I'm looking at several of our players who did worse this year compared to last year. Is that a fair measure?

We've spent the year bitching about our back court, but I notice that both Armando and Pete are performing worse than last year, while RJ is nearly back to last year's numbers after a slow start.

Meanwhile, Washington doesn't seem to have improved at all since that one good half against Virginia.

Raising the question: do we have good big man coaches? We all love Sean, but can he get the job done? And if not, is that his problem or the way our bigs are used?

Clearly we don't have anyone who can coach 3pt shooting. Which is rather surprising with Hubert and Jeff on board.

Any good defensive coaches?

If a big man is thinking about coming to UNC, would this worry him? How about shooters. Do they want to come to a school where shooting dies?

None of our 2024 commits have signed yet. They committed when we were riding high. I wonder what they think now that we look more like train wreck?

Implausible as it seems at the moment, we could still pull out a great finish. But even if we do, what top players want to go somewhere to be mediocre for 3/4 of the season, and maybe hurt their pro chances?

I've shared some frustration with others this season regarding Caleb Love's progress as a Tar Heel. A player that shot 26.6% from 3 his freshman year, Love returned for a sensational sophomore season with 36% shooting from behind the arc. Of course we remember the last minute heroics in the UCLA and Duke games in the tournament, which make it that much more frustrating to see Love fall back and shoot 27.7% thus far in his 3rd year in Chapel Hill. Defensively Love is one of the worst players we've seen in years and the team suffers a palpable handicap on defense when Love enters the game, especially compared to freshman Seth Trimble. There was one bright spot; in the Wake Forest game when Love and Trimble were on the floor together, Love appeared to be inspired by Trimble's defensive prowess.

If we look at the scoring per minute for Love in his 83 games thus far in Chapel Hill, we actually see improvement over time. With the exception of the last two games, Love has shown much more consistency this season. Play in each of seasons 1 and 2 reached higher highs and lower lows than the current season. As well, se are seeing that Love is more consistently outperforming the rest of the team this season. If we put a trendline on the graph, see see progressive improvement, as well.

Maybe Love is just in a weird shooting slump. Who knows. I will be surprised, though, if we don't see the 2022 version of Love return at some point this season. While this analysis doesn't track defensive performance, it does show that Love is still a very important offensive weapon for this team. Hopefully Hubert will try using Trimble with these guards to force more defensive pressure. That benefitted everyone on the team in the last quarter of the Wade Forest game.

In researching Love's numbers, I came across a couple of interesting statistics:

• UNC only played 5800 minutes in 2021 compared to 7875 minutes in 2022. They have logged 3125 to date this season.
• UNC has progressively gotten more potent at scoring since 2021, as its per minute scoring as a team has risen from 0.37 to 0.39 point per minute. That's 0.8 points for a typical game. Modest, but an improvement at an even rate.

(Orange dots are Final Four teams, green is where we want to be)
Mind you, it is early in the season. The poor defensive game against Portland created a major shift to the right for this year's dot, and the 1.22 pts/poss offensive performance against College of Charleston is pulling the dot way higher than we will see as the season plays out. That said, UNC's offensive pts/possession have been 0.986, 1.229, 0.923, 0.964, and 1.060. This team is finding ways to score without seeming like a ball of fire. Fascinating.

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FSU’s board of trustees meeting sounded like a warning shot to the ACC: Fix the massive revenue gap between the SEC and Big Ten, or else. “At the end of the day for Florida State to compete nationally, something has to change,” Seminoles athletic director Michael Alford said. Something has to change because the status quo is unsustainable. (Tampa Bay Times)

Just forget the past, Play one game at a time and for each other. Play it out. Hopefully no injuries. Play who comes up next.

DUKE 62, UNC 57
MARCH 4, 2023
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.

UNC Scoring Leader: Armando Bacot, RJ Davis 17
UNC Rebound Leader: Bacot 11
UNC Assist Leader: Davis, Caleb Love 3
Team Records: UNC 19-12, 11-9 ACC; Duke 23-8, 14-6 ACC

• With the loss Carolina is the No. 7 seed in the 2023 ACC Tournament. The Tar Heels will play Wednesday against the winner of Tuesday’s game between No. 10 Boston College and No. 15 Louisville.
• The loss drops UNC to 12-3 at home this season.
• Carolina scored 57 points, which equaled the season-low 57 the Tar Heels scored at Duke.
• This is the first time since 2010 the Tar Heels scored fewer than 60 points in consecutive games against the Blue Devils.
• Carolina made a season-low 17 field goals (previous was 20 at Indiana).

