Court Vision: No. 12 North Carolina in search of answers after loss to Iowa
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- No. 12 North Carolina (5-2) lost what ended up being the Big Ten-ACC Challenge clincher to Iowa (6-2) at home on Wednesday night, and what many thought would be a more consistent North Carolina team this year after a few seasons of upheaval is showing not to be that so far.
1. Is this North Carolina team tough enough?
It's a nebulous concept; a cliche that means nothing and everything all at the same time. But it's clear, at least early this season, the Tar Heels have shown a lack of that at times.
Toughness, as the Tar Heels often talked about last year during their early-season swoon and even at times during ACC play, is not just physical. It's mental, too -- last year, the mental part was more an issue of execution. This year, it's about pushing through the difficult moments. Not making shots? Get better shots, and don't settle. Not getting offensive rebounds? Do what you have to in order to box out. Getting in foul trouble? Stop fouling.
It seems simple, but none of it has actually been simple for the Tar Heels, seemingly. Not this year. The Tar Heels did none of those things consistently in a loss against Butler in the Battle 4 Atlantis, and they didn't do it against Iowa, either.
Sophomore forward Kennedy Meeks, who fouled out but led the Tar Heels in scoring and rebounding with 15 and 12, was asked flat-out if the thought the team was soft.
He sat there for a moment as he pondered the question.
"I can't even answer that," he said, still measuring his words. "I wouldn't call it soft. Like I said before, I just think we let stuff ease by us too fast. We don't take advantage of those situations sometimes. We've got a long season to go. We've got a lot to work on, a lot of stuff we've got to get better at."
North Carolina shot just 27.9 percent from the field and 14-of-30 in the paint. Many of those 16 misses were bunnies, relatively close to the basket, that the Tar Heels just couldn't finish.
"Part of that (27.9 percent shooting) was missing lay-ups and easy baskets. We've just got to fight back from it. It's going to happen some games," said junior forward Brice Johnson, who finished with four fouls in 12 minutes and just two point on 1-of-7 shooting. "It can be a mental thing, but you can't let that be a mental thing. We've got to be tough enough to be able to go back out there and keep playing."
Johnson was as frustrated as anyone, picking up two quick fouls -- something that's become a recent trend for him -- and not being able to finish at the rim. For him, he says its about going back to his old ways of dunking rather than playing below the rim.
"Stop being a baby. Just go up there and dunk it like I used to. I've got to get back to what I used to do, going up there and dunking it every time," Johnson said. "I've got to go back to doing what I need to do. I didn't change anything. That's just what happened. I started laying it up and got comfortable with it and got away from dunking it. I'm going back to doing what I usually do. I'm going up and dunking it every time."
Johnson's frustration, though, was evident early and often, and it's symptomatic of the larger issue on this team where they can't fight through bad moments in games, seemingly.
Head coach Roy Williams seemed particularly perturbed by Johnson's problems -- or perhaps perplexed would be a better word. Although when asked about it at first, his first reaction was "pissed off."
"Brice is 1-for-7, you've just got to jump up and -- guys, we're talking about six-inch putts. You've got to focus and make the dadgum thing," Williams said. "If I knew all those things that go on inside the young man's brain, we never would've lost. Never.
"I've said this before, I majored in physical education because I thought that's what you were supposed to major in as a coach. if I had it to do over again, I'd major in psychology. I'd probably be a better coach. ... I'd be better off if I could figure out how to get a guy to make one from six inches."
As with most undefinable or intangible concepts, toughness -- or a lack of it -- is not easily remedied.
The Tar Heels have had November swoons in recent years and bounced back to have very nice seasons. But there have been a variety of mitigating factors to explain those performances; this is a relatively experienced group that probably shouldn't look as ragged as it does at times.
Both Johnson and junior point guard Marcus Paige have said the team can sense its own lack of toughness during games, and the need to fix it -- but, for whatever reason, they can't and don't.
"If I could put my finger on it, then I would've put my finger on it a couple hours ago and tried to get it changed," Paige said. "You just have to do it. You can talk about it all day, but if you're not getting 50/50 balls and you're not crashing the boards, then you're not doing it."
"I mean, we just had two very good examples, learning points, from that, so. I don't know how many it's going to take, but this is going to be the last time that we sit here after a game and talk about how tough the team is. Toughness shouldn't decide a game, especially at this level. You want to win so bad that your play should reflect that."
2. Just two games removed from its first loss of the year, the Tar Heels let a familiar demon creep back in -- defensive rebounding.
This stems from the toughness issue, but it's probably the only aspect of it that's statistically quantifiable. And just like in the Butler loss, the defensive boards were a factor. North Carolina held Iowa to just one offensive rebound in the first half, but then somewhat inexplicably let Iowa rebound 16 of a possible 27 misses (59.3 percent) in the second.
