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UNC's Michael Malone Not Holding Back Amid Rough Play
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- UNC's Michael Malone Not Holding Back Amid Rough Play
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect)
North Carolina was able to come away with a win on opening night, and in a sense, that's a good thing.
However, it isn't exactly impressive to beat a team like Western Carolina by eight points. The reality for North Carolina is that if it wants to be the team it's looking to be over the next couple of months, it has to play way better than it did.
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Western Carolina is expected to be one of the worst teams North Carolina plays all season, and with the way it struggled against the Catamounts, it was a somewhat disappointing sign.
We've seen some problems for North Carolina throughout the first couple of weeks of the year, specifically in those exhibition games. The Tar Heels' official season got started on Monday night, but we also have a feel for what they are because of those games that didn't count.
We saw some of the same issues arise in this game, specifically in the rebounding department. North Carolina allowed nine offensive rebounds, getting outrebounded 36 to 28.
Head coach Michael Malone, once again, isn't going to be a guy who beats around the bush. He's proven throughout his career in the NBA with the Denver Nuggets that he's a guy who expects the most from his players day in and day out.
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While college is a completely different game than the NBA, he also understands that he has to keep his foot on the gas and try to get his guys to play much better basketball than they currently are.
His recent comments are perfect for what we've seen out of North Carolina, with him suggesting that his team is making progress in certain areas, but it fails to sustain that.
"Right now, we're a team that takes two steps forward, three steps back," Malone said. "We can't sustain anything."
"We have really good stretches, but we're unable to sustain it for long stretches," Malone said , per FanSided. "We have to find a way to build those habits where we can start putting longer stretches together, putting halves together, putting a full 40 minutes together… I just want to see us be a lot more consistent and stack plays," Malone said. "We're not stacking enough plays right now."
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The fortunate part for North Carolina is that it doesn't have to worry about dropping some ACC games over the first month or so.
The first ACC game of the year will be in December, so it allows the Tar Heels to get their feet under them a bit. North Carolina will also take on Wofford and Wyoming over the next two games, so we should get a good feel for how it looks and whether it can deal with some of these mistakes before taking on a decent Georgia team on Nov. 13.
