Quick Hitters - North Carolina at Iowa (ACC/Big 10 Challenge)

Isaac Schade presents Quick Hitters from North Carolina’s 93-80 road loss to Iowa on Tuesday evening in the ACC / Big 10 Challenge.

Quick Hitters from North Carolina’s 93-80 road loss to Iowa on Tuesday evening in the ACC / Big 10 Challenge.

Highlights:

• Win or lose – this team has fight, and a lot of it. They’ve found a way to climb out of every hole they’ve been in. Unfortunately they’ve been in several deep holes. Carolina trailed College of Charleston by one with 14:30 remaining in regulation of the first game of the season. Beyond that, they’ve faced at least an eight-point deficit against each of the other four opponents. UNLV held a 13-0 lead with 14:00 left before the half; Carolina won handily. Stanford led by eight with 90 seconds before halftime; Carolina won by four. The Tar Heels were able to handle the deficits against the lesser teams. The issues have come against both Texas and Iowa. In both games, UNC faced 16-point first half deficits. In both games, UNC took a brief second half lead. In both games, the Tar Heels ultimately lost. Great fight, but unfortunately gumption doesn’t count in the win-loss column.
• The game ultimately turned shortly after Armando Bacot picked up his fourth foul (a questionable call, I might add) and with Day'Ron Sharpe already on the bench with four fouls of his own. The next bucket was an Andrew Platek lay-up to give Carolina their second one-point lead of the game (68-67) with 9:30 remaining. When Jordan Bohannon’s three-pointer rifled through the net two-and-a-half minutes later, Iowa found themselves up 13 points on the strength of a 14-0 run to re-take control of the game. The Tar Heels never again got any closer than seven.
• While it’s great to fight back, now the attention turns to: How do the 2020-21 Tar Heels avoid digging such deep holes in the first place? The answer is difficult (or at least tricky) to unravel because there are many potential factors. The young guards could be taking awhile to feel out what opposing defenses are throwing at them. The whole team might not yet have learned how to be fully ready to go at tip-time. Some players are still adjusting to their roles. Some players are adjusting to accepting their roles. 
• One of the certain answers to the “how did you dig such a deep hole?” question in tonight’s game was Iowa’s three point barrage. By the time we made it to the first media timeout, Iowa had already made six field goals, four of which were three pointers. When Joe Wieskamp hit a three with 12:53 remaining before halftime, the Hawkeyes were shooting 7-for-9 from deep. In all, they connected on 11 first half threes and 17 total for the game. The Iowa program record for a single game is 19. It’s rather difficult to beat a team with the National Preseason Player of the Year standing in the middle when they also hit 17 threes.
• To be fair, part of the reason Iowa had so many good looks from deep is that the Tar Heels paid special attention to Luka Garza, in an effort to make a different Hawkeye beat them. The Carolina bigs did a relatively solid job on Garza. Yes, he scored 16 points, but he needed 20 shots to get there. You would rather the opponent’s best player scored zero points, but after scoring 26, 41, and 35 in Iowa’s first three games, Garza finishing with an inefficient 16 is a win for the Tar Heels.
• Free throw issues continue to be a concern. In the season opener against College of Charleston, UNC hit 79.1 percent of their free throws. Since then, however, they have not eclipsed 65.6 percent in any single game. Tonight Carolina shot 12-for-20 from the line (60.0 percent).
• UNC was yet to score 80 points this season, but they hit that mark against Iowa. On the other side of the coin, Carolina hadn’t allowed 70 or more points yet, but unfortunately that threshold was obliterated. Iowa finished with 93. The way to get to 80 consistently is more plays like this:

Great pass from Love to Puff pic.twitter.com/7csOvPWEzV

— chris (@dadgumboxscores) December 9, 2020

• With Armando Bacot failing to score in double-digits, freshman RJ Davis is now the only player to do so in every game this season. Davis scored 12 tonight and is averaging 12.2 points per game; second on the team to Garrison Brooks’ 13.2.
• There was concern over Garrison Brooks’ left ankle heading into the game (which he sprained against Texas). Even with foul trouble, Brooks played the second-most minutes on the team (just eight seconds behind Davis).
• In fact, Brooks led the team in scoring with 17 points (one of five Tar Heels in double figures). He was also the leading scorer against Texas. It took Brooks awhile to get going tonight (he scored his first bucket with 5:45 left in the first half), but once he did, he was off to the races.
• RJ Davis and Caleb Love combined for 14 assists and seven turnovers. You can live with your freshmen backcourt finishing with a 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio in the first true road game of their college career. Here's one of many spectacular plays we will hopefully see these two freshmen hook up on throughout their Carolina careers:

