UNC's perimeter defensive struggles in loss at Stanford
The North Carolina Tar Heels appeared well on their way to a historic scoring performance Wednesday night, trading baskets with Stanford at will.
UNC never pulled away from the host Cardinal, but led largely throughout. There's just one problem: Stanford couldn't miss from deep.
The Tar Heels watched an early, 10-point second-half lead turn into a 95-90 loss , in large part due to the Cardinal (14-4, 3-2 ACC) making 16 three-pointers and shooting 57 percent from deep. North Carolina's last three opponents (SMU, Wake Forest, Stanford) are now 44-of-90 from beyond the arc.
After the game, UNC (14-3, 2-2 ACC) big men Henri Veesaar and Caleb Wilson answered questions about their team's defensive struggles, focusing on defending the 3-ball.
"I felt like we could be more physical," Veesaar said. "Just being better overall. I think that’s not our job to say, coaches are better at it, they’re going to tell us what we’ve got to change. Cause it’s got to change quick for us to be able to win games consistently. We clearly have a lot of mistakes on defense, like not communicating or not talking, or not listening, because we’ve just got to have a lot more defensive awareness than we have right now. We double a ball screen – and then we have a wide-open guy right next to him. We can’t win that way.”
Wilson, whose quiet frustration was evident at the table even after his career-best 26 points, delivered an honest, composed answer about the Tar Heels' lack of defensive success from deep .
“We just have to make them miss," Wilson said. "People are hitting shots, we just have to make them miss. That’s all I can really say. When somebody has 36 points on us and two other players had 20, s*** can’t happen.”
Stanford has a star freshman itself in Ebuka Okorie, who exploded for 36 points, including a 3-of-5 mark from deep. Jeremy Dent-Smith nailed six threes off the Cardinal bench, Ryan Agarwal drained five in the starting lineup, while Benny Gealer and Cameron Grant added one apiece.
Veesaar was the only Tar Heel to make multiple threes himself, while Jarin Stevenson made his lone attempt.
North Carolina (14-3, 2-2 ACC), which remains winless in conference play away from Chapel Hill, now prepares to face California on Saturday.
The Golden Bears (13-5, 1-4), whom lost against Duke on Wednesday night, are fourth in the ACC at 36% on perimeter shooting. Are two days enough time for UNC to fix its 3-point defense?
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This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: UNC Basketball: Perimeter defense a big issue in loss at Stanford
