UNC Basketball tournament hopes hurt by loss to Marquette

The UNC basketball program followed up an impressive victory against Louisville with one of its worst performances of the 2020-21 season.

With a gap in the Tar Heels’ schedule due to a postponed game against Virginia Tech, Roy Williams wanted to find a fill-in game to help keep his team playing. Unfortunately, the game that the Tar Heels scheduled was definitely not beneficial for them.

On Wednesday night, the Tar Heels suffered their first home loss of the season, as non-conference opponent Marquette came in and dominated the game throughout. Overall, North Carolina led the contest for just 57 seconds of play.

The first half was an ugly one for Williams’ squad. North Carolina scored just 29 points, and faced their largest halftime deficit heading into the final half of play. To put things into perspective: the Tar Heels made 11 field goals through the first 20 minutes of play, and turned the ball over 10 times during that span.

That simply cannot happen.

To make matters worse, North Carolina received just 14 points from the starting lineup. If you take Garrison Brooks’ nine first half points out of the mix, the starters made just one shot from the floor in the first half.

The energy in the first half wasn’t there, either. North Carolina did not show the same fire or desire that they showed throughout other points of the season (especially throughout the Louisville game). Through 20 minutes of play, it just seemed like the Tar Heels were not ready to play.

Although they faced their largest halftime deficit of the season, North Carolina came out with much more energy in the second half. On multiple occasions, the Tar Heels cut the lead to single digits, but Marquette did enough on both sides of the court to keep the game out of reach.

Brooks led the Tar Heels with 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting. The other Tar Heels starters combined for just 15 points on 4-of-23 shooting. Freshman guard R.J. Davis and reserve big man Walker Kessler both scored double-digit points off the UNC bench. Although he dealt with some foul trouble in the second half, Day’Ron Sharpe fell just short of a double-double, as he scored nine points and pulled down 11 rebounds.

Overall, this has to be the worst loss of the season for the Tar Heels. A game that was scheduled just four days prior to keep a team active should not be one that comes back to really haunt you as Selection Sunday looms near.

With this loss, where do the Tar Heels stand in regards to the NCAA Tournament? Simply put, this loss — especially with how ugly it was — definitely hurts North Carolina’s case.

The Tar Heels have three regular season games left (after tonight, we’re sure they won’t look to schedule anymore unless more postponements come about). Roy Williams and his team will have to quickly turn things around if they want to salvage any hope of earning a tournament bid.

The Tar Heels return to action on Saturday night, as they host Florida State in another huge ACC contest. Tip-off from Chapel Hill is scheduled for 4:00 p.m., and the game will be televised live on ESPN.

Continue to follow the Keeping It Heel team for all the latest news and updates regarding the UNC basketball program.