UNC Basketball: Ways Tar Heels Must Improve Before Conference Play

Not everything can be measured in wins and losses. Just because a team wins a ballgame doesn't mean it did everything correctly, and vice versa.

With the North Carolina Tar Heels sitting at 6-2 and having already defeated two ranked foes, it would seem that things are going swimmingly. However, that is not completely true. There are many things the Tar Heels must work to improve before conference play begins next month.

The most pressing matter facing this team is its three-point shooting.

For two years now, this issue has been beaten into the ground. With Marcus Paige's slow shooting start to the season, the problem is even more dire. Right now, lefty-turned-righty Nate Britt is the team's top distance shooter at 6-of-17 from beyond the arc.

Gerry Broome/Associated Press

It's comforting that six made threes is already twice as many as he connected on all of last season, but Britt being the top percentage shooter is reason to fret.

This was never going to be a roster full of bombers. That's not its skill set. Nevertheless, opponents are already crowding the paint against Carolina because there is little reason to stay honest on the outside. The poor three-point shooting has thus trickled down and made open two-point jump shots harder to come by.

UNC is shooting 44.9 percent from the floor, 117th in the country, and it's no accident.

The main reason North Carolina has stayed afloat has been rebounding on the offensive glass. Second-chance points have made up the difference, but that board domination has not translated to the other end of the court.

While UNC has grabbed a whopping 135 offensive rebounds this year, eighth best in the nation, it has allowed opponents to grab 128 of their own, one of the worst figures in all of college basketball at 343rd in the country.

Gerry Broome/Associated Press

The reasons why this is happening aren't immediately clear.

If it's simply effort, that is good news but alarming all the same. Effort is easily fixable but should not be a concern of a Roy Williams-coached club.

If the rebounding is caused by poor technique, that is more difficult to correct, especially since the coaching staff hasn't been able to change things thus far.

With the Kentucky Wildcats next on the agenda, this is the worst time to be struggling with cleaning up the defensive glass. UK is perhaps the only team in the country that matches UNC in both its struggles to shoot from the outside as well as its dominance on the offensive boards.

The other possibility is that these players are being used incorrectly. Roy Williams has always liked to have his teams run up and down the court, generating more possessions than the average team.

This style of play makes a team susceptible to giving up easy baskets off its own mistakes. It's also fair to say that being encouraged to get out and run off any opponent shot makes defending the glass a bit harder than it should be.

Looking back at UNC from the past few seasons, this last point may have the most validity.

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

That same style of play could be a leading cause of current foul trouble and turnover abundance as well as lead to more issues down the road simply because this roster isn't one fit to run. With dominant big men down low, heavy forward rotations and little guard depth, the 2014-15 Tar Heels may be the most ill-fitting collection of talent for this system that Williams has ever had.

The coach has no reason to completely alter what has made him a Hall of Famer, but it may be time to slow things down a bit and see how the team fares.

There is certainly the size and length here to play great defense all around if everyone isn't so concerned with scoring in seven seconds or less on the opposite end.