Iowa managed 12 second-chance points, and all of those came in the second half. Iowa had just 29 total points in the second half, so had UNC finished a defensive possession, the Tar Heels might have won in spite of their ugly performance.
"They crashed the glass. They were getting every rebound they could," Johnson said of Iowa's second-half performance on the glass. "Every time we tried to box them out, they got off the box-outs and they got the rebound and put it in there. Can't really say much else. We have to box out better."
In the Butler game, it was more of a steady thrashing on the backboards, one that lasted from the beginning of the game until the end. Against Iowa, some bad bounces, some foul trouble for the Tar Heel bigs (leading to smaller lineups) and -- yes, that word again -- some toughness issues (or, at least, not having as much toughness as Iowa) were a problem.
While Iowa got nearly 60 percent of its second-half misses, Butler retrieved 52.7 percent of its misses for the entire game, pulling down 29 offensive boards, the second-most against a Roy Williams-coached UNC team ever.
Williams' teams usually rebound. This one, so far, has at times -- and it should, seeing as it's generally taller than most of its opponents -- but it hasn't been consistent with it.
"You've just got to get guys that want to compete. You take guys in, put guys in and have other guys sit down, that's one way to teach it. We sat a lot of guys on the bench because they weren't being productive," Williams said.
"It's got to be a continual thing. You've got two guys boxing out one guy on a free throw, and that guy beats the two guys boxing out on the free throw. So at some point, you've got to decide how important it is to you. That's something that I can't do. I know how important it is to me. Some other people have got to make their decisions, too."
3. Preseason ACC Player of the Year Marcus Paige was a one-man show last year. So far this season, he's been part of the problem at times.
Playing against his hometown team and knowing plenty of players on the opposing roster, Paige no doubt felt some pressure to perform against Iowa. But he's felt plenty of pressure before, and he's generally responded to it quite well. That wasn't a factor in his 4-of-16 shooting performance at all, he said.
"I was 5-of-17 against Butler, and I didn't know anybody on their team," Paige said. "It was basically the same thing out of me tonight. I made some, but I was still shooting a poor percentage. I don't think that had anything to do with it."
Paige does have more scoring help this year. Meeks and Johnson have developed into a legit post scoring threat (Meeks has arguably been the Tar Heels' most consistent player), J.P. Tokoto has a much more well-rounded game, and the freshmen will come around, particularly the talented Justin Jackson.
But this team is still built around his skill set, his ability to create a shot when he needs it (and make it, of course). And when he can't make shots, this team is going to struggle, period.
"I think if I start playing better, the team will start playing better. I'm not saying that I'm the entire team or anything like that," Paige said. "I'm just saying that guys look up to me as a leader and if I'm playing as poorly as I have these first 6-7 games, then it's hard for the rest of the team to get involved. They kind of feed off my energy."
As that leadership, Meeks touched on that with Paige, too. "Marcus is the leader of our team. But he needs to start calling people out on what we're doing wrong," Meeks said. "He's the main guy on our team that we've got to look to. Me, Brice (Johnson), J.P. (Tokoto) and Justin (Jackson) have got to step up."
Rather than call out a teammate, though, Paige chose to call out himself.
"Until I start playing better, it's going to be tough. I need to set the tone and I can't just set the tone by speaking. I need to play better. I need to play harder, play better defense, make some shots. All those things kind of fall on my shoulders, and I have no problem admitting that I haven't played the way our team has expected me to play or the way I've expected to play. It'll change."
Paige said that it seemed as if Iowa was giving both he and his teammates looks from three, particularly from the wing. He said both he and his teammates need to make sure they work harder for better shots, not just taking the shots that are there. And Paige no longer has to take contested jumpers, something he's still adjusting to.
"I got a lot of decent looks tonight, especially early. I made a couple, missed more than I made. But when I'm playing point guard or when I have the ball in my hands, I need to stop taking contested 3's and just work the offense a little bit more," Paige said. "Those are shots I made with regularity last year and the shots that I'm comfortable shooting, but until I start making it more consistently, it's not a great shot because I haven't been making them."
1-of-11 -- Marcus Paige shot 4-of-16 from the field and 3-of-12 from three. His teammates combined to make just one. Someone else is going to have to make outside shots for the Tar Heels.
21-of-24 -- That's what Iowa shot from the foul line, accounting for over a third of their points. UNC has good interior defenders, but the Tar Heels have got to stop committing silly fouls. If the game is being called tightly -- 42 combined fouls were whistled in this one -- they need to adjust.
