The easy thing to do here is to take the negative. It’s a loss, and a loss in this tournament always hurts because the next loss will be their last. There are plenty of negatives to look at, starting with an 18 point deficit in the second half that was just too much to overcome.
Yet if you want to take a hit of copium, you can for this reason: they only lost by one, and in multiple situations when it looked like it was easy for them to give up, they fought back. So how much do we read into this game,
as the next time we see the team it’ll be the first round of the NCAA Tournament? Let’s attempt three takeaways:
The bench is going to have to contribute
Jonathan Powell, Zayden High, Jayden Young, and Kyan Evans played a total of 35 minutes and scored all of five points. Now, the number is going to look pretty skewed when compared to the first game just nine days ago because it was Senior Night and Elijah Davis started instead of Luka Bogavac, so his 20 points off the bench made it look like a much bigger portion of the offense. Ultimately though, when you are missing the likes of a Caleb Wilson you can’t just get contributions from the five staters. It’s a recipe for them to get worn out.
The irony here is that one of the biggest gripes of Hubert Davis coming into the year was that he tended to rely on his starters too much and not utilize his bench. Now to some extent the circumstances this year have forced these changes, but of the many complaints you can make about this year that isn’t one of them. The only starter who played over 35 minutes was Henri Veesaar, and as Clemson had all the size in the world to go up against the Tar Heels, it made complete sense why.
Perhaps the most alarming player from the bench is the third big, Zayden High. Against Clemson the first time he played fourteen minutes, got five boards and four points. On Thursday, though, High only had one basket, two boards, two fouls, and looked lost enough to earn time on the bench instead of in the action. He finished with a plus/minus of -8 in the game, second worst to Jayden Young’s -13.
It wouldn’t be shocking at this rate to see Davis revert back to leaning heavily on his starters, as the comeback in the second half really started in earnest when Veesaar came back into the game and didn’t leave at the under ten minute mark. Honestly, can someone on the bench step up?
Keep Derek Dixon
One of the biggest things that Davis deserves credit for: when it became clear that Derek Dixon was going to be the better playmaker for this team, he handed him the reins — even though you could argue it took a little too long for him to turn the team over. The signs were there, as Dixon would come off the bench but stick around for more minutes and play in crunch time — see the Ohio State win in the CBS Sports Classic. He showed his uncanny ability to turn it on late again on Thursday, hitting impossible three after impossible three, and was the biggest spark to get Carolina back into the game. On the intentional miss, Clemson made sure that the ball couldn’t end up in his hands.
In the old days of college basketball you’d look at Dixon as someone who could grow in your program and become the next in the line of the Marcus Paige, Joel Berry II, and RJ Davis group. Of course college basketball is different now, and he’s shown enough to command attention in the market. This is where having a GM is a positive, because Jim Tanner and Dixon’s representatives can talk immediately after the season, away from the emotions of the game, and you hope the chances of him staying — knowing what’s coming in — are good.
Dixon is a huge piece of the puzzle next year, and he showed it again last night. Going into a season knowing he’s starting and might be able to slide over to the Seth Trimble role could be massive, and his spirit in helping the comeback Thursday could give you room for hope.
You maybe don’t want to read TOO much from the ACC Tournament
We were all wanting Carolina to get the double bye. Getting another day of rest seemed huge, because of course to win the whole thing you want to only have to play three games instead of four.
The problem is — including Carolina’s loss Thursday — the four seed is only 10-10 overall in the ACC Tournament since the format went to 12 (or more) teams in 2006, after which point the four seed has necessarily faced a team that had at least one game under their belt. Of those ten wins, four of them came against a twelve or thirteen seed.
You saw it in each of the other three games on Thursday; each of the teams that played on Wednesday started strong. You could have legitimately seen all lower seeds advance, but in most cases the higher seed eventually got their legs under them and were able to pull it out. It’s also worth noting that Louisville beat Miami last weekend, and Miami was able to get their revenge. It’s different when you play a team that has momentum and also just played you in your current form and know how to adjust. It takes away the advantage of the short turnaround.
While a lot of the same issues for Carolina cropped up — guard play, long and inexplicable dry spells, lack of motivation for stretches — you also have to wonder about what the mindset is for this team that had to wait to be the last one to play. Do we get upset about the way they played when we saw all the higher seeds struggle — including Duke — or do we find a silver lining in seeing that Carolina was able to establish some momentum at the end of a game they were losing badly, and hope it might carry into next week? Would it have really helped to win and face a Duke squad that was going to be heavily favored, or have a game that felt like they could have won despite playing poorly for long stretches, and now have at least a week to chew on it as well as rest, practice, and hone in before the Big Dance?
In the end, you may not be able to fully judge this performance until we see how the season ultimately ends. If they make it to the Sweet 16? Maybe this is just what they needed. If they lose in the first round? More likely it was a sign of things to come.
Until then, all we can do is wait and see what seed they have and where they’ll end up.
