UNC Basketball: Grades for Tar Heels’ game against Tennessee

Grading every UNC basketball player for their performance against the Tennessee Volunteers

Following a gritty, hard-fought battle against the sixth-ranked Purdue Boilermakers that resulted in a 93-84 loss on Saturday, the Tar Heels came out on Sunday afternoon and played one of the most lackadaisical, uninspired games we’ve seen since, well, last season.

Hubert Davis’ squad played almost no defense for 40 minutes, gave up countless layups, committed 13 turnovers and looked virtually powerless against the No. 17 Tennessee Volunteers on both ends of the court. Needless to say, our grades today will reflect the Tar Heels’ inability to do just about anything consistently correct against the Volunteers, which resulted in their eventual 89-72 blowout loss in day two of the Cheez-It Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off.

Brady Manek

Manek put on an offensive clinic against Tennessee, scoring 24 points on 7-for-12 shooting from the floor and 6-for-10 from three-point range. He also hit all four of his free throw attempts in his highest-scoring game as a Tar Heel.

You’d have liked to see a few more rebounds and an assist or two against the Volunteers — he came into the game averaging 6.5 boards per game — but he finished Sunday’s contest with just three rebounds and not a single assist. Still, he improved his three-point percentage to better than 39 percent on the season, and was basically the only thing between the Volunteers and a 40-point blowout.

A

Armando Bacot

Bacot recovered from his horrific performance a day prior when he gave the Tar Heels just two points and five rebounds in a foul-plagued 17 minutes of play against Purdue. He put up 16 points and 12 rebounds against the Volunteers in his second double-double of the season and the 21st of his career. He hit 6-of-9 shots from the floor and 4-of-6 free throws in 29 minutes.

A-

Caleb Love

Love wasn’t great against the Volunteers, but he wasn’t terrible. He gave the Tar Heels a dozen points on a 3-for-8 shooting performance that included 2-of-5 from beyond the arc while hitting all four of his free throws. He also pulled down two rebounds and dished out three assists while turning the ball over just twice in 31 game minutes. Love also wasn’t good defensively in this one, but the same could be said of the entire team, so it was honestly hard to differentiate which Tar Heels were worse in this bloodbath of a game.

B

R.J. Davis

This wasn’t R.J. Davis’ best game of the season. He did score 14 points, but it took 11 shots, only three of which were makes. He did hit 2-of-3 from long-range, and 6-of-7 at the foul line, though, to go along with four rebounds and four assists. He led the team in turnovers, however, with four.

B-

Leaky Black

Black, similar to Love, wasn’t horrible in the Tar Heels’ loss to Tennessee; but he was by no means great. He played just 19 minutes, tied for his fewest in four games this season. Black did add two rebounds, two steals and an assist while committing zero turnovers — the only Tar Heel starter that can claim the latter. His grade comes more from the lack of overall impact he had on the game’s final score than anything he did wrong.

C

Dawson Garcia

After Garcia’s terrific 26-point performance against the Boilermakers on Saturday, he scored a season-low four points on Sunday. He also had a season-low three rebounds — matching his number of turnovers for the game — and hit just 2-of-7 shots for the game.

D

Anthony Harris

Anthony Harris played 14 minutes against Tennessee on Sunday and didn’t record a single statistic in the final box score, his two personal fouls notwithstanding. That’s a fairly staggering statistic in and of itself, and that’s what earned him an “F” and some extra homework to start the week.

F

Kerwin Walton

Similar to Harris, Walton had very little impact on the game’s final score. In fact, Walton played 10 more minutes than Harris and only recorded one steal and one block in that time — along with his one turnover and one personal foul — while missing all four of his shot attempts for the game.

F

Dontrez Styles

Dontrez Styles finally made it into another game after not making an appearance on the court since the Tar Heels’ victory over Brown more than a week ago. He missed a shot and committed a turnover, but still wasn’t out there long enough to assess a grade.

Incomplete

The Tar Heels will take the court next on Tuesday evening when they face off with UNC Asheville at the Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Check back with Keeping It Heel for complete coverage of that game, and everything on the UNC basketball program.