UNC struggles historically on offense, but the Tar Heels have plenty of company
Roy Williams was a man of unusually few words Wednesday night. Then again, North Carolina was a team of unusually few points.
In a season when teams are struggling historically to score, North Carolina found itself way ahead of the national curve, limping to a 74-49 loss to Ohio State, the worst margin of defeat at home under Williams, the Tar Heels’ lowest shooting percentage ever at the Smith Center.
Losing freshman big man Armando Bacot to a nasty-looking ankle injury early didn’t help, but even if Bacot hadn’t been hurt there was too much going wrong, too many shots going awry, especially with Cole Anthony running a fever.
Anthony has carried the Tar Heels this season, but there are going to be nights, lots of them, where someone else has to help out for North Carolina to have a chance. Wednesday was one of them, with Anthony held to 15 points.
No one came close. The Tar Heels had no chance.
“I have no answers for you,” said Brandon Robinson, North Carolina’s second-leading scorer with nine points. “We just gotta get better.”
As Williams likes to say, everything looks better when the ball goes in the basket. But what about when it doesn’t? And not just at North Carolina, but everywhere.
Virginia scored 40 against Purdue on Wednesday (and gave up 69). Top-ranked Louisville scored 58 on Tuesday ... and still beat Michigan in the most anticipated matchup of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. Duke has run hot and historically cold, winning at Michigan State only days after losing to a non-power conference team for the first time in 36 years. In the 14 games of the challenge, 11 teams scored 60 or fewer points. Brick city.
While the more distant 3-point line has had a predictable negative influence on offense, it’s hardly the only factor. Some years have more talent than others. Some years it’s concentrated on a few teams. This season, neither appears to be true. Potentially unprecedented parity has produced unpredictability. Offensive efficiency is at lows not seen in two decades, 2-point shooting is down from the past few years and 3-point shooting is at its lowest rate ever. Even turnovers are up after a six-year decline.
Welcome to the Year of the Rock Fight in college basketball, where not only has no dominant team -- or handful of dominant teams -- emerged, but no team seems to have any idea what it’s going to do on any given night. By April, the Final Four may look like a bad poker hand: A 2, a pair of 4s and a 10. Think CBS will be doing cartwheels when Baylor, Butler, San Diego State and Utah State show up in Atlanta?
So this is an issue everywhere, but it happens to be particularly acute at North Carolina, already a one-man team searching desperately for a second option. The Tar Heels were down to their third option -- and who that would be is anyone’s guess, Williams included -- by the end of the first half Wednesday when Anthony briefly joined Bacot in the locker room to have a cut on his forehead repaired.
Bacot has looked like the most likely candidate to take some of the scoring pressure off Anthony, but his role in that discussion may have to be tabled for the time being. In his absence, who’s next? Robinson and Leaky Black are both versatile utility men, but neither is a go-to shooter, although Robinson is certainly willing. Grad transfers Christian Keeling and Justin Pierce have found the basket decidedly harder to find than it was at Charleston Southern and William & Mary. Garrison Brooks remains a defensive specialist. Andrew Platek? Why not, at this point.
These are not questions North Carolina usually has to ask, with points normally easy to find in transition even when the Tar Heels aren’t shooting particularly well. But even that’s been a struggle for this team, an odd mix of players, square pegs and round holes, atypical for UNC. Halfway through the second half, Williams had enough. He swapped in five reserves, including little-used Shea Rush and K.J. Smith.
“If you were watching us play, what the hell were those guys doing that were in the game?” Williams said. “It’s pretty daggum easy thing, if you suck out there, someone should come in for you.”
The gesture of futility at least restored some energy to the building, with charges drawn and shots blocked and a Pierce heat check (he missed). That group actually managed to outscore the Buckeyes in its very limited window -- proving in the process that the end of UNC’s bench is no more or less functional than the front of it, probably not the conclusion Williams was hoping to reach but one all too apparent.
At least the Tar Heels can get their mojo back in their next game, Sunday at ... Virginia. Oh.
Anthony’s good enough to win a few games on his own. He needs more help than this, especially if Bacot is indeed going to be missing for a while, but even if he isn’t.
This story was originally published December 5, 2019 at 12:17 AM with the headline "UNC struggles historically on offense, but the Tar Heels have plenty of company."
