The North Carolina Tar Heels began their West Coast road trip on a negative note Wednesday night. After leading by 12 at two different times in the game, Stanford rallied back and never went away. They closed on an 11-3 run to upset the Tar Heels 95-90.
For UNC, it was more of the same problems they have had in previous losses. They struggled to defend the three-point line, they struggled from the free-throw line and for the third-straight game they allowed more than 80 points.
It’s a tough loss for UNC who now heads to Cal to face off against the Golden Bears on Saturday. That game now feels like a must-win for the Tar Heels as they look to avoid going below .500 in conference play. But before we turn the page, here is what Hubert Davis said about the loss.
Quotes via Inside Carolina.
On a consistent problem in guarding 3-point shooting
“I don’t think you can point to one specific thing. I think it’s coming from a number of different directions. I think not getting picked up in transition, short close outs, no pressure on the ball, late rotations, kick outs from offensive rebounds. Just coming from a number of different directions.”
On Stanford scoring a lot out of horn sets
“I would respectfully disagree with that. In regards to — it was coming from, as I said before, a number of different situations. They were scoring threes in transition. It was coming off of isolation, it was coming off of ball screens, late communication, close outs in terms of rotations. And so whether it was running a consecutive play, they were getting different things …”
On not being able to disrupt Ebuka Okorie
“Obviously, he’s a really gifted player, and it’s much different from a guard who has the ball in his hands. And something else that should be talked about with him is he’s an elite and a willing passer as well. So it’s not just that he can get fouled and get to the free-throw line. Put a number of different defenders, our best one-on-one defenders, we did things differently defensively where we didn’t do any switching off the ball, to keep matchups, to keep our best defenders on him. And again, he had a big night, but there were others that stepped up and did the job.”
On Stanford running the same play as Caleb Wilson said?
“Yeah, I mean, I’m not going to again… That would be negligent on my part to answer a question based on what somebody else said. I don’t know how you asked it. I don’t know the context in which he answered it, the tone in which he answered it, but congratulations to Stanford for winning tonight.”
