After a post-exams win against USC Upstate that was maybe more competitive than anticipated, the UNC Tar Heels continue their three-game homestand with a matchup against the 8-3 Buccaneers of East Tennessee
State. The Heels will be looking to extend their winning streak to 4, while ETSU will be coming in off its third loss of the season.
ETSU, in its third season under Brooks Savage, is a program on an upward trajectory. They placed 3rd in the SoCon last year and appear to be ready to contend for the conference title again this year, with T-Rank projecting them as the regular season winners. They’re ranked 114th in adjusted efficiency by KenPom and 149th in T-Rank, both very respectable numbers for a mid-major, and have a few blowouts under their belts including a 91-65 win over South Alabama. That said, they’ve only played one game that registers higher than Quad 3, and that was an 88-71 loss at Dayton. So while they’ve looked pretty impressive in the early part of the season, they haven’t faced an opponent like UNC, either.
Things start for the Bucs with grad transfer forward Cam Morris III, who leads them with 14.2 points per game. The 23-year old Morris is a product of IMG Academy, where he was teammates with Armando Bacot for a year, and is having a breakout season. He’s shooting 63% from the floor, doing most of his work inside the arc (though he is 6/11 from 3 for the season), and is a load on both sides of the court, averaging 1.3 blocks per game. He’ll probably have the primary assignment on Caleb Wilson, and he’s physical and skilled enough to be up for the challenge. Besides him, the ETSU frontcourt features Blake Barkley and Jordan McCollum. Barkley is the team’s leading rebounder; he’s a little undersized but plays a tough game and has been highly efficient from the floor. UNC fans might be reminded a little of Luke Maye at times with the way he finds angles to the basket, shoots from distance when available, and passes out of the post. McCollum isn’t as efficient as his counterparts, but does get after it on the glass. And both Barkley and McCollum have been liable to get scored on by opposing bigs and wings.
As leaky as most of the frontcourt has been on defense, though, this ETSU team has been feisty on the perimeter. As a team, they’re top-40 in the country in forced turnovers, and what powers that stat is that they’ve got 5 guards who average 0.9 steals per game or better. Sixth man Jaylen Smith leads the charge on that end, with 2.2 steals per game while averaging just 24 minutes — he’s a small guard at 5’11, but he will get after ballhandlers. The starting backcourt of Brian Taylor and Allen Strothers are no slouches either, combining for 3.1 steals a game. That said, the shooting defense numbers are only okay, so if the Heels can take care of the ball and make the right passes, they can succeed against these guards.
Offensively, guards and bigs alike on this team prefer to work close to the basket. They take about 59% of their shots inside the arc, which is about average, but are much more effective shooting 2’s than 3’s. Of course, given the number of steals they generate, a good portion of that is just down to uncontested transition layups, but it’s how they like to work in halfcourt, too. They aren’t an overly pass-heavy team, with an assist rate that’s dead average in the country, which means that they need to win one-on-ones to consistently get buckets. Beating them means that every player has to first and foremost take defense personally. Besides Barkley and Morris, the Buccaneers aren’t really scoring juggernauts, so protecting the rim will go a long way towards making it a long day.
It wouldn’t really be accurate to lump ETSU and USC-Upstate in the same mold, but I do expect ETSU to give the Heels the same kind of game that Upstate did. On Saturday, that was the result of a team overperforming, but this ETSU team is a tier better than Upstate. They’re the kind of team that a fairly high seed will play in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and they’ve got the ability to give the Heels a good game. UNC had better hope they’ve shaken off whatever post-exam blues and rust they were experiencing.
