North Carolina didn’t lose to SMU because of one or two possessions or a bad shooting night.
According to veteran guard Seth Trimble, the problems started with how difficult it was just to get into the offense in the first place.
After the game, Trimble pointed to SMU’s physicality and ball pressure as a major reason UNC never found its flow offensively. The Tar Heels struggled to initiate offense when they wanted to, and once that happened, everything became difficult.
“It makes it harder,” Trimble said, per Logan Lazarczyk. “That’s one thing that we preach, is starting offense closest to the basket in the scoring area, because it allows us to get to our actions quicker; it allows us to see things and just allows for a better flowing offense.”
While Trimple had a lot to say about the offense, it’s questionable why he didn’t have much to say about the defense. Head coach Hubert Davis did, and rightfully so, as UNC allowed 97 points. Even with scoring 83, teams typically won’t win when they allow 97 points in college basketball.
Still, regarding the offensive side, UNC wants to play with pace and spacing. When the Tar Heels forced to start possessions farther from the basket, everything is off, as Trimble noted.
SMU made it tough, especially for UNC’s frontcourt, as Trimble noted that the Mustangs were smart about being physical with Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar, limiting clean looks.
“They were really physical. With Caleb [Wilson] and with Henri [Veesaar], they were bumping them a lot,” Trimble said. “It definitely did challenge us, but Henri and Caleb did a great job of making plays out of the double team.”
While Wilson and Veesaar handled the different look just fine, the disruption still affected the overall offensive flow, at least according to Trimble.
We’ll see if anything changes for the offense moving forward, but as I said, if UNC were to score 80-plus points per game, it should be fine. As long as the defense can clean things up, this shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
UNC will be off until Saturday when it takes on Wake Forest at home.