North Carolina got off to a hot start this season, but things have slowed for the Tar Heels since starting ACC play. While Hubert Davis’s group is still 2-1 in conference, their last two outings, a 97-83 loss to SMU last week and an 87-84 win over Wake Forest on Saturday, have left a lot to be desired. On Wednesday night, Stanford is well-positioned to apply even more pressure to the Tar Heels’ Achilles heel.
In each of UNC’s last two games, it has allowed huge days to scoring guards. SMU’s Boopie Miller led the way in the Mustangs’ win with 27 points on 10/13 shooting and 3-for-5 from three, and Wake Forest’s Nate Calmese finished with 28 points on 10/16 from the field with seven made threes.
It’s clear that smaller guards are giving the Tar Heels issues on the defensive end. Kyan Evans, who is struggling on the other end of the floor as well, hasn’t been able to slow them down, and on a front-court-heavy team, there just aren’t many answers.
Ebuka Okorie is a nightmare matchup for Hubert Davis’s big-man centric lineup
With Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar, who combine to average 2.5 blocks per game, patrolling the paint, opponents are shooting just 42.8 percent on two-point attempts against the Tar Heels. That’s No. 3 in the country. For the season, UNC’s three-point defense isn’t much worse, ranking 67th among 365 DI teams. But in ACC play, opponents are shooting a staggering 39.2 percent from beyond the arc. Both SMU and Wake Forest hit over 40 percent of their long-range attempts.
Stanford is by no means a top three-point shooting team in the country. The Cardinal rank 190th nationally, hitting at a 33.6 percent clip. However, they have a lead guard, Ebuka Okorie, who can give UNC problems, and if they can heat up from downtown, it could be a long night in Palo Alto for the Tar Heels.
Okorie is the eighth leading scorer in the country, averaging 22.1 points per game this season. The 6-foot-2 freshman has three 30-point performances in Stanford’s last six games, along with a 28-point night in a recent win over Louisville.
Stanford ranks 68th in the NET, which means that, on the road, UNC still has a chance for a Quad 1 win, and would not be dinged too badly for a Quad 1 loss. Still, the Cardinal are not real ACC contenders, and if UNC fashions itself as one of the favorites, alongside Duke and Virginia, to win the league, then it can’t afford to drop another game this early in conference play.
Evans and Seth Trimble need to find a way to slow down Okorie because, with the way they’ve been playing, he seems to be a nightmare matchup.