Tar Heels Have Major Issues, And They Know It
By: Andrew Jones - Tarheel IllustratedWINSTON-SALEM – North Carolina’s basketball team has quickly become a complete mess.
And don’t think that’s too harsh, because you likely wouldn’t get any disagreement from within the locker room, especially after the Tar Heels’ embarrassing first-half performance in a 92-85 loss to Wake Forest at Joel Coliseum on Tuesday night.
Carolina trailed by 22 points at halftime and 26 a few minutes into the second half.
Junior point guard RJ Davis called it the low point of the season, and he won’t get any argument here.
Carolina was a disaster from the opening tip through the first five-plus minutes of the second half. The Tar Heels didn’t defend, and showed little interest in doing so, and they didn’t execute offensively as if score was actually being kept.
Loose balls? Nope, not theirs.
Fire? Nope, not them.
Intensity? Toughness? Spirit? Effort?
Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.
And they know it.
“I feel like (it’s) on both ends of the floor,” junior guard Caleb Love said. “We aren’t talking on the defensive end. On the offensive end, we aren’t running our stuff with pace. One-through-18 (roster), I feel like it's just not there.
“We definitely have to have a conversation because something has got to change.”
The thing is, the Heels already had one conversation from the time they ran off the floor through when the interviews started just outside their locker room. For 37 minutes, actually, the locker room door remained closed, with Hubert Davis holding off the radio network for his interview with Jones Angell, which always precedes his press conference with the media.
During those 37 minutes, Davis told the team he wants them to reflect their personality, but they aren’t. He opted to avoid going into specifics afterward, but his players opened up, especially Armando Bacot, who is the clear spokesman for the team.
“It starts with us four,” Bacot said, referring to himself and fellow returning starters from last year’s miracle run Davis, Love, and Leaky Black. “It's frustrating, but we're not going to quit. This one definitely hurt. I love this university too much, and I love the game of basketball too much to quit.
“Like I told the guys, these next couple days are going to be hard, because we did put on a bad performance, people are going to be mad and rightfully, ‘So you should be, but you got to block out the noise.’ But I’m not quitting.”
Bacot laid out an ultimatum telling his teammates to not show up to practice Thursday if they aren’t willing to give their all for one another. It’s hard to imagine anyone not showing up, but the issues that plague this team will remain until they are fixed.
A passionate postgame speech is great, and is indeed a start, but how many times does this team need to start again? They are 24 games into the season and have as many losses right now as they did heading into the national title game last April.
The Tar Heels (15-9, 7-6 ACC) are a mess because their chemistry is out of whack.
Hubert Davis agreed with that during his presser, and so do his players.
“You could point out different situations or different instances of this and that,” junior Puff Johnson said, when asked if the chemistry issue is a recent flare up or has been there in some form all season.
“But as a team, we need to become more together on and off the court, which is surprising to hear since we had so much success last year.”
Perhaps more peeling away of the layers with heartfelt, honest conversation putting everything on the table is the only way this club can get to the practice floor and prepare to physically and mentally win games.
Love said more talks are needed. He also said the Heels have no choice at this point.
Tonight was a fork-in-the-road game for the Heels, and they took a sharp turn left, veered off into the wilderness, and now need a fat compass, 18 machetes, and a great deal of will to find their way back.
Love says they will, though.
“Yeah, for sure,” he said. “We don’t have a choice.”
