by There will be a new No. 1 in men’s college basketball next week.
North CarolinaIowa State’s loss on Friday is the humbling experience seemingly looming since the start of the season: a loss to an unranked foe that again exposed the problems the Tar Heels have had in meeting expectations set by the run. last year to the national title game.
North Carolina’s case as the best team in the nation going into 2022-23 (as it was in both major polls and in Sports Illustrated‘s) relied much more on vision testing than analysis. It was a dream that the same Heels who electrified the sport last March would consistently bring it back this year. UNC entered the season ninth in the KenPom preseason rankings and underperformed in the first two weeks, falling to No. 19 heading into Friday’s game and No. 21 after the loss. The numbers saw a returning team with plenty of talent but plenty of flaws, a group that, for much of 2021-22, looked more like a bubble team than a title contender.
Friday’s game against the Cyclones was the first real test for Davis and UNC this season.
Larry C. Lawson/IMAGO
But the sight of a full-season Carolina team going through March Madness was hard to undo, which is why it earned the No. 1 moniker. A roster featuring two elite guards in RJ Davis and Caleb Love who are capable of dominating a game, a walking double-double up center in Armando Bacot who’s likely in the mix for National Player of the Year, high-end connective pieces. and a deeper bench than a season ago? Now that is a team worthy of being labeled as a favorite for the title. However, the more opportunities we get to see these Heels, the more vision fades and reality sets in: that this group is one with an elite ceiling, but right now it’s not among the truly elite teams in the nation.
In a vacuum, Friday’s performance against iowa state it can be explained quite easily. The Cyclones are one of the relatively few teams with the size and depth up front to not be overwhelmed by Armando Bacot’s physicality on the glass, yet they still lost the rebounding battle to the Heels by seven. ISU’s stout defense might have kept Carolina under 70 points for the first time since April’s title game against Kansas, but the Tar Heels led by seven with less than four minutes to play. It took a burst of pace for Iowa State senior Caleb Grill going 7-11 from beyond the arc to beat UNC, made more notable by the fact that Grill entered the day with just 4-24 from deep this season. If North Carolina had been dominant until Friday, this result would feel haphazard.
Instead, it feels like it’s due. The talented Tar Heels have been flying too close to the sun all season, trailing Portland and Charleston in the second-half U-12 media timeout and struggling to take out UNC Wilmington and Gardner-Webb. While not an all-encompassing stat, North Carolina has covered the difference in just one of six games this season, a clear sign the Heels aren’t living up to their expectations on paper. UNC would have remained the No. 1 team in the polls until it lost, but if you had polled the writers on who they really thought was the “best” team in the country leading up to this tournament, it’s hard to imagine many would have picked the Tar Heels.
We know that North Carolina has another team; It’s the same one he found last year in March. But something isn’t clicking, at least not yet. It was obvious last March that the team’s chemistry was near perfect with their “Iron Five” lineup consuming so many minutes during that tournament, and four of those five are back. The transition from Brady Manek to Pete Nance at power forward changes a few things, but Nance hasn’t been the biggest problem; in fact, without him, the Heels might not have escaped Portland on Thursday. Maybe it’s not something you can blame on one player, but collectively the Heels don’t have the “it” factor of last March.
“We just have to find our loot as a group,” Bacot said. “Right now, we are really finding ourselves.”
Inevitably though, patience nationally and in Chapel Hill for the Heels to “find themselves” will be short, considering expectations. This team has been compared time and time again to the 2016-17 Tar Heels, who found redemption and won it all after being defeated by the Villanova buzzer in the 2016 championship game. That team won its first seven games. by 15 points or more, dominated the Maui Invitational and clinched the ACC regular season crown. This team, with four starters behind one that was three points away from a national championship, is not playing at its elite level. should raise some alarms But given the experience of the Heels last year, a group criticized for much of the year and not safe on the NCAA Tournament field until the first week of March, those inside the locker room don’t seem to panic. .
“It’s going to take some time,” Love said. “He took all the way to March of last year until we finally put it all together. Once we do that, we’ll be fine.”
