We knew before last night’s game that UNC’s chances of winning against Stanford and Cal weren’t very high. ACC teams on the East Coast have had an awful time completing the gauntlet, and the reason for that is pretty obvious. However, last night’s loss wasn’t so much about jet lag as it was about poor defense and missed opportunities from the free throw line. Is the sky falling after such an annoying loss? No, but also the evidence is piling up that the shiny paint on this team is quickly wearing
off now that conference play has began.
Let’s take a look at three takeaways from the Heels’ frustrating outing against the Cardinal.
Ebuka Okorie was unstoppable
While UNC’s defense could’ve been a lot better to say the least, one player that was almost impossible for the Heels to deal with was Ebuka Okorie. The dynamic freshman was arguably the toughest point guard that the Heels have had to deal with this season, which is saying a lot considering the fact that they faced Kansas’ Darryn Peterson. Okorie is a physical guard that can get downhill at will and is more than capable of making plays for his teammates when he can’t. He finished his evening with a career-high 36 points, and he dished out nine assists.
There will likely be a lot of questions regarding why Okorie was able to do literally anything he wanted to, but it’s hard to say that UNC didn’t try. Hubert Davis tried switching, blitzing ball screens, hedging, and limiting possessions, but nothing was working. If anything some of their tactics only created plays for Okorie’s teammates, especially Jeremy Dent-Smith, who got way too many good looks from deep. The Heels have a lot to fix on defense, but there’s also no question that Okorie is one of the best guards in the country and he played like it. Let’s just hope he’s actually healthy when they play Duke.
Luka Bogavac stepped up when the Heels needed him
Life has been frustrating in the back court for anybody not named Seth Trimble. While the senior guard has been able to put up double figures in every game that he has played in, it has been quite a roller coaster for Kyan Evans, Luka Bogavac, Jonathan Powell, and Jaydon Young when he’s actually seen the floor. The Heels needed one of these players to step up to have a chance to win this one, and Bogavac was the guy to do so by scoring 13 points, which also matched Trimble’s total for the night.
We saw the most aggressive play that we’ve seen from Bogavac in weeks. He took guys off the dribble to knock down shots, drove downhill to the basket, and drew fouls to get to the line. There were a few missteps along the way, and his three-point shooting is still sub-optimal, but ultimately he was a welcomed positive on offense in what was otherwise a pretty frustrating game. The Heels need him to at least be a threat when he is in the game, especially when the team isn’t helping themselves in the scoring department with their poor free throw shooting. Speaking of which…
Poor free throw shooting proved to be costly
Remember the 2013-2014 season? The team that while they lost PJ Hairston, they were otherwise pretty talented except for the fact that they couldn’t make free throws to save their lives? We find ourselves in the same situation a little over 10 years later, and last night it played a huge role in the loss to the Cardinal.
If we’re looking at this from a rational perspective, sending Henri Veesaar to the line to shoot 11 times is likely how you end up with such a poor free throw shooting percentage as a team. With all due respect to the Arizona transfer, bigs don’t have the best track record for shooting free throws, which is always a problem because they are the ones that get to the line the most. Even if we remove Veesaar from the equation, though, guys like Seth Trimble, Caleb Wilson (we can debate on whether or not he’s in the same bucket as Veesaar), and Luka Bogavac have been pretty bad from the line this year. As a team, the Heels left 12 points on the floor because of missed free throws. There’s your game.
While UNC had a handful of problems that led to their loss against Stanford, free throw shooting didn’t help at all, and it will not help moving forward if they cannot knock more shots down. How do you fix it? Outside of getting more reps up at the gym, we just have to hope that something clicks before the problem costs them a bigger game. Perhaps in Cameron Indoor. Or, you know, at one of the NCAA Tournament sites. Take your pick.
