The Carolina blue skies are a bit clearer and brighter these days now that the Tar Heels have Henri Veesaar back in action. He was instrumental in taking down Syracuse on the road, and if we’re being really honest, they probably don’t win that one without him. The Orange played a bit better than they did in the first game between the two, and not having Veesaar’s interior presence would’ve spelled trouble like it did against NC State. The problem, though, is that UNC has Louisville next, and they are a much
better team that is more than capable of handing them their first L in the Dean Dome this season.
Let’s take a look at three things to keep an eye on in this game.
Maintaining good shot selection
One of the biggest challenges that UNC faced against NC State was shot selection. With Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar being out, the Heels felt the need to challenge the school record for most three-pointers in a game, and yet only made five of their 33 attempts. Their shot selection was much better in Veesaar’s return against Syracuse — they made six of their 16 three-pointers, and they scored 42 points in the paint.
It goes without saying that having a seven-foot big that can score on three levels improves things as far as shot quality. Veesaar draws a lot of attention whenever he gets the ball in the paint, he can knock down shots from three, and he is solid in ball screen action. Having him for the Louisville game is huge, but the other part of this is that the they have to actually run plays on offense. That sounds obvious, but against the Wolfpack we saw a weird amount of iso and a good amount of standing around. They’ll have to stay disciplined on offense if they want to stay undefeated on their home court.
Finding a way to stop Mikel Brown Jr.
UNC has had a really hard time stopping talented guards this season. SMU’s Boopie Miller gave them fits, MSU’s Jeremy Fears Jr. tore them apart, and while they still won the game, Kansas’ Darryn Peterson shot 57.1% from the field for 22 points. Now the Heels have to deal with Mikel Brown Jr., who is having an impressive freshman campaign.
Brown has been a lethal offensive threat for the Cardinals. In the last four games, he has scored 25+ points in three of those, and dropped 45 points in their win over NC State. Brown’s impressive performances may cause problems for what has been an inconsistent UNC defense. Their perimeter defense will likely make a big difference in slowing him down, but they’ll have to stay disciplined when defending Brown in the paint as well. A failure to do so would likely result in what happened in the games against the Spartans and Mustangs.
Can the Heels cure their free throw woes?
One thing that UNC has been pretty good at this season is getting to the free throw line, but making them has been an up and down experience. Take the Duke game for example: they made 11 of their 14 attempts, which was excellent compared to their season average. Duke fans complain about the discrepancy, but Heels can rightfully point out that if what normally happens behind the charity stripe happened in that game, they’re probably not as salty about the results of the game.
Then there is what happened against Syracuse on Saturday: despite getting 28 free throw attempts, the Heels were only able to knock down 15 of them, which was good enough for an unsavory 53.6% clip. There’s no one player responsible for the issues, as Seth Trimble, Luka Bogavac, and Jarin Stevenson only made half of their attempts or worse. The Heels will have to be better from the free throw line if they want to beat Louisville. It’s a short turnaround from the game against the Orange, but surely there’s enough time over the next 24-ish hours to get up some shots at the gym.
