UNC demolished by Category 5 hurricane in ugly loss to Miami

The good or bad news, depending on your perspective, is that UNC’s game against Miami was over early on Tuesday. The Hurricanes threw Carolina to the ground and never let them get back up on their way to a 85-57 win. UNC shot just 34% from the field and 20% from long distance in a game I’m sure we’re all eager to quickly forget.

To add insult to injury, Armando Bacot went down with five minutes left in the game after landing hard on his back. He stayed down on the court for quite a while before finally being able to walk off the court by himself. It did seem like a worst case scenario may have been avoided with the issue being an extremely sore tailbone. Losing a player as important as Bacot in the late stages of a horrible game would have just been an ugly cherry on top.

The 49-22 halftime deficit was UNC’s worst since their 2010 game against Duke. It has been quite a while since the Tar Heels were on the receiving end of a beat down as thorough as this one. Just about half of Carolina’s shots came from long distance where they made just six of their 30 attempts. Not exactly a recipe for success!

Lots of credit for the blowout goes to the way Miami played. Their offense was a force to be reckoned with and UNC had no answer. Isaiah Wong nailed five of his eight three-pointers on his way to 25 points. Kameron McGusty added another 20 points. Sam Waardenburg reached his career-high in points (20) just one minute into the second half with five threes. It was that kind of a game.

Unfortunately, the Tar Heels were more than willing to help Miami’s cause. The turnovers were overly plentiful on one side and the 14 giveaways directly led to 30 points for the Hurricanes. Considering the final score, you can see how this would sting a bit extra.

I take no pleasure sitting behind my keyboard being critical of guys who are just over the legal voting age. I stay away from it as often as I can. We have to talk about effort, though. Or, the lack thereof. It has felt on a couple of occasions this year that the other team punches UNC in the mouth and they crumble. Things only get progressively worse from there.

There did not seem to be a ton of effort on the floor tonight from where I sat. Frustration is inevitable in situations like these, but not showing up and not having the pride necessary to keep your behind from getting kicked this way is a really unfortunate look. The solution to such a problem is even more difficult to come by.

It’s going to be difficult to get the foul taste of this one out of their mouths because it was, quite frankly, an embarrassing performance. No two ways about that. We’ve seen them rebound from bad losses previously this season, but in the ACC this year there are only so many opportunities for quality wins. This was one of them and the opportunity was squandered in a big way.

UNC will be back in action on Saturday against Wake Forest in Winston-Salem.