The first loss of the Michael Malone era at North Carolina is out of the way.
UNC lost 78-70 to Georgia last night in a game in which the Tar Heels had a nine-point lead with 10:35 remaining but could not hold on to beat the Bulldogs.
Here’s what happened.
Rebounding Issues Persist
This is the storyline Tar Heel fans, coaches, and players are already tired of hearing about four games into the season, but it remains a headline.
Against Georgia Friday night, the Tar Heels recorded a rebound margin of -9. Friday night’s contest
marks the third time in four games that the Tar Heels were out-rebounded.* Offensively, they were out-rebounded 16 to 18, and defensively the gap was an even worse 27 to 34.
The Tar Heels consistently lose the battle on the glass, and until Coach Malone can find a solution for the team’s rebounding issues, it is going to be extremely difficult for North Carolina to compete.
*Wofford is the only team UNC has out-rebounded so far. Fun(?) fact: The Wofford Terriers have yet to out-rebound a Division I school in the 2026-27 season
Three-Point Shooting Abysmal
According to Carolina Basketball Stats & Info, UNC set a school record for three-pointers on Friday night. This is not a good sign.
The Tar Heels were awful from three-point range:
- 9/38 on three-pointers (28%)
- 3/12 on corner threes (24%)
The numbers are bad, but they do not fully encapsulate just how visually upsetting some of these shots were. Airballs, shots that barely grazed the side of the rim, top-of-the-backboard deflections, you name it.
In his 2025 book Expensive Basketball, Shea Serrano describes certain moments of basketball as being “expensive”. The core concept is that no advanced sabermetrics stats or numbers alone can capture the beauty and magnitude of a moment like “Block by James!”. The chasedown block that prompted the famous “Block by James!” call would be justifiably more expensive than all the other blocks on a long shopping rack of blocks at the block store based on the magic and vibes of this one particular block. It just would.
In a similar, if antithetical, manner, the Tar Heels’ three-point shooting performance on Friday night was perhaps the cheapest, most budget-friendly Great Value way to shoot 28% from deep. It was ugly.
There are games where the ball seems to tauntingly dance around the edge of the rim but just won’t fall through — this was not one of those games. These shots were so far from the mark that it felt like an undeserved surprise anytime one fell through. Three-point shots that miss badly tend to be extremely difficult for an offense to rebound, further exacerbating the rebound problem.
And yet, they kept shooting the deep ball.
More thoughts on why they should have pounded the paint more below, but first, why not take a break and enjoy something expensive?
Free Throws Flipped The Game
The biggest reason North Carolina lost the final 10 minutes of the game against Georgia comes down to free throws. Free throws were the secret sauce keeping a bad-rebounding, terrible-shooting Tar Heel team ahead going into the final ten minutes of play.
In the first twenty-seven and a half minutes, North Carolina shot 18 free throws and made 13 of them. Georgia only shot two free throws in the same time span. North Carolina led by 11 with 12:25 to go.
In the final 12:25, UNC only shot one free throw. They missed it.
In the final 12:25, Georgia shot 13 free throws. They made eight.
The clock hit 00:00, and Georgia won by eight points.
In the first three quarters of the game, North Carolina seemed to understand the value of finding contact and earning the whistle. Pass the ball around the perimeter, get a defender off balance, and drive towards the basket to create contact. It seemed like a masterclass in coaching from the NBA veteran who knew what the referees were calling and how to get the favorable calls.
And then, in the last 12:25 of the game, North Carolina resorted to deep threes and ISO plays that produced only one free throw, while Georgia seemed to find the groove in the official’s whistle. There’s a universe of factors that could have contributed to the change in free throw distribution. Maybe North Carolina deserved the blame. Maybe the officials just started calling the game differently.
Whatever the exact reasons for the shift, the sharp change in which team was repeatedly headed to the charity stripe changed the flow and outcome of the game. In future games, if North Carolina can find ways to create contact and earn the And-1s that send Terrence Brown to the line for 3-point play opportunities, they can mask poor rebounding and poor shooting with quiet free throw points.
But, if North Carolina cannot get to the free-throw line and they shoot 28% from three-point range and post a rebound margin of -9, they will not win basketball games.
Something has to improve for this team to win Power 4 basketball games, and the first 27:35 of Friday’s game showed that winning the free-throw game could be enough to mask deficiencies in other areas.
Takeaways for Marshall
North Carolina’s next game will be against the Marshall Thundering Herd on Friday, November 20th. Marshall has yet to be outrebounded in a game this season.
Pay close attention to how well North Carolina rebounds against Marshall, how their shot mix shifts (or doesn’t — maybe they’ll shoot at least 38 threes every game here on out?), and how effectively they can control the free-throw line.
Progress needs to be made in all three areas before they bump into their next Power 4 opponent, West Virginia, on November 27th. Upcoming games against Marshall and Monmouth are great proving grounds to demonstrate meaningful progression.
