Quick stuff (Miami game)...

[gary-7]

...and there's still some fixin' to do.
Look, we all know this was a TCB game, and we did that, but watching this one raised some concerns that we'd better fix pretty quick, so sorry, but that's what this is mostly gonna be about:

- our 3-pt shooting was certainly big --- 10/18 --- carried a big part of this one, especially when 3s would once again bail us out of some otherwise bad possessions.

- the more sustainable good news was scoring in the paint, which contributed mightily to a 59% shooting day. There were too many forces for my blood, but we mostly attacked like we meant it (at least once we got the ball in the paint) --- and that matters.

- what we DID NOT do like we meant it has also become a MAJOR sore spot with me from an ol' coach's perspective --- CUTTING. Fact is, this bunch is a lazy cutting team. Moment: Early 2nd half on a called action, and Lubin just lolligags to the rim. Somehow EC nonetheless threaded a key-hole dime for the score, but this unfortunately exemplifies a chronic issue.

- continuing on that note, as I mentioned I've watched several classic UNC games over the past couple of weeks, and the difference in cutting is PALPABLE. Moreover, too many of our guys don't know WHEN to cut to the rack in Freelance situations. There were at least three times today I found myself yelling "CUT!" when there was an obvious unused opportunity. I'm sure some of that is a byproduct of our weakened Secondary scheme, but some is just old-fashiioned basketball IQ. Hell, I just watched Auburn basically run uk outta their own gym --- go watch them cut outta Pearl's old school Flex actions... it ain't that hard!

- Ok... with that rant outta the way, one more concern is FTs. Can't afford to be shootoing 67% going down the home stretch.

- Defensive intensity was not nearly what we've seen in recent games, and Hubert let the guys have it following a needed timeout. I mean, Cleveland (who of course didn't play vs dook) and their other big guy lit us up, and we didn't offer much resistance on them.

Again, sorry to start so much on the negative side, but these things still need fixing. Let's turn back to some more positives:

- Once again, REBOUNDING! Outboarded them by 12, and most of their offensive ones were of the long bounce variety. Again, the Big lineup pays dividends here.

- Speaking of BIgs, WIthers continues to thrive offensively with the increased minutes. His defensive footwork still makes my damn head hurt, but I'll take that double-double from the 4 position. Lubin did do a great job of cleaning up around the rim, but the defense today was well, yikes. Wash had some solid defensive possessions, but son, CUT AND POST UP LIKE YOU MEAN IT!

- Since I mentioned the low-IQ aspect of our off-ball movement, I do want to acknowledge one on the other side of that. Moment: RJ pulls up outside the arc in transition and looked like he was gonna fire up a rushed 3, but instead he hesitated and glanced over to wait for the Trailer to get in rebounding position before letting it go. Nice senior play.

- And finally, even though he was the target of one of my "CUT!" harangues, Drake continues to show more flashes of that huge upside as his confidence grows. He's about a summer of footwork away from becoming a "plus" defender, and a summer of weight-room away from being an offensive force. Hope we get to see him for one more season...

Anyway, TCB is the deal, and we did what we needed to do to make it convincing (on the scoreboard at least) to serve notice (oh, and once again, Lunardi can GFH). That said, we'd better not go into Blacksburg with that initial intensity level...

 

[DSouthr]

5 games now stacked since Clemson, I believe we beat the spread in all 5, I think that is important because this team has not beat the spread in a lot of our wins. Thee may not be top tear teams we have stacked but beating the spread does make a statement. Okey just lost to Miss St so maybe they fall and we rise to the last 4 in spot.

I love balanced scoring so much more than those games where you have a couple guys get the bulk of the points. I love efficiency, we shot again above 50% from the field and from trey, our shot quality is much better. We still screw around for to much of the shot clock, our player movement (when it occurs) is neither precise or in tandem to the ball, 2 man games guys, come on! Absolutely amazing in that first half as a team we had only 1 foul and Cadeau did not have that 1.

I keep wondering how long JWit can keep this shooting up but it has been there for a nice run of games. I felt Jack was nice aggressive. Cadeau 4 assist but 3 TOs, RJ 4 assists, we were over 50% again assists to scored baskets and owned the boards.

Yet again we see the value of doing the best we can to match up in size, I am still amazed it took so long for Hubert to realize this, doubt I ever understand why. But, did what we needed to do and that was not juts beat a bad Miami team but beat the spread, not much more can be asked of them.

