North Carolina basketball has been playing well to start the season, but they may have suffered one of their worst losses in their latest game. It came against SMU, as they lost 97-83, and were mostly dominated on both sides of the ball. Head coach Hubert Davis knew the challenges that SMU would present, but they weren't able to find a way to get the win.
“No, they’re a physical group, they’re athletic, they’re big. We knew that they were going to be physical,” Davis said via Spencer Haskell of On3. “It’s something that we had talked about at every step in our preparation for SMU, and that’s what teams have been doing against us. Just being physical with us and trying to get us off our spots and make our passes and our drives difficult. And they were able to do it.
Though the offense did enough to try to keep them in the game, it was the defense that wasn't up to par. At the end of the day, Davis had to reiterate what it is that the team needs to do to win games, not just like this, but throughout the season.
“But we still shot 48% from the field. It’s on the defensive end. Not going to win hardly any games — any at all — if a team shoots 60%,” Davis said. “As difficult as offense was, we still shot 50% from the field. We shot the ball probably the best from three. So as I said before, it always starts and ends with us with defense, rebounding and taking care of the basketball and defensively we just didn’t play the way we needed to to be able to beat a team here on the road.”
If North Carolina can find their way on defense, there's no doubt good things will come their way in the future.
