UNC Basketball: Tar Heels' Keys to a Strong Regular-Season Finish

With just two months remaining in the regular season, North Carolina still has a lot of work to do.

Things have tailed off here recently as the competition has picked up. By losing back-to-back games against Louisville and Virginia, the Tar Heels must concentrate and execute their keys if they hope to finish the year with a flurry and head into the postseason with any momentum.

Address second-half issues

Two games ago, the Louisville Cardinals mounted a huge comeback in the second half to erase an 18-point deficit and vanquish Carolina.

The next game, UVA stomped the Heels in the second half to the tune of 43 points on its way to a double-digit victory in Chapel Hill.

It has been a problem all year for Roy Williams to get effort and intensity from this team for full 40-minute stretches. Without that concentration for entire games, UNC remains vulnerable against weaker competition and has no hope of hanging with its peers.

More from Marcus Paige

Marcus Paige, the team's best player, needs to score more consistently and show up as the star he is night after night. It's not a simple job, but being an all-conference performer isn't supposed to be cut-and-dried.

While he's shooting a tick worse than last season, Paige's main shortcoming has been his inability to get easy points. Little was available against Virginia, but even against weaker foes, Paige has been unable to get loose in the paint and has gotten to the free-throw line at nothing approaching an impactful clip.

Shooting 84 percent from the foul line is nice, but when he's converting just 2.9 free throws per game, where is the value? At fourth in the ACC in percentage, Paige doesn't even crack the top 15 in makes. His attempts are simply too low.

Gerry Broome/Associated Press

A second scorer on the outside

The production in the paint this year has been great. There needs to be a better second option on the outside, though, if this team is going to reach its potential.

Nate Britt had one sterling performance before settling back down into a role player. J.P. Tokoto's offense comes and goes as unpredictably as his passes do.

Justin Jackson has shown more of an ability to score but is still a mess from distance and seems to wait for offense to come to him rather than going to get buckets.

With the injuries to the rest of the backcourt depth, North Carolina is not getting enough out of Paige's running mates.

Rebounds from Kennedy Meeks

Meeks seems to have hit a wall and needs to pick his production back up. After starting off the year as hot as can be, the stats have taken a turn. Meeks' rebounding numbers and blocks have dipped; his fouls and turnovers have picked up.

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Without judging any performance specifically, these are trends indicative of a tired player. He is still scoring successfully on the block, but all of the effort stats, both positively and negatively, are going in the wrong direction.

No opponents taken for granted

On the rest of the Tar Heels' schedule, there are a lot of games they should win. The vast majority of the remaining opponents are .500 or worse in conference play.

In fact, the only foe still to come who is above .500 is Duke, whom Carolina faces twice. This type of scheduling quirk could lead to downfalls of human nature: overlooking a weak team, looking ahead to the games against your biggest rival, etc.

Fortunately, there is one thing that may counterintuitively play into the Heels' favor. In those six remaining games against teams they should beat, four come on the road.

Heading into enemy territory should at least have UNC focused and ready.