Tag: North Carolina Tar Heels Basketball

UNC, Baylor set for early tip off on Saturday

We have the tip time and broadcast info for Saturday’s matchup between the UNC basketball program and Baylor.

When UNC and Baylor take the court in Forth Worth on Saturday for their round of 32 game, it will be a stand-alone slot on CBS. The Tar Heels and Bears will be the first game of the day on Saturday and the only game airing at that time, getting things started for another big day of hoops action.

This is a big opportunity for both teams to show what they got in hopes of punching their ticket to the Sweet 16 round.

With the game being broadcasted on CBS, the crew of Brian Anderson, Jim Jackson, and Allie LaForce will have the call. Here is a look at the full schedule with times, network, and broadcast crew:

The Tar Heels will have the chance to shake up the East Region even more on Saturday after No. 2 Kentucky was bounced in the first round by St. Peter’s on Thursday night. Taking out the No. 1 seed would really open things up in that region depending on what happens with No. 3 Purdue and even No. 4 UCLA as well.

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Leaky Black once again proves to be an elite defender

UNC basketball guard Leaky Black turned in another impressive defensive performance in the Tar Heels win over Marquette.

The UNC basketball program blitzed Marquette in the first half, jumping out to a 53-25 lead at halftime and coasting the rest of the way to a 30-plus point win over the Golden Eagles.

While the focus was on UNC’s offense, led by Brady Manek’s 28 points and Caleb Love’s 23 points, there was one player that didn’t stuff the stat sheet but proved his value on the defensive end of the floor, once again. And that player is Leaky Black.

The senior guard was tasked with guarding freshman guard Justin Lewis, Marquette’s leading scorer at 17.1 points per game. But on Thursday, Black put the clamps down on Lewis and held him to six points on 2 of 15 shooting in the game.

His defensive presence is being noticed more and more too, starting with his performance on Duke’s A.J. Griffin a few weeks back.

While Leaky has struggled to have an offensive identity in his time at North Carolina, he’s turned into not only the team’s best defender but one of the best in the ACC and potentially the country too.

He has another tough task ahead on Saturday against Baylor but if UNC gets this performance, they have the chance to pull off an upset.

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UNC basketball sets record in NCAA Tournament win over Marquette

The UNC basketball program set a new record in their NCAA Tournament win over Marquette on Thursday afternoon.

The first few minutes were back and forth but after the first media timeout, the UNC basketball program really turned it on in their win over Marquette on Thursday. The Tar Heels went on a 20-2 run after that timeout to grab a double-digit lead over the Golden Eagles and they never looked back, advancing to the round of 32 against Baylor.

UNC went up big in the first half, grabbing a 53-25 lead at halftime and control of the game.

That effort was backed by 21 first-half points from Caleb Love including all of his made field goals from the three-point line as he tied a UNC record for most made three-pointers (six) in an NCAA Tournament game. Love finished the game with 23 points but the Tar Heels really didn’t need much from him in the second half.

Brady Manek added five three-pointers of his own in the game while the Tar Heels finished with 13, marking a new program record in an NCAA Tournament game:

We’ve seen this before from UNC this season where they are red hot from the three-point line. And like Thursday, when that happens they are a very dangerous team.

Let’s hope the hot shooting continues on Saturday when they face No. 1 Baylor for a trip to the Sweet 16.

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Armando Bacot makes rebounding history for UNC basketball program

UNC basketball forward Armando Bacot just set a new program record in rebounding, passing Brice Johnson.

Armando Bacot is hoping his junior season continues here in March as the UNC basketball program is battling Marquette in the first round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament. And already, Bacot is off to a good start.

At the first media timeout with UNC leading early, Bacot has 4 points and 5 rebounds. Those 5 rebounds just made him the new Tar Heels’ record for most rebounds in a single season with 417, passing Brice Johnson’s mark from his historic 2016 season.

Bacot has been fantastic for the Tar Heels this year, posting 24 double-doubles of points and rebounds, helping them get off the bubble and saely into the field of 68.

After a slow freshman season, Bacot got better as the year went on and then improved more last year despite splitting time in a rotation that included Day’Ron Sharpe, Garrison Brooks and Walker Kessler. But the offseason improvement has really shown this season for him as he was named to the All-ACC First Team. 

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Where Marquette has a big advantage over UNC

Marquette could expose UNC in this area of the game on Thursday in the NCAA Tournament.

The UNC basketball program is set to meet Marquette in the 8/9 matchup on Thursday in Forth Worth, Texas. The winner will likely get Baylor in the round of 32 in the East Region.

Going into this game, UNC is playing some of their best basketball of the season while Marquette has struggled down the stretch. The Tar Heels are led by the likes of Armando Bacot, R.J. Davis, Caleb Love and Brady Manek, all who need to have a good game for the Tar Heels to come out with a victory.

