UNC Basketball:Three reasons to trust these Tar Heels

It’s tournament time and we here at Keeping It Heel are super excited. For the second time as in many years, the Tar Heels are in the sweet 16 with their best chance to make the Final Four since before Kendall Marshall got injured in 2012.

UNC beat it first two opponents by 35 points combined and honestly the scores weren’t really that close. Carolina is hot and for all of Tar Heel nation this is a great time to be alive.

Of course if you are like me, a UNC realist, part of you is probably wondering why to trust this year’s team. That’s a fair question. After all this is the same team that lost true road games to Texas and Northern Iowa. Not only were those games against unranked opponents but they were games in which Carolina led for good chunks.

Then there was the ACC slate. An 8-0 start was marred by a 0-2 road swing against Louisville and Notre Dame. There was the Virginia game where UNC just couldn’t defend.

And of course, dare I mention the Duke game, a game where UNC was clearly the better team and still lost by one?

So I get it. Why should we trust these guys when all they have done is not rise up to meet expectations? Glad you asked. Here are three reasons to trust the Tar Heels to cut the nets down in Houston.

Playing defense leads to offense

Truthfully Carolina has been playing defense all season. It has been down play because the pace they play is hard to maintain a great defense. Plus to be fair, the Heels did not play defense on a regular basis. But in the last couple of weeks since the Virginia loss, UNC has been playing great defense and that in turn has led to good offense.

Starting with the Syracuse game, Carolina has held opponents to under 65 points per game while still scoring over 75 points per game. They have held opponents to under 40% from 2pt range and under 30% from beyond the arc. Also during this seven game span they have forced 12 turnovers per game. They are also averaging 6.5 steals and 4.5 blocks per game while also outrebounding their opponents by over eight rebounds per contest.

Those plays lead to fast breaks both in the open court and off of missed shots. That’s where the Tar Heels hurt teams and get their points. But now they are finally figuring out that the easiest way to get those opportunities is by playing defense.

Brice Johnson: Man on a misson

Have you seen this guy lately? This is not your same pushover from the last three seasons. The guy who would play great at times but then zone out, pick up two quick fouls and sulk on the bench.

No this is the guy who had a legitimate shot at ACC player of the year. This is the guy who carried the load when Kennedy Meeks went down ripping down double double after double double. This is the same man who kept Carolina in tough games when Marcus Paige couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat.

So far this season, in 36 games Johnson has had 21 double doubles. In his first three seasons combined he had ten. In the ACC tournament he scored 43 points and grabbed 26 rebounds. In the tournament so far he has 39 points and 17 rebounds.

But it goes beyond scoring. He has a look on his face, I have not seen before. He is focused and he is determined. He is not going to let some other team beat the Tar Heels as long as he is on the floor. Against FGCU it was blocking eight shots. Against Providence it was dunk, after dunk, after dunk.

Johnson is pumped and motivated. Not only that but the team feeds off it as well. If Carolina is going to win it all, it will be on the momentum of Brice Johnson’s energy.

Roy Williams can still coach

Look you know who you are. You are the fan who was calling for Williams’ job after UNC lost the Duke game at home. You are the fan who thought he should’ve called timeout with eight seconds left, even though he has never done that in his career. You are the fan who thought Roy was done.

And you know what I had that moment too. Now don’t get me wrong, I never thought he should get fired. Roy has earned the right to step down when he is ready. I only considered the idea that maybe he is ready. Guess what? We were all wrong.

What Roy has done in these past few weeks shows why he is one of the greatest of all time and still is. I think the Providence game showed it best. At halftime Carolina went in nursing a four point lead. Ben Bentil was doing whatever he pleased against Meeks and James. Kris Dunn, before being benched was two fouls, could not be contained by either Paige or Berry.

So what does Roy do? He makes two major adjustments. First he puts Justin Jackson on Kris Dunn. Jackson’s length messed with the bigger point guard and though Dunn still ended up with 29 points, 10 of those came in the first half and another nine came in the last four minutes after the Tar Heels had already built a 21 point lead.

The second thing Roy did was go small. He substituted out Meeks and James, who played 11 minutes combined, and instead went with Hicks or Pinson along with Johnson. This not only made the Tar Heels quicker on the offensive end, but also the defensive one.

Without either of these moves Carolina might still have won the game, but not nearly as impressively. Plus the beleaguered coach deserves credit for finally getting his team to play the defense mentioned above. A buy in like that only comes when a team believes in who they are playing for.

Could the Heels lose to Indiana Friday and this whole article becomes moot? Sure, but that can happen to any team. However, if Carolina keeps doing these three things, don’t be surprised when banner number six is hanging from the rafters come this fall.