UNC Basketball: 4 Things Tar Heels Must Improve Before March

The eighth-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels are starting to fly under the radar.

After being seemingly everyone's preseason favorite to cut down the nets in New Orleans, one ugly road loss has put the Heels on the backburner. Syracuse and Kentucky are now—in most people's opinions—the only elite teams.

Add in the season-ending injury to Dexter Strickland, and UNC apparently has no chance of competing in March.

That makes them dangerous.

Of course, with that being said, there are still plenty of things this team needs to improve on in the next month-and-a-half. 

Protect the Rock

The Tar Heels are 320th in the country in turnover percentage. Part of the reason that number is so awful is because they play at such a fast pace, but it still needs to get much better.

Losing Strickland—the second-best ball handler on this team—isn't going to help, either. Kendall Marshall is a stud, but he's going to be relied on even more in the coming months. His current trend of more than four turnovers per game during his last five contests isn't going to cut it.

No matter how many assists he racks up.

Three-Point Shooting

This was a major problem for the Heels last year, and it continues to hamper their ability to become elite.

They are shooting 35.1 percent from deep, which is average, but they simply don't shoot enough. UNC is just ninth in the conference and 271st in the nation in total three-pointers made. 

The most important players in fixing this problem are Reggie Bullock and P.J. Hairston. Hopefully they're ready, because they are going to get their chance.

With Strickland out, these two are going to get a big up-tick in minutes, and as the team's two main long-range threats, they will need to start shooting the ball with better consistency. 

Play Better Away From Home

Before last week's win at Virginia Tech, the Heels had lost three of their five games played away from the Smith Center. One of those was a one-point loss at Kentucky, but a 10-point loss against UNLV and a 33-point drubbing against Florida St. are unacceptable. 

Even against VT, the Heels came out slow, trailed at halftime and needed a big second-half run to pull out the victory. 

Come tournament time, UNC won't be able to rely on home-court advantage every game. They are going to have to find a way to play with consistency on the road, which they haven't done yet. 

Perimeter D

Marshall is already an average perimeter defender at best, and now Strickland—the team's best outside defender—is out. We could be seeing some high-scoring games going forward.