Tar Heels: Time For Identity Change

It appears as if the North Carolina Tar Heels have pulled a Notre Dame.

I'm referring to the exaggerated hype and overrating of a historically successful program.

UNC entered this college basketball season ranked No. 6 in the Associated Press poll with high hopes of defending, not only their three consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference titles, but also their national title. 

However, after losing two of their last three contests, one against the likes of Southern Conference's finest, the College of Charleston, that idea seems absurd.

What concerns me the most about UNC's play this season is the lack of scoring. Statistics show that the Heels are averaging around 84 points per game, which is only five points off last season’s average. If you take a closer look at those stats, however, you'll see how misleading that stat is.

Carolina has scored over 80 points in a winning effort just once against an opponent that plays in a power conference. Their 103 points against Presbyterian, 98 points against Marshall and 93 points versus Gardner-Webb significantly pad their scoring average.

The Heels (12-5) scored a season-low 64 points in Wednesday's loss at No. 19 Clemson. The season-low for last year’s squad? 69 points, but in a winning effort at Miami (FL). To go along with their lack of scoring, the crew from Chapel Hill is finding it difficult to emerge victorious on the road this season.

This season was not expected to be as good as the previous for Carolina, but it certainly wasn't expected to be as bad as it's been to this point either. In their defense, four of the Tar Heels losses have come to ranked teams, three of them being against top five teams. But the loss to College of Charleston is inexplicable.

Speaking of inexplicable, did you know Carolina is just 1-5 on the road this season? Not something one would expect from a Roy Williams bunch.

Even in victory the Heels have not been overly impressive. Many would say that their best victory of the season would be the 89-82 win over Michigan State in early December.

And they would be correct.

But I would argue that their most impressive performance of the season would be a 68-66 loss at Kentucky.

If you remember, UNC built a 17 point lead at home against the then No.9 Spartan squad. Michigan State then exposed the Heel's youth, pulled within two points late in the second half, but lost the three-throw battle in the end.

Against Kentucky, Carolina came out against the Wildcats completely stagnant and trailed by 15 at half. Many considered that game over and done with. But the young Heels showed impressive resolve and battled back to make things interesting in the end, eventually losing by two.

The key for North Carolina to succeed this season, to get back into the discussion as one of the elite teams in college basketball and compete for an ACC title, is for Williams to change the identity of his team. Call me crazy, it's mid-season I know, but I believe this is the proper solution.

Since Williams came to Chapel Hill in 2003, the Heels have been known for their run-and-gun style of play. And with the personnel Carolina has had through the years, there's no question that was the best approach as point guards Raymond Felton and later Ty Lawson led the Heels to national championships with their up-tempo style of play.

But that was then. This is now.

Carolina features one of the best, if not the best front court in the country with senior Deon Thompson and sophomore Ed Davis. The pair lead the team in scoring with 15 points each, with Thompson hauling down nine rebounds a game and Davis seven.

For Carolina to be a force the rest of this season, they need to become a half-court offensive team. Larry Drew II is not Felton or Lawson or anything close for that matter.

He handles and distributes the ball well but by no means is he the floor general UNC has had in the backcourt through the years. He simply needs to set up in the half-court and pass the ball down in the post to one of his future-pro forwards.

I know this isn't how Carolina plays basketball. They like to push it up the court, make the other team run with them. But that's been exactly the problem for them this year.

Other teams can run with them because they don't have the quickness at the guard position as in years past. Inexperience at guard in a fast-paced offense is a terrible combination and that has showed through their 16.9 turnovers per game.

The Heels are beating themselves. They're trying to make themselves a run-and-gun team when they should be playing half-court basketball, utilizing their talent in the front court.

By simply slowing things down things will dramatically improve for UNC.

It will put less pressure on the play of Drew, allow the defense to get set and actually stop somebody, and present many more opportunities for the Davis-Thompson duo to dominate and bring victories coming back Carolina's way.