Three takeaways from No. 7 UNC's loss to Texas in Las Vegas Invitational

In the second half of the No. 7 North Carolina men’s basketball team’s 92-89 loss to Texas on Thursday night, head coach Roy Williams seemed to try everything.

He experimented with different lineups in ways he hadn’t all season. When Texas guard Kerwin Roach II posed an impossible matchup for the Tar Heel guards, Williams sprinkled in a 2-3 zone for a few possessions. And later, when his team needed to force the action, he decided to double team all ball screens.

In some stretches of the contest, these ploys worked. 

But with a deflected ball bouncing idly in the Tar Heels’ backcourt — and with the final second of game time evaporating before senior guard Kenny Williams could grab the ball and make a move to close the game’s final margin — the positive outputs from said experiments couldn’t overshadow some of UNC’s glaring deficiencies.

Here are three takeaways from North Carolina’s first loss of the season.

Seventh Woods was sorely missed

A week ago, Roy Williams was singing the praises of point guard Seventh Woods — the junior who’s currently acting as understudy for first-year Coby White. Woods had just put together his most complete individual performance of his career against Tennessee Tech; in 17 minutes of action, he scored seven points, notched eight assists and didn’t commit a single turnover.

On Wednesday, though — a day before the Tar Heels’ (5-1) first real test of the season against Texas (5-0) — the team announced that Woods had a concussion and was out of commission for the tournament over Thanksgiving.

And on Thursday night, UNC missed his presence.

To be clear: White’s 33-point, 3-assist performance was arguably the sole bright spot in the Tar Heels’ loss. Not to mention, Woods has a history of not taking good care of the ball, especially against teams with active guards on defense. 

So why was Woods particularly missed in this matchup?

Well, Woods — who’s a more steadying presence than people seem to give him credit for — could have helped soften the second team’s drop-off in the first half. White was subbed out for the first time of the contest with the Tar Heels up 12. He re-entered the game, just under five minutes later, with his team only up five. 

Additionally, if available, Woods would have been an extra athlete for Roy Williams to throw at Roach and Matt Coleman III to try and stifle Texas’ onslaught of guard scoring. This was crucial, especially after considering that Kenny Williams, UNC’s best perimeter defender, is probably still not 100 percent after he rolled his ankle against Tennessee Tech last Friday.

UNC struggled guarding the 3-point line

The Longhorns hit 11 of 24 shots (45.8 percent) from beyond the arc, and historically, this facet of the game has proven to be the Achilles heel defensively for a Roy Williams-led Tar Heel team. 

Last season, UNC ranked second-to-last in the ACC in 3-point defense.

Thus far this season, though — whether its because of the less talented competition or if it’s because of a refined effort to stunt it — North Carolina has defended the deep ball well. Of the top-50 teams in the category, before the game against Texas, UNC had weathered the fourth-most attempts against and ranked 36th in the nation in 3-point defense.

And this success to begin the 2018-19 season makes Texas' efficacy from 3-point range all the more concerning.

Nassir Little’s performance was too little, too late

For much of the game, North Carolina’s top-10 recruit wasn’t much of a threat offensively. Nassir Little was held scoreless and only took two shots in the first half. 

In 13 second-half minutes, Little notched 11 points, including a 3-pointer that cut it to a one-possession game with just over three seconds remaining. For the game, the first-year forward scored 11 points on nine attempts from the field and got to the line more than anyone besides White and sophomore big Garrison Brooks. 

But by the time Little strung together a few field goals, it all seemed to be too little, too late for North Carolina.

Putting these takeaways together, despite his creative attempts at mending the holes in his team on Thursday night, Roy Williams exited Orleans Arena in Las Vegas still with only one win in eight tries against Texas since inheriting the head coaching job at UNC. 

And his players left the court feeling no longer invincible.

@alexzietlow05

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