March Madness: 5 keys to a UNC victory over Indiana
Three-point shooting
As a team, Indiana is good from behind the three-point arc. They shoot better than 41 percent from long-distance, compared to Carolina’s 31 percent. Indiana will most certainly have to take advantage of this aspect of the matchup since they will be at an evidently large disadvantage in the paint.
The Tar Heels are 222nd in the nation defending against the three. Indiana will want to exploit the Heels from the outside in order to gain an edge in this heavyweight regional semifinal.
North Carolina, coming off its worst three-point shooting season in school history, cannot be trusted to put up good numbers from the outside on a consistent basis. When they do though, they’re lethal.
When the Heels efficiently hit shots from the outside, it makes their already potent inside game even more dangerous. When outside shots are falling, it allows UNC to play inside-out, opens up shooters on the perimeter and forces opponents to guard them straight up. This creates mismatches in the paint that forwards Brice Johnson and Isaiah Hicks are able to exploit.