The Tar Heels came back to Earth a little bit on Tuesday night against Radford, fighting through a sloppy, heavily-whistled game to come out with a 15-point win. They’ll hope their next game against a mid-major
program goes a little more smoothly as they host friend of the program Levelle Moton and his N.C. Central University Eagles. Things will probably be a little more… interesting than either UNC fans or Hubert Davis would want during this period of time without Seth Trimble on the court, so here are some things to look out for late Friday night.
1. Perimeter Shooting
Through three games, this has been a pretty poor outside shooting team, sitting at just under a 30% conversion rate from three-point range. It’s not necessarily anything to really worry about yet, given the small sample size, but given that the Heels are putting up nearly 30 treys a game (they’re only ~100th in the country in 3-pointer attempt rate, so the number is more a function of high tempo than bad shot selection), making more of those shots will go a long way to making games like Tuesdays feel more comfortable and the tougher games on the schedule ahead feel more winnable — especially while they’re missing the pressure that Trimble puts on the rim.
Coming into the season, this team was expected to have three primary, high-volume perimeter threats: Kyan Evans, Jonathan Powell, and Luka Bogavac. Evans has lived up to that billing in a vacuum, hitting 6/14 (42%) of his threes so far, but he has too often looked tentative to let it fly — he didn’t have a single attempt from outside against Radford despite at least a couple of opportunities, and the pull-up shooting magic he often displayed at Colorado State has so far been missing. He’s clearly been adjusting to being a primary ball-handler and creator for others, but he’s going to have to also be a consistent offensive threat for this team to reach its ceiling, and that means taking a shot that looks a little selfish from time to time. Powell is 4/12 on the season and I think every make has come from the corners; after seeing extended time on the floor against Radford as a 3 and small-ball 4, I’d like to see him be better integrated into the offense. Bogavac is 5/19 (26%), and missed a whole mess of good looks against Radford — though they started to fall in the second half, when he went 2/5 with another make from a step inside. He’s a proven shooter at a legit level of basketball, so I’m not necessarily worried about him, and he’s much more than a shooter, so it’s not like he doesn’t have value to this team when the shots aren’t going in — but getting him shots is clearly a big part of how this team wants to succeed, and at some point either those shots are going to have to start going in, or the blueprint is going to need some changing.
And if Henri Veesaar (3/7), Jarin Stevenson (2/9), and Derek Dixon (2/6) can on aggregate continue contributing reasonable shooting numbers on low-to-middling volume, especially if the latter two can get a little more comfortable, this offense will become all the more dangerous.
2. Post Minutes
UNC’s starting frontcourt of Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar looks, through a couple weeks into the college basketball season, like one of the most formidable post duos in the country. But even at baseline, they can’t be expected to play 70-80 combined minutes every game; that’s how teams lose steam and underperform in March. That goes double for games in which UNC is going to be favored by 15 or more, like Tuesday’s game against Radford and Friday’s against NCCU, and even more so if one or even both of them get into foul trouble like Wilson did against the Highlanders. To Hubert Davis’ credit, Wilson played only 22 minutes (not helped by foul trouble) and Veesaar 28 on Tuesday night, so he’s clearly aware of this.
But so far, UNC’s depth in the frontcourt has been pretty lacking. Zayden High and James Brown should be the primary backups, but have both looked pretty lost on just about every defensive possession they’ve played and thus far haven’t really shown much offensive capability either. High has made a couple of hustle plays for his teammates and Brown generated an easy layup and some free throws against Radford, but overall, neither has really earned a ton of playing time moving forward. Against the Highlanders, Davis felt comfortable using Bogavac and Powell, both standing at 6’6, as smaller 4s next to either Wilson or Veesaar, but neither really has the physicality to stand up to high-major post players for extended periods of time. There are ways to work around that, but they’re going to involve changes to defensive scheme and, well, more consistent perimeter shooting, going back to point #1.
That said, Radford is a solid mid-major, ranked 145th in Kenpom’s net rating. NCCU, on the other hand, is 347th. If ever there is a time for High and Brown to show what they could theoretically eventually be able to contribute, it’s going to be against the Eagles, because UNC is unlikely to see competition this overmatched again. If they can play solid minutes, then there’s reason to give them some grace and believe they can grow through the season (High coming back from not playing organized basketball in a year and Brown playing essentially his first real minutes of college ball could accelerate the learning curve, after all) into guys who can spell the starters for 10-15 minutes combined per night. If they look like they have looked so far, though, it will probably be time to find some more creative solutions to saving Wilson and Veesaar’s legs for the long haul.
Turnovers
One of the concerns with this team going into the season, if not the primary concern, was how effectively the team would operate with nobody on the roster having full-time on-ball experience as a point guard. It has been a bit of an adventure through three games. The ball is moving as well as it ever has for a Hubert Davis team, thanks to several players with good secondary passing skills and sharp execution of offensive sets, but this team has also had a bit of a turnover problem at times: They turned it over on 16% of their possessions against Central Arkansas, had 10 giveaways in the first half against Kansas, and had 19 in their exhibition against BYU. Some of that is down to a roster that is almost wholly unfamiliar with each other and with the things that Hubert Davis wants to run, but some of it is also just not having somebody who can reliably create space with their dribble and bail the offense or themselves out of sticky situations or busted plays.
Things were a little better against Radford, where the Heels turned it over a respectable 11 times in a high-paced game — it just didn’t feel that great because they also missed a bunch more shots than they had been previously. We caught a glimpse in the second half of the Kansas game of what this team can look like when they don’t turn it over and make shots, but that scintillating display, while memorable, is almost certainly unsustainable. NCCU will present another opportunity to clean up the execution, and hopefully for chief offenders such as Derek Dixon, Henri Veesaar, and Jaydon Young particularly to be stronger and more deliberate with the ball. If the Heels can both not give the ball away and execute on offense for a full 40 minutes, they’ll give themselves a real, game-long blueprint for what it’s supposed to look like.
