Game Thread [2022-23] North Carolina

[Grit]

Puff Johnson needs to do a little better than an 8-22 hot streak to start the year for me to worry about him being a floor spacer and season changer for Carolina. The only advantages I see in Puff over Nance are less turnovers and offensive rebounding. Not sure that tradeoff is worth it when your starting lineup is in dire need of floor spacing because of Bacot and Black. Nance looks bad compared to Manek, but he looks like Manek when compared to Puff.

I thought UNC's half court defense was pretty good with Nance, and that he shut Flip down multiple times.

 

[aiw]

K went from prioritizing 3s and defense to running a no 3s and no defense team. Weird.

 

[rome8180]

Puff Johnson needs to do a little better than an 8-22 hot streak to start the year for me to worry about him being a floor spacer and season changer for Carolina. The only advantages I see in Puff over Nance are less turnovers and offensive rebounding. Not sure that tradeoff is worth it when your starting lineup is in dire need of floor spacing because of Bacot and Black. Nance looks bad compared to Manek, but he looks like Manek when compared to Puff.

I thought UNC's half court defense was pretty good with Nance, and that he shut Flip down multiple times.

Yeah, he was surprisingly good on Flip. I thought they would try to avoid that matchup and have Leaky on Flip at all costs while having Nance on Mitchell (since Mitchell probably isn't taking more than 9 shots, tops, anyway). But they didn't avoid it. Flip just wasn't really able to take advantage.

 

[CK86]

Also, Hubert Davis should have been T'd up in the first half. He can fuck off and die with his whining.

Man, it's so good to see Bacot fail. He might be the biggest piece of shit to put on that uniform. So much unfounded arrogance for a guy with 50 career losses.

I can't wait til Bacot is done. Such an ugly motherfucker.

 

[rome8180]

I’m so scarred from the decade of shit K coached defensively that I find 63-57 wins to be far more satisfying than 83-77 ones at this stage.

It's honestly bizarre how this defense is only 28th on Kenpom, which is "worse" than several of our recent defenses, but how much more enjoyable it is to watch. The principles are just so much more sound.

Even when Duke did have a good defense, I found it anxiety inducing to watch. It always felt like it was hanging on by a thread and one slight mistake would lead to disaster. It was only through having incredible athletes giving Herculean effort that it worked at all.

 

[childress22]

Yeah, I think you nailed it. This defense seems far more reliable, worthy of trust, and based on solid principles across all 5 men on the floor, even if they're oddly vulnerable to corner threes when Mitchell, Filipowski, Mitchell, or Mitchell miss their rotations.

 

[Pantone287]

I'd imagine our defense will rise if the Lively jump is for real. We've had a lot of minutes thus far that were either without a real shotblocker or with someone who was more likely to foul than block a shot, which probably hurts us relative to teams with Zions/Carters/etc., even when the overall fundamentals are much better.

And yeah, cutting down on the random dumb freshman mistakes should help too. Mitchell seems less awful there lately, I think? Maybe? Hopefully?

 

[Inveigle]

Lively is a true rim protector. When he’s able to be more physical and aggressive he blocks shots and intimidates opponents. Otherwise teams like UNC can go back to practicing shooting free throws.

 

[DUKERULES14]

Carolina scored 37 less points tonight than they did the last time they visited Cameron, scored 90+ the year before too

A few more digging.

During last year's abomination at Cameron, UNC scored 55 points in the 2nd half. The year before, they got 50 in the 2nd half (a combined 105 points!).

This year, only 25 2nd half points by the Heels, with 9 of them being Leaky Black 3's.

As bad as our D at times was with K, it generally was always the 2nd half defense that was the big issue (SC 2017 comes especially to mind here).

 

[Devilsforlife]

UNC even scored 47 on us in the second half of the FF game last year.

That SC game was a fucking disaster.

 

[LastHearth]

Defense getting shredded in the 2nd half is not a new thing, the 2nd half against AZ in 2011, the 2nd half in 2017 against SC, both come to mind.
I think it because K's stubborn and sometimes when the other team figures out the defense and began to shred it he doesn't change things up, he tries to get his team to play his style of defense better.
Sometimes that works, but when it doesn't, thing can go really south.

 

[rome8180]

@aiw apparently there were Crazies dressed up as proctologists at the game in honor of Proctor?

 

[rome8180]

Sorry if everyone else saw that besides me.

 

[torontoduke]

Lol - just read this now, I duplicated this in another thread.

 

[torontoduke]

My fave moment from the pod, lol.