 

[IDUNK4HEELS]

No question the change from playing four guards to playing the natural three forward set has been the biggest reason Carolina has gone on this five game winning streak.

 

[Mrs.Jeans15]

Just keep playing hard.

 

[Archer2]

No question the change from playing four guards to playing the natural three forward set has been the biggest reason Carolina has gone on this five game winning streak.

Better rebounding and our hot shooting, both as a result of your point.

 

[heels05champs]

Regarding our struggle with cutting, I remember seeing some quotes from Caleb Love after he went to Arizona in which he said he had to learn the proper way to cut after he got there because it wasn’t taught at Carolina under Hubert. He said it was an emphasis under Lloyd.

 

[NorCalTarheel]

I yelled so loud at the television my wife came out to see what the problem was. I was little embarrassed to tell her that I was yelling for a big, ANY of our bigs, to continue on the secondary break to the low post! Every single time our bigs would stop at the free throw line to start our offensive set. If they would continue to the low block it maintains pressure on the defense to stop our ball handler, collapses the perimeter d, and might even end up in a lob or easy hoop when their man has to rotate to stop the ball! When we fail to run to the low block (even if we end up back up top), it flattens out the defense and creates a wall.



Grrrrrr..... All of that in a 19 point win!!!!🤣

As ALWAYS, it's a GDTBATH!!!

 

[gary-7]

I yelled so loud at the television my wife came out to see what the problem was. I was little embarrassed to tell her that I was yelling for a big, ANY of our bigs, to continue on the secondary break to the low post! Every single time our bigs would stop at the free throw line to start our offensive set. If they would continue to the low block it maintains pressure on the defense to stop our ball handler, collapses the perimeter d, and might even end up in a lob or easy hoop when their man has to rotate to stop the ball! When we fail to run to the low block (even if we end up back up top), it flattens out the defense and creates a wall.



Grrrrrr..... All of that in a 19 point win!!!!🤣

As ALWAYS, it's a GDTBATH!!!

You and me both, brother.

 

[NorCalTarheel]

You and me both, brother.

If nothing else, we are consistent 🙄

 

[39 Feet Above Sea Level]

👏🏾 Confidence feeds itself; and it’s observable that the streak of victories since Clemson
has energized the Heels. From the staff to every player, they believe that they have
what it takes to control game tempo for 40 minutes. THAT needs to be the
attitude for these fellas in March. Lots of work ahead this week. 👍🏾 GDTBATH 🏀⛹🏾‍♂️

 

[Geth]

All i want is JWash to start sleeping with the basketball taped to his hands. Then before games whatever is legal to use to keep his control of the ball. He has so many bobbles, fumbles, slips that hes literally referred to as "butter fingers" in our house.

 

[sdingeldein]

👏🏾 Confidence feeds itself; and it’s observable that the streak of victories since Clemson
has energized the Heels. From the staff to every player, they believe that they have
what it takes to control game tempo for 40 minutes. THAT needs to be the
attitude for these fellas in March. Lots of work ahead this week. 👍🏾 GDTBATH 🏀⛹🏾‍♂️

Yep, you can see it on the court. Trust and confidence is there; it wasn't earlier.

 

[Bubspub88]

I was gifted a couple of tickets so I decided to watch the Heels in person. Not surprised at the number of empty seats in upper section but I did think there was more empty ones in the lower section than anticipated.

This may be the most inconsistent UNC team I have ever watched play. Seven minutes of really good basketball followed by 3 minutes of wtf. Some of the passes were just awful. The rotation after the 2nd timeout (EC, Trimble, Ian and can't remember the two bigs) was terrible - no offensive flow and getting beat consistently on D.

It was nice to see the scoring spread out and the assists were solid but FT shooting was bad. Miami is not good and there were a few instances where UNC had a 15 - 18 point lead and instead of putting the hammer down let the Canes sneak back and cut it to 10 or 12. This should have been a 30 point win with the bench getting more pt. The defense was just up and down the whole game and the mental focus was there maybe 70% of the game.

Dook's bigs will have a field day if UNC defends that way, and if UNC half-asses it that way on offense they will be lucky to get 60. This team does not seem to have bought in. The product on the court is so far removed from what hung all those banners it is crazy.

