolina then having to try the intentional miss, as there wasn’t much time left. They couldn’t pull that off, and the story was written. Again, it didn’t have to be this way.
Now is the winter of our discontent
I profess to being a Hubert Davis skeptic even prior to this meltdown, but one that recognized that UNC doing anything this year is highly unlikely. However, if he, the team, and the administration were looking to quiet the people that are louder than me, that was not the way to do it.
There’s no excuses for how this particular game played out, but you can still explain away this season as a whole in some ways. They spent so much of it not fully healthy. The Caleb Wilson injury that finally sealed the deal on his season being over probably felt like a gut punch to the team, etc, etc. However, all of that is not going to work on a lot of people who are big mad right now. At the very least, some assistant changes may have to be made, because if not, this could be a very loud and eventful offseason.
