Lessons Learned from UNC basketball's hard fought win over Louisville

This one was big.

The UNC basketball program kept its hopes of a double-bye in the ACC Tournament alive by beating No. 24 Louisville in the Dean Dome. Henri Veesaar started for the second straight game and did just enough to help the Tar Heels crawl past the finish line on the back of Seth Trimble's career-high 30 points.

UNC's defense looked positively scrappy for long periods of the game, so you can only imagine how much of a scare they'll be for a regional's top seed when Caleb Wilson gets back on the court. Let's dive into some lessons learned from a great win over the Cardinals.

Withstanding Threes

Louisville is one of the most dangerous three-point shooting teams in the country. They are ranked fourth in the NCAA in three-pointers made per game with 11.8. Compare that to UNC at #128 with just 8.4 (I had to hit the "Show More" button three times while researching this factoid).

When the game started, you could fear the worst. Louisville hit five of their first nine three-pointers, building a 10-point lead. UNC learned some hard lessons the same way that Ukraine did when the Russian invasion settled into its current form of mostly artillery warfare. If you stay still, you will get sighted and destroyed in place. UNC's defense, like the Ukrainian Army, needed to move.

The defense ratcheted up the pressure and defenders communicated with each other. Louisville was forced to shoot inside the three-point line and, at one point, was held without a field goal for over ten minutes of gameplay. The Cards finished 14/39 from three (35.9%), but UNC's defense definitely affected many attempts. In a game that finished with just a three-point margin, all of that collective work made a huge difference.

Speaking of just a three-point margin...

Free Throw Woes

I'm getting kind of sick of writing about free throws.

I wish North Carolina hit them at a healthy rate. But once again, the Tar Heels hit less than half of their freebies, and when you leave 10 points on the table and only win a game by three points (against a team that takes and makes a TON of threes), you're leaving a lot to chance.

Seth Trimble, who had a career night scoring the basketball, was actually respectable from the line (7/11), but he missed two on one trip, and missed the front end of a one-and-one. That's essentially two turnovers. Jarin Stevenson, a good shooter when he attempts shots, was just 1/4. He has the nerve to make them, as we witnessed in Charlottesville, so whatever has him consternated needs to be resolved.

When Louisville made their big push with 2:49 left in the game and UNC up 11, those missed free throws loomed ominously in my mind. Fortunately, the Tar Heels did enough to hang on, but they did just enough. This game could have easily slipped away. Make your free throws! And Tar Heel Nation... pray.

High Energy

Zayden High continues to give Hubert Davis tons of energy as North Carolina navigates the toughest part of their conference schedule without their best player. High's box score doesn't make for impressive reading--4 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block--but his energy was crucial for UNC to keep in contact with a Louisville team that came out bombing from three.

Two examples in the first half come to mind. He got excellent box out position on a Louisville miss and forced an over-the-back foul on Sananda Fru, a starter who only ended up playing 16 minutes due to foul trouble (he finished with four). Then with 5:05 left in the first half, High poked the ball loose from J'vonne Hadley then dove on the loose ball, calling timeout in the ensuing scrum to maintain possession.

These are high energy plays. These are winning plays.

The difference in production from Zayden High when Caleb Wilson was healthy to now is stark. But you have to take into account that the only thing that should put Wilson on the bench is Wilson's own stamina or foul trouble. There's no player in America that you'd want to substitute for Wilson, he should play as many minutes as his body can handle.

But now, should Wilson return, Hubert Davis doesn't need to play Ironman minutes for the future Lottery pick right away. High has demonstrated that he is a capable substitute and can be trusted with more minutes than he managed in the first half of the season. And he adds a sense of rhythm with his teammates, so they understand each other on the floor a little better.