But one area Marquette might be able to expose the Tar Heels is in the pick and roll.

Andrei Greska of Paint Touches breaks down why Marquette can find success there:

This is the one area where Marquette will have a clear advantage over North Carolina. Per Synergy, UNC ranks 230th in the country at P&R+Pass defense, which measures defense against both pick and roll action that results in direct shots, plus the pass outs to spot ups and drives from pick and rolls. When Marquette was rolling, it was creating a plethora of open shots both at the rim and beyond the arc, mostly off Tyler Kolek’s wizardry at finding the open guy. MU scores 1.107 points per possession off of Kolek’s passes from pick and rolls. He had 280 of these possessions, 4th most in the country and most by any high major player. Big East teams began choosing to go under screens and deny help in the 2nd half of the season, daring Kolek to beat them with the shot rather than the pass, something that you can say worked well for them.

The Tar Heels are going to have to find a way to get good communication on the switches and not find themselves in a situation where Armando Bacot is out on the perimeter all game.

This could be the biggest difference in the game.

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Can Hubert Davis do what Roy Williams struggled with?

Shaka Smart has caused problems for the UNC basketball program over the years. Can Hubert Davis buck the trend?

Thursday’s first-round matchup between North Carolina and Marquette in the NCAA Tournament will be the first between head coaches Hubert Davis and Shaka Smart in their careers. But Smart is familiar with North Carolina and has gotten the best of the Tar Heels as a head coach.

Smart is 3-0 all-time against North Carolina, winning all three of those games in his time with Texas. And all three came against Roy Williams, which was the legendary coaches’ bugaboo in his career. Whenever the Tar Heels and Longhorns matched up, UNC simply couldn’t find a way to win the game and instead dropped all three.

That included a matchup in the Maui Invitational title game back in 2020.

Smart and the Longhorns had a history of upsetting North Carolina, dating back to 2015. The unranked Longhorns stunned No. 3 North Carolina 84-82 on a buzzer-beater on December 12th, 2015. The win was one of the first real big ones for Smart at Texas and sent UNC to 7-2 overall. A few years later, an unranked Texas team stunned No. 7 North Carolina 92-89 on a neutral court in Las Vegas. The loss was the first for the defending champion Tar Heels as they spoiled a 33-point performance from Coby White.

And finally, last season No.9 Texas got a buzzer-beater from Matt Coleman to beat No. 14 UNC 69-67 in the Maui final.

All three games have been close but for some reason, Smart had Williams’ number in these games.

Alas, a new opportunity awaits the Tar Heels under Davis. This is not only a chance for the Tar Heels to avenge a first-round loss to Wisconsin a year ago in the tournament. This won’t be an easy task at all and Smart is familiar with how UNC wants to play, so he’s going to have a gameplan ready.

It’s just up to UNC to deliver Davis a win and get a bugaboo off of the program’s back.

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UNC basketball commit Seth Trimble POTY honors in Wisconsin

Four-star UNC basketball commit Seth Trimble picks up a big honor on Wednesday as his season winds down.

Class of 2022 UNC basketball commit Seth Trimble is hoping to end his senior year at Menomonee Falls with a state title. He helped lead his team to the WIAA Division 1 State Semifinals this Friday with the chance to advance to the title game.

But before then, Trimble picked up a big honor as his high school career winds down.

On Wednesday, Trimble was named the Gatorade Wisconsin Boys Basketball Player of the Year as he announced via his Twitter account. The award is given out each year to the top player in every state and then a national award is handed out.

Trimble is averaging 27.1 points and 7.4 rebounds per game as he has been a key component for Menomonee Falls success this season. The four-star guard has also upped his recruiting stock as well, being UNC’s highest-ranked recruit in the 247Sports rankings. 

The 6-foot-3, 184-pound combo guard picked UNC over 13 other offers including Iowa, Illinois, Creighton, Wisconsin, USC, and Virginia among others.

Marquette, Shaka Smart looking to end bad trends in NCAA Tournament

The Marquette Golden Eagles are looking to earn their first NCAA Tournament win since 2013.

The UNC basketball program is set to face off against Marquette in the 8/9 matchup in the East Region on Thursday, and this should be a game that goes down to the wire.

The Tar Heels played some of their best basketball from mid-February to early March, punching their ticket to the tournament after being on the bubble for a few weeks. Meanwhile, Marquette had a bit of a bumpy road in February despite beating Villanova.

Under Shaka Smart who is in his first year as head coach of the program, the Golden Eagles are trying to end a bad trend. They are 0-2 in their last two appearances (2019 and 2017) and haven’t won a game since their Elite 8 run in 2013. Smart has had his struggles as well.

