North Carolina opened this season with five straight wins and climbed to as high as No. 6 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll. Not bad for a program that lost the top five scorers from last season’s team. But over the past 11 days, the Tar Heels have started looking more like a program that, you know, lost the top five scorers from last season’s team.
Put simply, scoring is difficult.
“It’s the most frustrated I’ve ever been,” UNC coach Roy Williams said following Sunday’s 56-47 loss at Virginia in which his players missed 13 of the 14 3-pointers they attempted. “I’ve been very fortunate coaching-wise. But this is the most frustrated I’ve ever been.”
North Carolina took its first loss of the season two Thursdays ago to Michigan in the Battle 4 Atlantis — and things have only gotten worse since. Last Wednesday, the Tar Heels lost 74-49 to Ohio State in what was UNC’s worst home loss in 17 years under Williams. Combine that with what happened Sunday, and the Tar Heels just failed to score at least 50 points in back-to-back games for the first time since the 1947-48 season.
“We had one assist at halftime,” Williams noted.
In fairness to the Tar Heels, Virginia and Ohio State currently have adjusted defensive efficiency ratings that rank first and second in the country, according to KenPom. So some of these scoring troubles can be explained by that. But what’s also true is that North Carolina’s adjusted offensive efficiency rating currently ranks 36th nationally. So unless the Tar Heels improve drastically, they will this season finish outside of the top 11 in adjusted offensive efficiency for the first time since the 2013-14 season.
That 2014 team lost 10 times.
North Carolina is No. 11, one spot below Virginia, in Monday’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. Virginia’s jump from No. 17 to No. 10 pushed Oregon down one spot, no fault of its own. And Louisville remains No. 1 for the 13th consecutive morning. Chris Mack’s Cardinals play Texas Tech on Tuesday.
