Quick Hitters - North Carolina at Louisville

Isaac Schade presents Quick Hitters from North Carolina’s 90-83 (OT) road win over Louisville on Tuesday night.

Author:
Isaac Schade
Feb 2, 2022 3:24 AM EST

Quick Hitters from North Carolina’s 90-83 (OT) road win over Louisville on Tuesday night.

Highlights:

Condensed Game:

What a response on multiple levels from Carolina in an incredibly hostile road environment. What are those levels of response? First, the Tar Heels have been largely untrustworthy following a big win. Not so tonight. They responded to the success of the recently-completed homestand sweep by backing it up and finding more success with this win. Second, UNC literally responded in the game. Rather than folding after taking a Louisville punch, the Heels not only kept fighting, but punched back and ultimately did enough to get over the top.
This was easily the most resilience, resolve, and toughness Carolina has displayed this season. Combining the physicality of Louisville with the true road environment, I would suggest that Carolina has learned some lessons about grit and is putting them into action.
In fairness to Louisville, they were missing their head coach (Chris Mack) and their best player (Malik Williams). However, when adversity of that nature strikes, teams often circle the wagons and it’s hard to know exactly what to expect from the on-court product. Will an opponent in this scenario bomb? Or will they turn in their most inspired basketball of the season? Not sure if it was their most inspired performance, but it certainly was an inspired performance from Louisville.
Aside from conference standing implications (UNC is now third), this win was important because Carolina started ACC road play 2-0 but had gone 0-3 since. Every ACC win is important. Every ACC road win is next-level important.
Brady Manek was the leading Tar Heel scorer and basically carried the team offensively down the stretch of regulation, scoring nine points in the final 8:30 of regulation. In total, Manek matched his UNC season high with 24 points, which is the 24^th time a Tar Heel has made it to 20 points this season.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Manek is shooting exactly 50% (14-28) from three in the current four-game winning streak.
Manek has 49 made threes and is one of three Tar Heels (Davis and Love the others) to each make 40 or more so far this season (22 games). For reference, Kerwin Walton was the only player to reach 40 made threes last season (29 games).
At this point, I need to admit that I’m struggling to find ways to continue contextualizing just how insane Armando Bacot’s performances are. He matched his career high with 22 rebounds, which was his third 20-plus rebound game this season. Add in his 19 points and Bacot notched his 17^th double-double of the season and 35^th of his career.
With his performance, Bacot has set a new personal best for total rebounds in a single season (277, previous was 263). As a quick reminder, we’re only 22 games into the season. There are still nine more conference games and at least one game each in the conference tournament and NCAA Tournament. Assuming that minimum of 11 games and Bacot’s current average of 12.6 rebounds per game, he would pull in around 138 more rebounds this season, making him just the second-ever Tar Heel to grab 400 total rebounds in one season (Brice Johnson the other).

For those wondering, still no Dawson Garcia tonight. Please continue to keep Garcia and his family in your thoughts.
It was a three-point bonanza. The teams combined to make 27 threes on a combined 44.3% shooting. It’s not often that you see two teams each hit double-digits in made threes and do so while each making over 40%, however this is the third time this season it’s happened in a Carolina game. The other two occurrences were Purdue and NC State, meaning that in back-to-back games Carolina and their opponent have each made double-digit threes at a conversion rate of over 40%.
Not much bench scoring from the Carolina reserves tonight. And by “not much” I mean “zero”. The Louisville bench outscored Carolina’s by a lopsided 44-0. As you can deduce, that also means that all 90 of UNC’s points came from the starters, all of whom were in double figures.
The Cardinals also blanked the Tar Heels in fast break points – 13-0.
While Carolina wasn’t getting points from the unexpected source of the bench, they were getting unexpected offense from Leaky Black. Black was a perfect 4-4 from the field, 3-3 from three, and 2-2 from the line for 13 points. He also contributed five rebounds, four assists, zero turnovers, and a steal. Believe it or not, he has now made at least one three in four consecutive games.
In the first 18 games of the season, Leaky Black scored a total of 56 points, for an average of 3.1 points per game. However, in the last four games alone, he’s scored 36 points (9.0 points per game).
It was a rough shooting night for Caleb Love, going just 3-16 from the field. Love also had a costly turnover near the end of regulation that allowed Louisville to tie the game. I say this not to bash Love, but to draw encouragement. While he struggled from the field, he went 9-10 from the free throw line, had six assists, and got Carolina on the scoreboard first in overtime. Credit to Leaky Black’s leadership for picking up Love following that turnover.
It seems evident, based on the past two games, that in the absence of Dawson Garcia and Anthony Harris, Coach Davis has landed on a seven-man rotation (the starters plus Kerwin Walton and Puff Johnson), plus some spot minutes here and there for Justin McKoy.
Great help defense rotation from Leaky Black on Louisville’s last possession before halftime. He forced a jump ball which RJ Davis turned into the go-ahead bucket heading into the locker room. The Tar Heels are yet to lose this season when they lead at the half.
I often wonder: What goes through spectator Roy Williams’ brain as he watches a game? Is he able to turn off his “inner-coach monologue” and just enjoy? Is he critiquing and coaching in his head?
Bacot and Davis each picked up their fourth fouls with over 4:00 to go in regulation but were both able to avoid fouling out during the remainder of regulation and overtime.
Despite the lack of diversity of scoring from sources outside the starters, the main five were able to share the load amongst themselves. For example, in overtime the first four Carolina buckets were each scored by a different Tar Heel (in order - Love, Bacot, Manek, Black).
Overtime was crazy and a spillover of the physical play that had gone on throughout the game. By the time it was all said and done, Louisville had been assessed two different technical fouls, the refs reviewed a play for approximately 87 minutes of real time (okay, so that’s an exaggeration), fans threw debris on the court, and the Heels outscored the Cards by seven.
On a personal note, I want to thank Leaky Black for his willingness to be open and vulnerable in the postgame press conference talking about his struggles with anxiety and how his therapist and prayer with Jackie Manuel before games have aided in his health (see the video of Leaky's interview below, and this specific section at the 2:10 mark).
The Tar Heels now have a four-game winning streak and will look to match their season high, five-in-a-row, when they host Duke on Saturday.

Box Score

Hubert Davis postgame press conference

Players postgame press conference

Caleb Love

Armando Bacot

Brady Manek

Leaky Black

Remember to check in for Quick Hitters after every North Carolina basketball game. Next up is a home game against Duke on Saturday, February 5. Tip is at 6:00pm ET on ESPN.

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