By Adam Lucas WINSTON-SALEM—Sitting there at halftime at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, there were a few things about which you felt pretty confident. They were as follows: The game would be close. The halftime score was Carolina 31, Wake Forest 29. Half this year’s UNC games—literally almost half, nine of 20 at this point—have been one possession games. So of course it would be close. Wake’s weird silhouette strutting old man logo is far inferior to the old school deacon head. The Tar Heels would compete. Although they don’t have much to show for it, there hasn’t been a night that it feels like they’ve withered. They haven’t always made the right plays, but they haven’t made lazy plays. And it felt pretty certain that Carolina would get some points at the free throw line. The Atlantic Coast Conference officiating crew whistled a combined 27 fouls on the two teams in the first half. So even if the field goal shooting didn’t come around, there would be opportunities to create some offense at the line. The game was close. The deacon head is better. Carolina competed. And the Tar Heels took zero free throws in the second half. And that’s how you lose a 67-66 game on the road, marking Carolina’s second straight one-point loss for the first time since 1968. This is not a story complaining about officiating. Sure, it was unusual that the two teams combined for 27 fouls in the first half and then watched the whistles go silent in the second half. Wake was called for two fouls the entire half until they started fouling intentionally late because they had a bucket full of fouls to give; they were called for 13 fouls in the first half. Steve Forbes’ halftime speech to stop fouling must have been very effective. But it’s also true that Wake has been the very best team in the league at playing defense without fouling this season. In ACC games, opponents get a lower percentage of their points from the free throw line than any other team in the league. When it mattered on Tuesday, they were able to put together 20 straight minutes without sending the Heels to the line even once.
“It was uncharacteristic,” Hubert Davis said on the Tar Heel Sports Network about the zero free throw attempts in a half. “We did shoot the three, but they were generated off drives and we felt like we attacked the basket. We just weren’t able to generate a part of our offense that has been really important to us, and that’s getting to the free throw line.”
That put a premium on scoring from the field, and Carolina was unable to consistently do it. That was partially due to one of the worst three-point shooting nights of the season, as the Heels made just eight for 32 from the arc, with the eighth coming after the game was decided.
During important parts of the game, the Tar Heels didn’t put enough pressure on the Wake defense. Jae’Lyn Withers hit a three-pointer to put Carolina up, 54-53, with over five minutes to play. The Deacons then set off on a 12-2 run. During that stretch, the Heels had five possessions. They included one turnover and three errant three-pointers (the other possession was a Seth Trimble bucket in the lane).
Therein lies the story of the game. The one time the Tar Heels scored, they attacked the basket. The four times they didn’t, they either turned it over or missed from the outside. Of the players who took a shot on Tuesday, five of the eight took at least half their shots from beyond the three-point line. It was a team-wide epidemic.
Wake Forest capitalized on what has been a thorny problem for this year’s Tar Heels since the very first practice: when they absolutely have to have points, where do they go to get them? There were multiple examples of very crisp offense in Tuesday’s game: the set play for a lob to Jalen Washington out of halftime was beautiful, and an Elliot Cadeau-to-Ven-Allen Lubin lob for a dunk later in the second half was nice. Cadeau himself ferociously attacked the rim on three quick possessions in the first half. But with the free throw line eliminated in the second half, the answer was that they too often turned beyond the three-point arc. And there were no answers out there.
The Heels are now shooting 32.1 percent from the three-point line, which would be the fourth-lowest ever for a Carolina team. The lowest came during the 2019-20 season, the second-lowest was the 2022-23 campaign and the third-lowest was the 2020-21 team. Where have you gone, Shammond Williams? During Friday’s practice, the Tar Heels talked about how they could find open looks against a Wake defense that prioritizes defending the paint. “You’re going to get an open shot right there,” a coach told a Tar Heel, pointing to the three-point line. And the Heels did, on multiple occasions. But not enough of them found the net, and rather than regrouping and trying to get something closer to the basket, the visitors continued to fire away from outside. Which was one of the reasons why they didn’t spend any time at the line. Free throw attempts have plummeted from over 24 a game during nonconference games to 17.6 per game in conference play. It’s no coincidence that scoring has gone down with it. And why the season very much now feels like it’s on the line in the next two weeks, with a home game against Boston College and then a four-game stretch of at Pitt, at Duke, Pitt at home and a road trip to Clemson. Everyone involved realizes that the bandwagon is lighter now. Davis relayed Hebrews 11:1 to the team after the game: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” It’s hard to see it right now. It’s been 57 years since anyone in Chapel Hill saw two straight one-point losses. The recovery has to start against Boston College on Saturday. And it begins with finding a consistent way back to the line.
