Quick Hitters - North Carolina vs. Florida State

Isaac Schade presents Quick Hitters from North Carolina’s 94-74 home win over Florida State on Saturday afternoon.

Author:
Isaac Schade
Feb 13, 2022 1:38 AM EST

Quick Hitters from North Carolina’s 94-74 home win over Florida State on Saturday afternoon.

Highlights:

Condensed Game:

Carolina got off to an 18-0 start (yes, you read that right) and never looked back. The lead ballooned to as large as 40 early in the second half, before ultimately shrinking to the final 20-point margin. Never before has a 20-point blowout felt so incapable of representing just how dominant UNC was throughout the majority of the game.

While it might not feel like it because of the lingering effects of the loss to Duke, Carolina has now won six of seven. This is a healthy moment for a reminder that a Duke game always feels like more than “just a game”, but, win or lose, each matchup with the Blue Devils is ultimately just one game. By the way, FSU, on the other hand, is spiraling and has now lost six straight.
While none of us will feel sorry for the Seminoles, they were already injury-depleted and lost leading scorer Caleb Mills to injury early in this game. Of course, even had Mills been in the game, he was already in the process of being locked up by Leaky Black.
A Dontrez Styles free throw with 12:23 left in the first half gave Carolina their first 20-point lead. The margin never again fell below 20. That means Carolina led by 20 or more points for the final 32:23 of the game. Perhaps the most important aspect of getting out to such a gargantuan lead is that every starter played fewer than 30 minutes.
Speaking of Styles, with his elite athleticism on full-display, he set a career high with eight points and tied a career high with four rebounds. To be fairly balanced, the one blemish is that Styles also had a career high three turnovers. Great performance from the freshman who is going to continue earning playing time as his athleticism brings a unique dynamic off the bench.

For just the fourth time this season, no Tar Heel reached the 20-point threshold. Given the flow of today’s game, this was actually a positive sign of balanced scoring and not needing the starters to contribute as much offensively. Four of the five starters reached 16 points but had the game been closer, it’s likely that multiple starters would have reached 20 points.
Armando Bacot recorded his 19^th double-double of the season and 37^th of his career. With six regular season games and at least two postseason games remaining, it’s highly likely that Bacot will break Brice Johnson’s single-season Carolina record of 23 double-doubles.
Sticking with Bacot, remember, if you will, all that noise from several games ago when he had multiple performances in a row with a low field goal percentage? I would just like to know where those same people are right now. Why aren’t they praising Bacot when he is shooting 15-19 (78.9%) in his last two games? If media and fans are going to be critical when an athlete struggles, shouldn’t they be at least equally (if not more) vocal when he or she enjoys success?
Okay one more thing on Bacot: assuming a minimum of eight more games this season, he is on pace to record just the second 400-rebound season in Carolina history. Bacot needs 94 rebounds to reach 400, an average of 11.75 rebounds over those eight games. His current per-game average is 12.2. Thinking ahead to the possibility of setting the Carolina single-season record, Brice Johnson had 416 rebounds in 2015-16.
One of the questions coming into the game is how the Caleb Love / RJ Davis backcourt would handle FSU’s length. They passed the test with flying colors. The sophomore duo combined for 34 points, shooting 13-25, including 8-14 from three. They had seven rebounds, 11 assists, three steals, three blocks, and five turnovers.
Davis continues to grow as a floor general. He has 11 assists and just one turnover in the last two games and an astounding 22 assists with just five turnovers in the last five. In that five-game span Davis has a 4.4 assist-to-turnover ratio.
This was one of those games where every player who stepped on the court for meaningful minutes contributed something positive toward the victory. For example, all five starters scored within the first 7:23. We’ve already talked about Styles. Puff Johnson made a three, drew a charge, and had a steal all within minutes of stepping on the court. Kerwin Walton not only made a couple threes, but also had a driving lay-up plus an and-one.
The first half really was something to marvel at. Carolina shot 74.2% (23-31) from the field and an even higher percentage from three (75% - 9-12). The 62 points was the most in any half for Carolina since dropping 63 in the first half against Elon on November 9, 2018. The 38-point halftime lead was the largest ever against an ACC opponent in the Smith Center (295 games). FSU took 6:57 to score their first point and 8:28 to make their first field goal.

In terms of rebounding margin and defensive rebounding, Carolina has looked very similar to the Roy Williams-coached teams of the past nearly two decades. For example, the Heels have only been out-rebounded three times in 25 games. The drop-off has come in terms of offensive rebounding percentage. Today however Carolina had their second-highest percentage of the season at 40.6% (season high was 48.1% vs. UNC-Asheville).
Carolina recorded a season-high 22 assists. Perhaps more important than this one-game showing, the Tar Heels have assisted on at least 50% of their field goals in five straight games, the longest such streak this season.
The great thing about the way Carolina is sharing the ball is that it’s not just one player. Three different Tar Heels (Love, Davis, and Black) had at least five assists against FSU. The last time three different Tar Heels had at least five assists in a game was against Duke in the ACC semifinals on March 9, 2018 (a 74-69 UNC victory).
It was very thoughtful of FSU to switch to a 2-3 zone for much of the second half so Carolina could get in some reps before facing Syracuse in a few weeks.
In that second half, FSU actually outscored UNC 50-32. Let's be honest, it’s difficult for any athlete to stay as locked in post-halftime after such a dominant first 20 minutes. Nothing to worry about, on to Pittsburgh.

Box Score

Hubert Davis postgame press conference

Players postgame press conference

RJ Davis

Caleb Love

Dontrez Styles

Remember to check in for Quick Hitters after every North Carolina basketball game. Next up is a home game against Pittsburgh on Wednesday, February 16. Tip is at 8:00pm ET on ACC Network.

Want to receive an email with Quick Hitters and other articles from Isaac Schade? Click here. Include your name in the text of the email.

Send Isaac Schade an email to talk more about this article.