• Carolina’s rebounding margin was in the single digits for the first time all season. They still outrebounded Iowa, but only by +9 (47-38). The season rebounding margin average drops from +18 to a slightly-less-herculean +16.
• After rebounding exactly half of their field goal misses against both Stanford (14 of 28) and Texas (17 of 34), Carolina fell just shy of hitting that mark again tonight against Iowa (15 of 34, 44.1 percent).
• For the season, Carolina’s total offensive rebounding percentage is 43.4 percent (including both field goals and free throws), while their field goal offensive rebounding percentage is 44.8 percent (not including free throws).
• This was the Tar Heels’ first true road game of the season, albeit a completely atypical “true road game”. Despite no fans in the arena, Carolina came out a bit flat. Perhaps there were some nerves on the parts of Caleb Love and RJ Davis?
• Much was made of Iowa’s offense (for good reason), but their defense is much maligned. Whether it was throwing different defenses at Carolina (a little bit of zone, a little bit of man) or just playing “up” for a big game, the Hawkeye defense held steadfast for a large majority of the first half.
• Following just nine turnovers in the first game of the season, Carolina has been more loose with the ball over the last four games. They are averaging 18 turnovers a game in that span. It’s not just the turnovers themselves that hurt you, it’s when those turnovers materialize into points that really rubs salt in the wound. At one point, Iowa held an 11-0 advantage in this category; they finished the game holding a 23-9 advantage on points from turnovers.
• Another area where Iowa hurt the Tar Heels was on second chance points. Carolina has dominated that stat in literally every other game this season, but allowed the Hawkeyes to hold a 21-14 advantage (despite having more offensive rebounds). Many of Iowa’s second chance points came at pivotal moments in the game.
• Andrew Platek is quietly putting together his best statistical year to date. He’s averaging six points a game (career high), 40 percent shooting, 38.5 percent on threes (career high), 83.3 percent on free throws (career high). Perhaps most importantly, he looks more confident on the court. The question now is how to rein in that confidence and not drive too far into the lane repeatedly after a successful drive earlier in the game. 
• Leaky Black is turning himself into a competent and important rebounder. Over the last four games he is averaging exactly nine rebounds. The nice thing about his skill set and frame is that after grabbing an offensive rebound, he is long enough to go right back up. After a defensive rebound, he can lead the break and either kick out to a shooter or finish over a (likely) smaller defender.
• The odd thing about tonight is that if you looked at Iowa’s halftime stats you might be encouraged. “Iowa is only shooting 4-for-13 on two-point field goals? Great!” However your eyes would then lead you to the three-point shooting numbers where the Hawkeyes connected on 11 of 22 three-pointers. That’s just eight points off two-point field goals in the first half, but a whopping 33 off of three-pointers.
• From a foul standpoint, it was a tale of two halves. In the first 20 minutes, each team had just five personal fouls and four free throws attempted. However in the second half, the teams combined to commit 25 fouls and shoot 26 free throws. Iowa was in the bonus with 13:00 minutes left in the second half and double bonus with 9:38 remaining.
• One of Carolina’s luxuries this season is a bevy of large (and talented) frontcourt players, however Day’Ron Sharpe, Armando Bacot, and Garrison Brooks were each saddled with four fouls in the second half.
• An area of strength so far this season has been bench scoring. The Tar Heels’ bench has outscored that of every opponent other than Texas. In fact, against College of Charleston, UNLV, and Iowa, the Carolina bench has more than doubled the scoring output of the opponent. UNC is averaging 21.2 bench points a game while the opponents are averaging 13 bench points a game. 

Box Score

Roy Williams postgame press conference

Players postgame press conference

Garrison Brooks

RJ Davis

Day'Ron Sharpe

Remember to check in for Quick Hitters after every North Carolina basketball game. Assuming UNC doesn't schedule a new opponent in place of Elon, next up is the CBS Sports Classic in Cleveland, Ohio against Ohio State on Saturday, December 19. Tip-off is at 2:00pm ET on CBS.

.@UNC_Basketball's next 🏀 game:

• vs. Ohio State (@OhioStateHoops) - CBS Sports Classic
• 🌎 = Cleveland, OH
• 🏟️ = Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse
• 📅 = Saturday, December 19
• ⏰ = 2:00pm ET
• 📺 = CBS
• 📻 = TuneIn (https://t.co/skY7AUuAIP)#UNCvsOSU

— Isaac Schade (@isaacschade) December 9, 2020

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