I think they need to win Saturday (or at least be close and then make the ACC finals) to go dancing. The idea of UNC being in the "last 4 in" is embarrassing.

 

[TPFKAPFS]

Great win! Excellent progress across the board and clear signs the team has bought in! I love how peeps have accepted their new roles and embraced getting the hook when their D falters! In a field that only has a few really dominant teams, I like the new look Heels' chances once we fight our way in! Hubs taking that TO in the 1st half to deliver the needed wake up call was brilliant and obviously turned the game around! Hubs has found the right buttons and I hope he keeps on pressing them. Obvious trap game behind us and another one tomorrow. Keep on the gas, fight for every minute and let's see what happens! I do not fear puke but I do respect their talent. At our best we can hang with them and I see a team on the right trajectory at the perfect time!

 

[DSouthr]

The last 5 games have to me been like a coin with 2 sides, heads, if you like wins. Not just wins but wins where we have beaten the spread, not often seen before this string of games. This team played an amazing hard pre-conference slate, that Maui trip was insane and thou we lost games a basket here or there and we win many of those games, some for sure Q-1 losses were just that close to being Q-1 wins. All the sudden JWit jump shots are falling, Drake jump shots are falling, RJ, & Jack shots dropping, Lubin is scoring, Seth, even Tyson has dropped some recent shots, JWash as well has had mostly improved moments as of late. The game always looks better when the ball goes thru the basket. Most fans don't really care about how it happens as long as their team ends up winning, by 1 or by 40, it is a win that matters.

It is kind of funny, we drop a close game by 1 and fans jump off a ledge screaming how bad we were, we win by one and hey it was hard but they toughed it out. One single basket in 40mins of a game and we see the difference between a fan base screaming fire the coach or give him an extension, let's build him a statue out front? Yet in reality it is basically the same game with the only difference a single shot saw the ball either bounce around the basket before it falls in or just rings out? It is such a small thing to carry so much weight, don't ya think?

To often this season we have seen the other side of the coin pop up, oh craps, it is tails? You know, where that ball just rolled out or just rolled in for the other team. The same shots that have been dropping in this string of wins were not dropping in those looses, it is not that we have not had good looks all season, it is simply the ball has not dropped and of late guys you do not expect the see hit shots are dropping them? Outside of 2 blow outs to duke and clemson and maybe the Auburn game where the final score was a bit closer than the game itself felt the losses and many of our wins have been razor close.

Even in this string of games, I still see a lot I do not like, I see things happening now that I feel we should have been doing all season and I have no explain as to why? Not sure what side of the coin that defines as? LOL I don't know how I feel about Hubert's extension but I am not ready to scream fire him either? So many things have changed so radically, has me feeling a bit off balance, has effected the way I look at games and seasons, it is hard to stay centered, makes me uncomfortable, makes me less than certain. And one thing UNC basketball has seemed to always have in me was a sense of certainty. I just don't know if it is from all the changes in the sport, the players we have, the coaching, or something else but I will be very glad to see the dust at some point begin to settle in to some kind of normalcy but it sure feels like that will be a long time coming.

 

[ChapelHeeled]

No question the change from playing four guards to playing the natural three forward set has been the biggest reason Carolina has gone on this five game winning streak.

🏀👍

 

[TPFKAPFS]

Yup. Playing 2 bigs is allowing peeps to play their natural positions and is certainly contributing to some of our success! Seems obvious and peeps tend to wonder why it took so long, but do we remember peeps wanting the team to put the "best 5 out there!" Or "How can you put those talented Freshmen on the bench???" or "Who plays once JWit has 2 fouls + 2 TOs in 2 seconds; Lubin can't catch the ball with stick em on; and JWash is afraid to even look at the basket. " or "will sitting peeps cause chemistry issues???"

Thank God, RJ has been a consistent force even if he isn't sinking every shot
JWit is playing much smarter AND hitting shots
Lubin found a set of hands and is finishing at the basket
JWash has been protecting the rim and taking wide open, confident shots
Peeps accepted bench time for the good of the team
Seth and EC are taking good 3 pointers flowing from the O AND attacking the paint
Peeps finally internalized how hard and for how long they have to play
And we aren't playing top 10 programs BUT are covering the spread meaning TCB!

All this is also part of the success!

GDTBATH!