What happens to Villanueva?
villanuevaThe 83–71 loss to portland Friday was a new low this season in a program that has been arguably the best in the sport of the last decade. Through six games to open the Kyle Neptune era, the Wildcats are just 2-4, including going 0-4 against opponents ranked in the top 175 nationally and having lost by 16 or more in the second half of three. consecutive games. The season is not yet a month old, but it doesn’t seem certain that Villanova is dancing in March, jeopardizing a decade-long streak that has featured a pair of national titles.
The guard game is the most obvious problem. The bar is high at Villanova for floor generals: From Ryan Arcidiacono to Jalen Brunson to Collin Gillespie, the Wildcats’ remarkably consistent success late in Jay Wright’s tenure was always marked by their leading guards. That constant isn’t around this season: Veteran Chris Arcidiacono is a stopgap at best, redshirt freshman Angelo Brizzi has struggled to make an impact, and talented scoring point guard Freshman Mark Armstrong hasn’t had an assist since the opener against La Salle. That trio of unproven ball handlers is struggling to get the ball out, allowing defenses to get more involved with Caleb Daniels and Eric Dixon. Arcidiacono, Brizzi and Armstrong are a combined 10-40 in three this season, contributing to Villanova’s sluggish 31% mark from beyond the arc. A team that under Wright was known for its ability to get easy shots not only struggles to produce them, but doesn’t take them down to Nova’s pace when he does.
Some of Villanova’s offensive struggles should be mitigated by the imminent return of five-star freshman wing Cam Whitmore. Whitmore isn’t a downed shooter from deep, but he earned praise this summer while playing for USA Basketball for his ability to get to the basket and shoot. Whitmore also gives Villanova another capable body that can play multiple positions, which means less court time for struggling youngsters like Brizzi and Armstrong as they catch up with top-flight college hoops. Eventually, getting Justin Moore back from Achilles tendon surgery in the offseason would be a big help, but that likely won’t happen until they play in the conference and could take longer; besides, there is no guarantee that he will be in top form after such a devastating injury.
“We have some really good guys in this locker room and basketball is a contact sport,” Neptune said. “We can’t make excuses for ourselves…we just have to go with the guys who are here right now.”
But even a more Villanova-like offense wouldn’t solve all of the Wildcats’ problems right now. Things haven’t gone well on defense either, which is a surprise given how impressive Fordham’s defense was in Neptune’s only season as coach. The Wildcats have given up at least one point per possession (PPP) in all but one game this season, a close win against lowly Delaware State. On Friday, Portland posted a dizzying 1.24 PPG in victory, shooting 67% from two and 46% from three. Bad luck may explain the fact that teams are shooting nearly 38% from deep this season against Villanova (and nearly 79% from the line), but the Wildcats’ subpar two-point defense (227 nationally according to KenPom) is a sign of bigger problems. . Chief among them is the lack of an interior defensive presence, as only five teams nationally block shots at a lower rate than the Wildcats. While Dixon has shot well from deep this season, his ability to impact the game around the rim at both ends is lacking, and Villanova has yet to field a true center other than himself.
The tougher question to quantify with the Wildcats is how much the coaching transition from Wright to Neptune is impacting these fights. The flaws on this list, particularly in his current injury-ridden form, would still be there with Wright, and they’re the sorts of issues that could have prevented the Wildcats from winning the Big East crown this season, even with the proverbial doyen of the los. league coaches in command. But Wright is one of the all-time greats for a reason, and his ability to develop players and adapt his teams to win without elite draftees or the best prospects in the NBA made him one of the winningest coaches in the sport. . And while Neptune was a well-respected assistant for years under Wright before he performed well at Fordham, expecting him to have Wright’s magic touch may be unrealistic.
A full Big East schedule, as well as an upcoming non-conference test against Oklahoma, gives the Wildcats plenty of time to shake things up, especially as they get healthier. But as the blemishes on this roster are exposed and Wright is no longer on the sidelines to fix them, the reality that this team is far from the Villanova standard of recent years becomes clearer and clearer with each game.
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