Lessons Learned from the UNC basketball program's unnecessary loss to Stanford

The Tar Heels had a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day against the Cardinal.

Stanford v North Carolina
Stanford v North Carolina | Grant Halverson/GettyImages
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UNC couldn't stop Stanford from doing the same thing over and over

Oziyah Sellers, RJ Davis
Stanford v North Carolina | Grant Halverson/GettyImages

Two things bothered me during this game. In a one-point loss where UNC couldn't gain separation, they both matter.

Stanford scored on the same weave baseline inbounds play four times. Four times! Ian Jackson regularly lost track of his man, who followed a weave runner behind a screen and caught the ball six feet from the hoop for an easy jumper.

Also, coming out of made baskets, Stanford would switch to a zone defense for a possession and used their superior length to disrupt North Carolina's offensive sets. UNC did not score on any of the possessions, usually wasting the shot clock lobbing slow passes along the perimeter, which gave Stanford time to reset their defenders. When the Tar Heels finally started attacking it with dribbling and bounce passes, they found Ian Jackson in the corner for a three, but he failed to hit it.

These are just two things that Stanford was able to do numerous times. Hubert Davis and his staff HAVE to make in-game adjustments to keep teams from squeezing juice from the same orange.

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