UNC Basketball: What Tar Heels Must Change from Louisville Loss to Beat Virginia

Where do we go from here?

It's the first question that comes to mind after any setback, particularly one that was as devastating and disheartening as what North Carolina went through on Saturday. And with no breather or break in sight, the Tar Heels have to find a way to regroup in a hurry.

Monday's visit from second-ranked Virginia is still a battle for first place but now another layer has been added to this already intriguing matchup: the loser is suddenly on a two-game losing streak.

No. 13 UNC lost 78-68 in overtime at 10th-ranked Louisville, while Virginia suffered its first setback of the season in a 69-63 home loss to No. 4 Duke.

For Carolina, it wasn't just simply losing that stood out. Instead, it was the manner in which it fell that allows doubt and uncertainty to start creeping back into how this team should be judged.

After running off six straight wins, all of which saw UNC (17-5, 7-2 ACC) show toughness and assertive play, on Saturday it managed to do that for about 25 minutes. But the game lasted 45 minutes, and in the final stretch the Heels were a shell of the team that had entered the day within a game of first place in the conference.

It was almost a complete reversal of the last time the Heels and Cardinals played, on Jan. 10 in Chapel Hill, when UNC rallied from a 13-point deficit to win in the final seconds. This time, Louisville erased an 18-point second-half deficit and then dominated in overtime.

"The second half was not a very good basketball game on our side," coach Roy Williams said in the postgame press conference, per the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Marcus Paige added, per Adam Lucas of GoHeels.com: "They competed harder than us when we thought we had the game."

Calling it poor effort is a general way to describe what UNC did wrong. But in order to get things corrected in the short turnaround between Saturday afternoon and Monday evening, when Virginia comes to the Dean Smith Center, requires breaking down the specifics of how the Heels failed.

UNC established some notorious Williams-era superlatives against Louisville. It committed 33 fouls, more than any other team Williams has had with Carolina. The 44 free throws that the Cardinals attempted were more than any opponent that any Williams-coached team has faced.

The Heels had three players (Nate Britt, Isaiah Hicks, Brice Johnson) foul out, with Hicks and Johnson exiting relatively early. Additionally, Kennedy Meeks was in foul trouble for most of the second half of the game. That enabled Louisville to go hard inside, without much resistance, which enabled it to score 26 second-chance points.

"It had been a while since the Tar Heels lost a game because of effort," wrote Andrew Carter of the Raleigh Observer. "But that's what they most often lamented in a quiet, sullen locker room afterward—that if they'd just played a little harder here, with some more toughness there, the result likely would have been different."

Now comes Virginia, a team that has one of the most efficient offenses in the country. Though it lost to Duke on Saturday, the Cavaliers still showed off their knack for getting inside and scoring, often drawing contact along the way.

On the other end, UNC's 20 free-throw attempts resulted in just 11 made shots, with the 55 percent accuracy a season low. It had been shooting 69.7 percent from the line coming in.

The breakdown in the second half and overtime also was a result of turnovers, with 19 total for the game that the Cardinals converted into 17 points.

Joe Robbins/Getty Images

Each time that UNC has lost this season, it's come back like a team on fire in its next game and made major improvements. After getting crushed on the boards in losing to Butler in the Battle 4 Atlantis, the Heels blew out UCLA and rebounded much better. After looking sluggish and disinterested in a home loss to Iowa, UNC won by 44 against East Carolina.

The same happened after losing at Kentucky (a five-game win streak followed that) and to Notre Dame (six straight wins, starting with the Louisville comeback) but never before has the ensuing matchup been as tough, if not tougher. Making matters worse is that Virginia fell apart itself late against Duke, giving up 11 straight points to lose by six.

There's not much time to right the ship, but the fixes have to be made. If not, a loss to Virginia would send UNC out on a three-game road trip—that includes the annual visit to Duke—with consecutive setbacks and dwindling confidence.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.