On Saturday, the North Carolina Tar Heels’ men’s basketball team handled business against USC Upstate. While the game was still somewhat close late into the first half, Carolina went on a run to end the half and then
turned things on to pull away in the second.
Now, the Tar Heels are set to play another home game against smaller conference opposition, as East Tennessee State will be in town tomorrow night. ETSU should be an interesting test, as they come in at #115 in the KenPom rankings (at least at time of writing), which is the best of any Southern Conference team. While they haven’t faced any tests as strong as UNC, they’re no pushovers. Ahead of Tuesday night’s game, here are some things to keep an eye on in the clash.
Who will control the paint?
In terms of raw per game averages, ETSU has a very strong offense, going for over 80 points per game. They’ve done a decent amount of damage in the paint, as they’re shooting over 60% on 36.2 attempts per two-point attempts per game. Meanwhile, they’ve held opponents to just 46.7% shooting from two and just 14.2 makes per game, which is one of the best marks in the country. Add in a perfectly solid 52.9% total rebound rate and the Buccaneers are dangerous in that aspect of the game.
The main difference is, they won’t have faced a frontcourt with the quality of Caleb Wilson, Henri Veesaar, and company yet. ETSU has no one on their roster over 6-8, and only one player that height plays over 20 minutes per game. Obviously if just height was the only thing that mattered, Purdue would’ve won several of the last national championships, but UNC will need their frontcourt to play better than ETSU’s to avoid a sticky situation in the final minutes.
Take care of the ball
Unlike some other recent Carolina teams, UNC has not had a massive issue turning the ball over. They’re no completely slop-free, but their 11 committed per game is in the top third in the country.
This will be a test of that, as the Buccaneers force opponents into over 15 per game and average over 10 steals a night. A thing that could be stated about any time a team is fairly highly favored is “don’t turn the ball over.” Giving your opponent needless chances is never a good thing, but don’t want to do it for a team that is already adept at creating those chances. Just math and the way basketball works means you’re going to turn the ball over several times in a game, just keep it in the 10 range and not over 15. The last thing we need is a bunch of shots of a graphic noting how many points ETSU had gotten thanks to turnovers. If that’s happening, the game will be way tighter than anyone would like it to be.
Just try and overwhelm ETSU with talent
I’ve alluded to it before, but ETSU has not faced anyone at UNC’s level to this point. ETSU has the 330th ranked strength of schedule according to KenPom. Their best win to this point is South Alabama, who is #179 at KenPom. There may very well be some teams on their schedule who end up way better than currently ranked, and there are undoubtedly some hidden gems of players on those rosters. However, if UNC can get them thinking at any point “this is not anything like we’ve seen so far this year,” that’s a good portion of the battle won right there.
