How concerned should UNC fans be about the loss to Wofford?
The sun rose over North Carolina Thursday morning with UNC and their fans still smarting from the worst loss (statistically, anyway) of the Roy Williams era in Chapel Hill. The seemingly disinterested Tar Heels, described by Williams as "fat and happy" after a rousing come-from-behind win at Tennessee on Sunday, allowed Wofford to hang around early and then allowed the Terriers to take command late in the first half and blow the game open early in the second half on the way to a 79-75 defeat to a team ranked 195 in the KenPom rankings. The loss leaves Carolina fans scratching their heads, and the Tar Heel players are likely leaving their breakfast in trash cans on the Smith Center floor after Williams gets done with them in practice on Thursday. For those trying to put Wednesday night's results into some kind of context, there are three big reasons for UNC to worry about the Wofford loss, and three reasons not to worry.
UNC should worry about the Wofford loss because:
♦The Tar Heels were amazingly soft inside. The play of UNC's bigs were a primary question mark going into this season, with the loss of pretty much the entire post rotation to graduation or the NBA draft. Throughout the first 11 games, Carolina had either gotten serviceable play from its young post players or had been able to hide it with superior play from the outside. But on Wednesday night, a fairly undersized Wofford team out-worked and out-muscled not only the Tar Heels' young big men but pretty much its entire team. Wofford's Cam Jackson had 18 points and 9 rebounds and UNC had no answer for him. Moreover the Terriers blocked seven UNC shots and pretty much kept UNC off the offensive glass. This is obviously concerning if a 6-8 mid-major post player can do that, what is going to happen in the thick of ACC play?
♦UNC goes as their perimeter shooting goes. UNC's other loss, to now #2 Michigan State in the PK 80 tournament, was characterized by epically bad shooting. For those who thought that might be a one-off, Carolina shot only 36% from the floor and an abysmal 28% from three. When their shots are falling, UNC is as good as any team in the country. When the shots aren't falling? This year's Tar Heels don't have the ability to pound inside and get a bucket like they did last year. UNC made a valiant effort and closed a double-digit gap to a single possession in the last few minutes, but there was no one on the team who could reliably knock down a shot. Last year, the team could look inside to Kennedy Meeks or count on a Justin Jackson driving floater when a clutch basket was needed. This year's squad seems to not have that, at least not yet, anyway.
♦It's not like Wofford played an exceptional game. Part of the madness of college basketball is that upsets like this can and do happen all the time. But often these kind of upsets happen when a plucky underdog gets NBA Jam-like on fire, raining down lots of threes and everything they throw up goes in. That certainly was not the case on Wednesday. Wofford only shot 44% from the floor and 37% from three (only making seven of them), and were out-rebounded (though only slightly). The Terriers took advantage of Carolina's sloppy play and while not making lots of shots, certainly made enough clutch ones to keep the Tar Heels at bay. In other words, UNC was flat-out beaten by a mid-major at home.
UNC should not worry about the Wofford loss because:
♦UNC seems to frequently have an inexplicable loss before January 1. UNC under Roy Williams seems to struggle coming out of exams and over the holiday break. Last year, the Tar Heels lost at Georgia Tech in late December in a game every bit as disappointing from an effort and shooting standpoint as the game against Wofford. The litany of such losses were on prime display last night on Twitter, whether to Belmont or Charleston, or poor performances against better teams like Texas and Kentucky. The good news is that such losses never seem to define a season. As horrible as the Georgia Tech loss looked last year, the season turned out just fine. Only the Charleston loss was a harbinger of doom (and technically that one was in January).
♦Carolina actually played pretty decent defense. Much like the Michigan State game, the level of UNC's defensive effort and intensity is lost in their putrid offensive output. Again, the Heels held Wofford to under 44% shooting and only 37% from three, with some of those made either from 30 feet or with hands in faces. While Carolina would have liked to have forced more turnovers to jump-start the transition game, it wasn't the defensive effort that cost UNC the game. Just as Carolina shut down Tennessee late, the Heels clamped down enough to claw back from a double-digit, second-half deficit to get within a single possession late. The difference, of course, is that in Knoxville on Sunday, Kenny Williams stepped up and hit a shot. In Chapel Hill on Wednesday, no one made the clutch shot. UNC has turned into a much better defensive team the past two seasons, to Roy Williams' credit.
♦This game likely won't mean much in the grand scheme. Barring a 2010-like collapse, the loss to Wofford likely won't mean much come NCAA tournament time, much like last year's loss to Georgia Tech ended up being a footnote to the season. It's not like UNC will be a bubble team and this loss is what keeps them out of the dance. Assuming the Heels meet projections in ACC play, this game will be a talking point on a "tournament resume" graphic but would be way down the list of disqualifiers, especially if the team is playing well in February and March. And historically, Roy Williams' teams do tend to improve over the course of the season.
There are a couple of other good news items for UNC and its fans, however. First is that Cam Johnson looked solid in his UNC debut after missing the first 11 games due to injury. Johnson scored 10 points off the bench in only 17 minutes and although he was suffering from the same poor shooting bug as his teammates (1-5 from the floor, all from three), his presence will make UNC even longer on the wing on defense and he can provide a scoring spark on offense. The other good news is that the Heels won't have long to stew over this loss as they head to New Orleans to take on a struggling Ohio State team on Saturday. Carolina usually responds fairly well to a loss in the Roy Williams era and UNC will have a chance to erase the pall of the Wofford loss and keep it from being a nightmare before Christmas.
