The UNC men’s basketball program suffered their second road loss of the season after a ridiculous shooting performance by Syracuse.
A lot went wrong in the Tar Heels 86-79 loss to Syracuse, starting on the night of the week the game took place. UNC has had a bad stretch of Tuesday night games, going 0-3 the last three weeks when the game falls on that day. All three losses came against teams that the Tar Heels were heavily favored, which ended in upset (Georgia Tech, Clemson, and Syracuse).
Outside of bad luck Tuesdays, the biggest problem UNC faced was trying to stop the Orange’s insane shooting performance. Syracuse finished with 63% from the field, the highest % against UNC since 2015, when Pitt shot 64.5% to beat the Tar Heels 89-76.
Another glaring issue is UNC against the zone, yes the same zone that hindered the Tar Heels in their loss against Clemson. Zone defense has become the kryptonite for UNC offense as teams are preventing [autotag]RJ Davis[/autotag] from getting going, utilizing the zone to force the ball out of his hands.
Despite having four players score in double figures, the cold shooting streaks made a significant difference in the outcome, with zone defense playing a huge part.
Panic has started to show for UNC fans as once a strong ACC lead is now tied with rival Duke. The other issue is that teams will likely keep throwing zone defense at the Tar Heels, hindering their half-court offense.
UNC played better than what the overreaction might’ve called for. They finished with 19 assists (second highest this season) and shot an efficient 47.5% from the field. However, when a team shoots lights out like Syracuse did, it’s hard to overcome, no matter how well every other aspect of the game went.
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