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As impatience with Coach Hubert Davis continues to ramp up among some boosters and a segment of the North Carolina fanbase, you have to wonder if the same sort of heat would be coming if Roy Williams was leading this team. Even Davis’ most ardent supporters wouldn’t compare him as a coach to Williams, but comparing the numbers to gauge performance is fair.
WINSTON-SALEM — Carolina’s perimeter shooting was as frigid as the temperatures outside Joel Coliseum, and that has squarely put the Tar Heels on the NCAA tournament bubble. Intent on living or dying by 3-point attempts, the latter led to UNC’s second consecutive one-point loss in a game that wasn’t that close. The Tar Heels continually settled for perimeter shots that — other than a stretch of three consecutive makes in the second half — rarely fell, leading to an ugly 67–66 loss Tuesday night to Wake Forest.
Images from UNC’s 67-66 loss Tuesday night at Wake Forest.
North Carolina’s 72–71 Quad 3 loss to Stanford has the bubble talk simmering again for the Tar Heels, with one projection sending them to the First Four in Dayton. The consensus of 69 bracket projections listed on Bracket Matrix, which had UNC (12–7, 5–2 ACC; 38th in the NET rankings) as the second-highest No. 9 seed before the loss to the Cardinal, now has the Tar Heels as the highest No. 10 seed. Fourteen project them as a No. 8 seed, and seven as a No. 11 seed.
North Carolina’s damaging 72–71 Quad 3 home loss to Stanford didn’t sink the Tar Heels in the NET rankings as much as expected, but they lost a Quad 1 opportunity.
CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina couldn’t find that extra gear and the level of defensive intensity that carried the Tar Heels during their four-game win streak, and they didn’t do the little things needed to extend it. The result — a 72–71 loss to Stanford on Saturday after a step-back jumper from former Duke reserve Jaylen Blakes with 1.5 seconds left — gave UNC a damaging Quad 3 loss and led to much reflection about what went wrong.
Quad 3 games will never help your NCAA tournament resume much unless you win by a wide margin, but that’s what North Carolina did on Wednesday night.
CHAPEL HILL — Skittish late-game stretches on both ends of the floor have made putting opponents away challenging for North Carolina. Against ACC newcomer California, the Tar Heels changed that, hammering the Bears with a 22–6 second-half run on their way to an easy 79–53 victory Wednesday at the Smith Center for their season-high fourth consecutive victory.
After a three-year run, the Jumpman Invitational will not continue. This season’s edition of the event, which brought together the men’s and women’s basketball teams from North Carolina, Florida, Michigan and Oklahoma to Charlotte’s Spectrum Center for two nights of games, was the last of a three-year contract.
With Selection Sunday 61 days away, NCAA tournament bracket projections keep improving for North Carolina. One suggests that the Tar Heels (11–6, 4–1 ACC; 37 in NET rankings) will play their first- and second-round games in Raleigh, and another has them facing Caleb Love’s unranked Arizona team (11–5; 37) in the first round.
The ACC expanded to 18 teams for many reasons, nearly all financial, that had little to do with men’s basketball. That will be apparent this week for North Carolina (11–6, 4–1 ACC) when California (8–8,1–4) and Stanford (11–5, 3–2) come to the Smith Center, providing Quad 3 games that, even with victories, won’t help the Tar Heels much in their pursuit of an NCAA tournament bid.
Check out some of images from North Carolina’s thrilling victory Saturday at the Lenovo Center over N.C. State.
RALEIGH — Carolina has been getting a lot of good stuff of late from Jalen Washington, and that continued in a big way on Saturday. Washington, who recorded his first career double-double, threw down the game-winning dunk with 24 seconds left and blocked a Jayden Taylor shot at the buzzer as Carolina pulled out a 63–61 win at the Lenovo Center for its first three-game win streak since November.
CHAPEL HILL — Who will Coach Hubert Davis start with the return of Seth Trimble and the continued ascent of freshman Ian Jackson? That was far from settled based on Trimble coming off the bench in Tuesday’s 82–67 home win over SMU because the junior guard had only practiced once and hadn’t played since Dec. 21.
CHAPEL HILL — Quad 2 victories are never going to give a team’s NCAA tournament resume a huge boost, but they are still helpful. That was the case with Carolina’s 82–67 Quad 2 home victory Tuesday over SMU, which bumped up the Tar Heels (10–6, 3–1 ACC) three spots to 39th in the NET, which is five higher than they were the day after Saturday’s 74–73 Quad 2 victory at Notre Dame (7–7, 1–2; 100 in NET).
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