Same Old Bad Habits Keeping 'Frustrated' North Carolina from Pulling Away in ACC

The North Carolina Tar Heels have one of the best backcourts in college basketball. They also happen to have one of the best frontcourts. Head coach Roy Williams' team is brimming with talent and depth.

It's not an overly cocky team, either, considering it is one of the best at creating extra offensive chances. There is also no documented concern of chemistry. It would seem to be a dream landscape.

In a year of upsets and uncertainty around the country, North Carolina should be the surest bet of all.

Only it isn’t. And it won’t be. Rarely does a 19-4 record seem so unsettled.

But it sure is in Chapel Hill,North Carolina, after Saturday night's here-we-go-again, 80-76 loss to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. That says much less about the Irish’s promise and how they have had the Tar Heels’ number of late (sorry, Brey-lievers) than it does about UNC’s ongoing causes for concern.

Start with this nugget: Notre Dame is one of the country’s worst teams at forcing turnovers. And they had a 19-0 lead on points off turnovers at the Joyce Center.

It runs much deeper than one stat for UNC, though. It extends to both ends of the floor, and there really seems to be a general attitude problem.

“I think the players understand it’s not just shooting the ball, because we had some major breakdowns, and we knew we were going to get a great effort,” Williams said. “But we didn’t match their intensity. We didn’t match their attention to detail.”

Go figure—Williams said that before Saturday's game while discussing UNC's Feb. 1 loss to the Louisville Cardinals, per the Charlotte Observer’s Andrew Carter.

Carter’s preview story of the trip to South Bend, Indiana, ended with this comment from Williams: “We got our tails beat the last game. If you don’t step up right now there’s something wrong with you.”

Uh-oh. We’re going to agree with Roy. Something’s dadgum wrong.

“The world’s not going to come to an end. But right now I’m extremely frustrated,” Williams said in his brief postgame interview.

It didn’t matter that UNC shot considerably better than in the Louisville game, got the slumping Marcus Paige back on the right track and built a 15-point lead in the first half.

Robert Franklin/Associated Press

How bad was it—is it—for Carolina regarding attention to detail?

This is a team that shot 48.4 percent (15-of-31) compared to Notre Dame's 27.3 percent (making just nine of its 33 shots). But the Irish only trailed by nine at halftime.

It only got worse for the Tar Heels after the break, as they tightened up everything but the defense.
UNC finished with 13 turnovers. Notre Dame had just two.

That’s not totally surprising.

What is? Head coach Mike Brey’s team isn’t exactly known for creating turnovers (No. 322 nationally in percentage, according to KenPom).

UNC summoned its best playoff-time Carson Palmer and started throwing the ball at guys in different-colored jerseys.

That's what is so confounding about the Tar Heels. A team that can make it look so easy ends up creating a whole lot of difficulty for itself.

Certainly part of UNC’s issue is the matchup. Louisville’s patented zone defense can understandably cause some kinks. It sure did in Louisville's 71-65 win on Feb. 1 in which UNC shot just 20-of-58.

Notre Dame, meanwhile, likes to spread its post players on offense, and that makes Williams’ big guys uncomfortable. It was a concern before the game, and it played out worse than feared.

In the last two meetings (counting last year’s ACC championship game), the Irish have a 70-28 mega-advantage on attempts at the foul line.

Simply put, UNC can’t guard what Brey is running without fouling.

But it goes beyond a very small sample size. ESPN’s Jay Bilas kept pointing it out during the broadcast: The Tar Heels don’t do their defensive work early.

“Their defense put them in a bad spot,” he said. With a minute left, UNC was trailing by three.

Recently, UNC has been made to look like a fool on the defensive glass too. The overall numbers have not been bad. But Louisville was also let off the hook, shooting poorly in the first half (32 percent), like the Irish. But somehow the Cardinals emerged with a 28-27 lead.

Then the Irish also created a 10-point margin (23-13) on second-chance points. Seven of the last eight Notre Dame possessions included an offensive rebound, which more than made up for missing eight of the last 10 shots.

A team that has often been hampered by lapses in concentration and effort was once again guilty of it—at the worst possible time for the Tar Heels.

The odd thing is Williams’ team knows the value of extra chances. According to KenPom, it ranks seventh nationally on the offensive glass. Securing nearly 40 percent of its missed shots should be a great recipe for success.

So what’s wrong with these Heels?

A little bit of everything else.

Not even a guaranteed win over Boston College on Tuesday would sit well with the Coach Williams.

At least Paige is back on track. He ended a four-week slump with 21 points, making five three-pointers (after connecting on exactly that total since Jan. 9).

But then he took a wildly unnecessary contested three in an attempt to tie the game in the closing seconds. North Carolina could've still played for two points and extended the game.

It was a thoughtless microcosm. So was Notre Dame's last free throw. Brice Johnson got the ball, but Zach Auguste wouldn't let up. He ripped the ball away from UNC's best player.

And that’s where these ripped-up Tar Heels still stand, just like after the Louisville game. Shooting isn’t really the problem  and never has been.

Being their own worst enemy—and largely not playing together on defense—is what has to be fixed for the Tar Heels to reach their full potential.

North Carolina is still positioned to win the ACC with room to spare. KenPom favors it (for good reason) through the next five games with ease. The Virginia Cavaliers are spotty, like the Duke Blue Devils. Louisville may fade eventually after a spirit-crushing week. We're not set on the Miami Hurricanes quite yet.

Sadly, the fact that we're even mentioning these teams as threats shows how much UNC has allowed itself to fall back in the pack.