Following the North Carolina women’s basketball team’s season opening loss to Hampton on Friday night, it became quite evident that this group is very inexperienced, in part because of the conditions that have surrounded the program over the past few seasons.
Due to a mixture of unfortunate circumstances that arose from the infamous academic scandal that negatively affected the whole UNC athletic department, the women’s basketball program arguably suffered the most. Through a sequencing of events which included untimely transfers, inconsistent recruiting and a massive influx of injuries across the last couple of seasons, this all culminated in UNC launching its 2017-18 campaign by playing only seven players, with five of them being first-years or sophomores.
Throughout the course of the Hampton game, many players made several miscues ranging from bad transition defense off the fast break, costly turnovers that could have easily been avoided, foul trouble, as well as an inability to execute down the stretch when the game was on the line.
According to head coach Sylvia Hatchell, the majority of these mistakes all stemmed from one simple problem that will improve over time — and with practice.
“The difference in the game was experience,” head coach Sylvia Hatchell said. “They started three seniors and two juniors. We got one senior and one junior along with two freshmen and a sophomore. If we had three seniors and two juniors out there, it would be a whole different ball game.”
While junior guards Destinee Walker and Stephanie Watts continue to recover from injuries that they suffered from last season, Hatchell will have to become more heavily dependent on her talented, but young, rookie class. First-years Janelle Bailey and Jaelynn Murray, and redshirt first-year Jocelyn Jones, played significant minutes against Hampton, but it is perfectly clear that all of them still have much to learn as they adjust to the physicality and the speed of the college game.
“They were physically stronger than we were and more aggressive than we were,” Hatchell said. “But it’s not just one person, and those young ones will get experience and do better.”
With the lack of depth currently hindering the Tar Heels, fatigue obviously played a significant role in the contest, especially in the closing minutes of the game.
Both senior Jamie Cherry and redshirt junior Paris Kea played all forty minutes without a single substitution, ultimately wearing the players down. For instance, when Hampton led 69-66 as UNC held possession of the ball after Kea’s clutch block in the final minute, Cherry’s final three-point shot — which would have tied the game — looked flat, resulting in an air ball that sealed the Tar Heels’ defeat.
