North Carolina Basketball: Diagnosing the Holes in Its Starting 5

Roy Williams is going to have to address some rather blatant holes in what’s beginning to look like an unmotivated and overrated UNC basketball team.

Granted, Indiana is a very good basketball team, but to lose by 24 points when you’re nationally ranked is unacceptable.

So far, UNC has failed to show up when faced with a respectable team, and, if I’m a UNC fan, I would be extremely discouraged from what I’ve seen so far.

Shooting is the most fundamental, basic and important element of the game of college basketball. If you can’t shoot, you won’t win many games.

UNC is currently ranked 93rd in the country in shooting percentage at 46 percent.

46 percent is respectable to some extent, but this is a team that shot 46 percent against Gardner-Webb, 43 percent against Florida Atlantic and just 40 percent against Long Beach St.

When I saw that, I thought to myself: "Hmm…I wonder what they’ll do against Butler."

Sure enough, they shot 43 percent and were 7-of-22 from the arc in an 11-point loss to a Butler team who lost to Illinois last week by 17 points.

Breaking it down, it starts with UNC’s big men.

James Michael McAdoo has carried his weight, averaging about 16 points and nine rebounds per game with a shooting percentage of 47 percent.

Where is the rest of the team?

Dexter Strickland, the UNC guard who had so much hype coming into the season, has yet to show up.

When referring to NC State, Strickland said, "They talk those guys up every single year and we beat them every single year. They are the least of our worries.”

Strickland is correct in one aspect: NC State is indeed the least of UNC’s worries at this point in the season.

UNC will inevitably improve, they have a great coach and a rather easy schedule over the next four or five weeks, but if they underestimate what teams like Texas and the 5-0 East Carolina Pirates can bring to the table, it could turn out to be a very long season for the Tar Heels.