UNC Tar Heels Basketball Team Turns the Ball Over Down the Stretch and Lose Their First Game of the Season

by Derrick Isaiah Clyburn

The North Carolina basketball team faced off against Iowa State in their second game of the Phil Knight Invitational on Friday night. Even though the Tar Heels are playing for the second day in a row, North Carolina still came out with a lot of intensity, energy, and effort on both sides of the floor to start this game. Early on, they made a concerted effort to get the ball inside to Armando Bacot often. This benefited the Heels greatly as they got Iowa State in foul trouble and were in the bonus in the first 10 minutes of the first half.

Armando Bacot set the tone early with his aggressiveness. The other players on the court followed his lead and started to drive to the basket aggressively as well. The early success North Carolina found offensively gave the Tar Heels a 9-point lead in the first half. However, Iowa State would not go away. North Carolina started to settle for jump shots as Iowa State went to a zone defense. The Cyclones would take full advantage and go a run to tie the game. During this run, Iowa State found success with its motion offense, pick-and-roll offense, and scoring off of pin-down screens. North Carolina struggled to defend Iowa State and allowed the Cyclones to get too many open looks, which led to their lead being cut from nine to two going into halftime.  

In the second half, it was a close game. Every time North Carolina would go a run and take a 5-to-9-point lead, the Cyclones would come storming back to make the game tight. Turnovers and bad shot selection from the Tar Heels allowed Iowa State to hang around. Iowa State’s motion and pick-and-roll offense also continued to give Tar Heels problems as it felt like the Cyclones got whatever shot they wanted.

However, with 5 minutes left in the game, UNC would go on a run and go up 7. It felt like the Heels had all the momentum at this point in the game. Before Carolina could completely put the Cyclones away, the Tar Heels made some mistakes on both ends of the floor to allow Iowa State back in the game.

Down the stretch of the game, Armando Bacot found himself on three different possessions with the ball at the top of the key and he tried to make bounce passes to teammates that resulted in turnovers. Iowa State scored off every single turnover and took a 63-61 lead with about 1:43 remaining in the game. North Carolina had a few chances to regain the lead, but didn’t take good shots down the stretch and couldn’t get a stop defensively. The bad decision-making offensively and lack of discipline on defense all were huge problems late in the game and it led to the Heels’ first loss of the season. 

UNC Game Stats

1st     2nd     TOT

#1 North Carolina      34      31      65

Iowa State             32      38      70

North Carolina

STARTERS	PTS	REB	AST	FG	3PT	FT	PF	MIN	STL	BLK	TO
R. Davis	15	3	1	5/14	1/7	4/4	3	32	1	0	2
A. Bacot	13	9	2	5/6	0/0	3/5	4	37	1	2	5
C. Love	12	0	3	4/14	1/7	3/4	2	37	1	0	3
P. Nance	9	8	3	3/6	1/3	2/4	3	31	1	0	2
L. Black	6	5	2	2/4	0/0	2/2	2	31	1	0	1
BENCH	PTS	REB	AST	FG	3PT	FT	PF	MIN	STL	BLK	TO
P. Johnson	6	5	1	2/4	0/1	2/4	2	12	2	0	0
D. Dunn	2	0	0	1/1	0/0	0/0	2	7	0	0	0
S. Trimble	2	1	0	0/1	0/0	2/2	1	13	0	0	1

Iowa St.

STARTERS	PTS	REB	AST	FG	3PT	FT	PF	MIN	STL	BLK	TO
C. Grill	31	2	1	11/15	7/11	2/2	2	38	0	1	0
J. Holmes	22	4	3	8/17	2/4	4/6	4	29	2	0	2
T. Lipsey	2	1	6	1/3	0/0	0/0	2	28	1	0	2
O. Osunniyi	2	4	2	0/1	0/0	2/2	3	15	0	0	2
A. Kunc	0	6	1	0/3	0/2	0/0	3	33	0	0	0
BENCH	PTS	REB	AST	FG	3PT	FT	PF	MIN	STL	BLK	TO
R. Jones	10	2	3	5/11	0/0	0/1	4	20	0	1	1
G. Kalscheur	3	2	1	0/5	0/3	3/4	4	23	3	0	2
D. Watson	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	2	0	0	1
H. Ward	0	4	0	0/2	0/0	0/0	1	12	2	0	0

UNC Bright Spots 

RJ Davis had 15 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal. 

Armando Bacot had 13 points, 9 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 blocks, and 1 steal. 

Caleb Love had 12 points, 3 assists, and 1 steal.  

Needs Work 

The Tar Heels have to do a better job defending the three-point line. Their screen defense has to be much better. They need to do a better job of fighting over screens and running the opponent off the line. 

The Tar Heels’ offense needs to be better against zone defenses. It seems like when teams go to zone defenses, they struggle to get good shots and settle too many times for jump shots. Caleb Love and RJ Davis try to go one-on-one and make poor decisions with their shot selection and it costs the team. Everyone out on the floor also tries to make difficult passes that get intercepted and allows the other team to get out in transition. The Heels must find plays that will exploit those defenses. 

The Tar Heels also need to be better at the free-throw line. They get in the bonus often and struggle to take advantage because they don’t make enough free throws. 

Final Observations 

The Tar Heels move to 5-1 on the season. They suffered their first loss of the season as the number-one team in the country. It may be a good thing for them because the way they were playing it seemed like they were putting too much pressure on themselves. The team as a whole wasn’t playing freely and having fun out there on the court as we saw them at the end of last season and in the NCAA tournament.

Hopefully, now they can refocus and go back to playing winning basketball. UNC has the talent but must continue to build habits that will make them into a championship-caliber basketball team with each game. Also, the Heels need to build on leads they get early in games so they can get more guys off the bench for more minutes in the game. This will help those bench guys with their confidence and will add much-needed depth to the squad to prevent the starters from playing heavy minutes every game. Next, they play Sunday, November 27 in their last game of the Phil Knight Invitational against either Alabama or UConn.