Since 2013, he’s 1-4 including 0-3 with Texas and 1-1 with VCU.

Alan Bykowski of CrackedSidewalks.com talked about Marquette trying to buck a trend here on Thursday:

I’m not sure how well-known the story is outside Milwaukee, but there were reports that Shaka Smart was very close to becoming Marquette’s head coach back in 2014 when Buzz Williams left. It began with reports that members of Marquette’s administration along with alum Doc Rivers flew out to Virginia to seal the deal with Smart, which was reported as a “done deal” by a local insider. It got to the point that local news media was reporting Smart had taken the job. Instead, Smart and Marquette didn’t come to an agreement and we ended up with Steve Wojciechowski. Marquette fans are hoping that was maybe a cosmic error. Since then, Marquette is 0-2 in NCAA Tournament games and Shaka Smart is 0-4. Maybe Smart was supposed to be here all along and the NCAA gods were punishing both of us for not coming to an agreement sooner. We’ll hope to see both of those trends flip in Fort Worth.

For North Carolina, they are looking to avoid losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons for the first time ever. They fell to Wisconsin in the 8/9 game a year ago.

Something has to give…

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ESPN analyst picks UNC to pull off big upset in NCAA Tournament

This ESPN analyst predicts that the UNC Basketball program will pull off a big upset in the 2022 NCAA Tournament.

ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi has made a living making mock brackets for the NCAA Tournament year-round. It’s fair to say he has one of the best jobs in all of sports.

As we get ready for the first round to tip-off on Thursday, Lunardi spent some time making predictions now that the field of 68 is set.  He went through the bracket, game-by-game until the national championship where he picked the team to win it all.

But as Lunardi went through the bracket, he had some upsets including one notable one.

Lunardi picked the No. 8 seed Tar Heels to win their first-round matchup against Marquette and then pull off a big upset by stunning Baylor in the round of 32. From there, he has UNC beating No. 5 Saint Mary’s in the Sweet 16 to set up a matchup with No. 2 Kentucky.

However, that’s where the Tar Heels run ends:

That’s a pretty bold projection from Lunardi, especially with how UNC’s season has gone this year. Just a few weeks back, they were a bubble team in Lunardi’s projections before turning it around.

But the Tar Heels are playing some of their best basketball right now and might be able to pull off a few upsets.

Let’s hope Lunardi’s right, and UNC can make a run at this thing.

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How Armando Bacot can exploit Marquette’s defense

Why UNC basketball forward Armando Bacot could be the biggest x-factor Thursday against Marquette.

When it comes to Thursday’s matchup between UNC and Marquette, there will be a few key factors that should determine the outcome of the game.

But what’s working in UNC’s favor is that they will likely have the best player on the court in junior Armando Bacot.

The forward has put together an impressive campaign here in 2021-22, averaging 16.5 points, and 12.5 rebounds per game while recording 24 double-doubles on the year. He’s what really makes UNC’s offense go and if he has a big game, the Tar Heels could advance.

Going into this game, I talked to Alan Bykowski of CrackedSidewalks.com to break down the matchup and one of the topics was how UNC can exploit Marquette’s defense. He offered up this answer which should bode well for the Tar Heels:

Marquette’s defense is different than what people familiar with Shaka Smart will expect. They run some press, but it’s designed more to slow down the opposing offense and run 8-10 seconds off the shot clock before you can get into your sets. That is evidenced with the opponent possession length being #321 nationally. Olivier-Maxence Prosper will spearhead that press when they run it and his 6’8″ frame and athleticism makes him a one-man press. Once you get across half-court, this is a switchable team that generally sticks to man and plays physically. They have an elite shot blocker in Kur Kuath and a number of versatile defenders that really take pride on that end.

Marquette’s Achilles’ heel on defense is definitely their rebounding. Both bigs are pretty slight and other than Lewis, no one on this team is great at getting to the loose balls. We’ve seen guys like Ryan Kalkbrenner and Adama Sanogo really give this team fits and when you also have a big that can hit threes like Butler’s Bryce Golden it can be a long day for Golden Eagle fans. When I wrote capsules on potential matchups in the 7/10 and 8/9 games, the guy that stood out here is Armando Bacot, who I think is going to have a field day with Marquette’s big men.

He could legitimately go for 20 points and 20 rebounds in this game and it wouldn’t be a surprise. Add in Manek’s ability to draw the bigs to the arc and there are definitely some matchups UNC can exploit.

Now, a fair warning. Many thought UNC had the rebounding edge last year in their first round game against Wisconsin. And rightfully so. The Tar Heels had Bacot, Day’Ron Sharpe, Garrison Brooks and Walker Kessler. But it didn’t matter because Wisconsin hit their shots and eventually one.

UNC has to be careful of that again…

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