• It was UNC’s fewest field goals in a game since making 16 in a win over Boston College last season.
• Carolina shot a season-low 30.4% from the floor (previous was 33.3% at Notre Dame).
• Carolina shot 26.7% from the floor in the second half, its lowest percentage in a second half this season (previous was 28.6% at Duke).
• Carolina is 6-2 this season when holding opponents under 40% from the floor. Both losses came against Duke. The Blue Devils shot 38.7% at Duke and 37.9% this evening.
• Armando Bacot scored 17 points, had 11 rebounds and blocked four shots.

• Bacot passed Michael Jordan for 14th in UNC scoring with 1,795 points.
• Bacot tied Ronnie Shavlik of NC State for third in ACC history with his 68th career double-double (19th this season).
• RJ Davis shared UNC scoring honors with Bacot with 17 points. Davis passed Ademola Okulaja and Raymond Felton and tied Ed Cota for 55th in UNC career scoring with 1,262 points.
• Leaky Black had nine points and eight rebounds in his 153rd career game, which is the most by any Tar Heel in history. Deon Thompson played in 152 in four seasons from 2006-10.

Series vs. Duke
• The Blue Devils have won two straight.
• The Tar Heels lead the series, 143-117.
• Carolina is 20-18 against Duke in the Smith Center and 65-39 in Chapel Hill.

From runner-up to being swept by scheyerface....

Just read a article that Bacot and Deja Kelly and several other athletes have signed with Crocs. I fully believe getting all of these deals will pretty much guarantee a 5th year of basketball 🏀 at UNC for the big man.

Three winnable games to get to the ACCt finals. Season isn’t over.

Beaten by a better team it’s as simple as that. We better learn how to develop a bench soon or we can expect this to continue. We are effectively done for the year. Let’s see what happens in the portal and if Nickel leaves I am gonna be pissed!
Bacot returning would be nice for his experience but this team is way to jeckle and hyde for this old guy. We desperately need a true point that has Felton speed at minimum. Change this NBA offense crap because everyone can defend it with lesser talented teams.
On to next year folks and let’s hope things change….

Check your results!

Contest #1




Contest #2

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Duke Blue Devils​

22-8, 13-6 CONF

ESPN
3/4
6:30 PM

North Carolina Tar Heels​

19-11, 11-8 CONF



FINAL GAME (Contest #1 and #2)

The top 15 players (in both #1 and #2 ) will make the final cut for Contest #4 (ACC and NCAA tourneys).

Contest # 4 will have 30 players. I will compensate for players that placed in the top 15 in both pools.

Contest #3 is pure luck.


Contest Rules
Contest #1: Total points for entire season
Contest #2: Reset: Total points after game #15
Contest #3: Final Four Pool Bracket (Top 64 players)
Contest #4 Grand Prize: Total points ACC and NCAA tournaments games through title game (contest continues even if UNC eliminated)


NCAA College Basketball Odds, Betting Lines & Point Spreads
NCAA college basketball odds, point spreads, and betting lines (ATS, over under, money lines) updated multiple times daily.

Last year Carolina was basically in the same boat with everyone saying Carolina had to beat Duke in Durham during the celebrated Coach K’s swan song at Cameron to have any chance of getting into the big dance.

The whole basketball world lead by a gigantic ESPN promotional blitz felt there would be no chance of a Tar Heel win on that fateful Saturday but when the smoked cleared a packed house including a 100 Blue Devil letterman left shaking their head wondering what happened and the ESPN crew quickly exited Cameron.

Just like last season Duke has a ton of McDonald All Americans but also like last season they are very young and almost none of them except for Roach have played in such a high emotional contest and I feel that 4 expierenced Carolina starters who have played in these battle of blues will make the difference.

A rowdy crowd will also make a big difference and May end up rattling the young Duke unit.

Senior night and a must win results in a more experienced squad team downing a young talented team. Carolina at home will also get more than three shots from the free throw line this time around…

The players and Hubert have been talking all year about how the pressure has been too much for them and was a big reason for the struggles. The pressure of being #1, the pressure of losing 4 in a row, the pressure of being on the bubble, etc... Isn't the pressure of not being able to lose all of a sudden just as big as any of those? So, if they couldn't play with pressure before, how can they play with pressure now? They say the pressure is off now and they can play more freely. How is the pressure off now? Why has it taken 30 games so far to realize what's at stake and 30 games for Pete to supposedly find his groove? To me, that sounds like a coaching issue. Not having them prepared for games and having them ready to play for all 40 minutes rather than the last 5 minutes of the game.. I just get sick of hearing how the pressure was too big before when the pressure seems even bigger now. It just doesn't make sense.. All they had to do was win 1-2 other games this year or not lost to Pitt at home and we wouldn't even be having this conversation.