North Carolina
Welter's Baseline Thoughts: UNC came up short, but still exceeded the sum of their parts
Pat Welter breaks down UNC's Sweet 16 loss to Alabama from Los Angeles.
All right, let's give you some baseline thoughts for the final time for Carolina as they fall to Alabama 8987 in the sweet 16 here in Los Angeles. And that's March for you, right. Everyone's talking about Alabama's pace, their offense and their defense 100 and first in efficiency according to Ken Palm. And that is the difference in this one. Sure. They give up 87 points to the tar heels, but when it mattered the most, they were able to get stops. They were the ones that were able to get UN C off of their game. Four shots by people you don't want shooting threes from Carolina forcing Hubert Davis to go into his bench with Patsy Wojick out there with Seth Trimble and Elliot Cao just helpless on the bench because they don't shoot from the outside even if they did hit a few early in this game. And specifically, it wasn't just the defense, but it was the length of Alabama. Nate Oats has built a very specific program. It is tempo, it is pace, it is length. They look at defense from a totally different view and it certainly worked in this game, I think it's a number of things. Number one, we, we just missed shots. I thought we had good looks that not normally that we make that, that we can make and we just missed. I, I thought, secondly, their length and bothered us, um, you know, they have length and athleticism at every position. And so when they switching, you know, different types of actions, um, that made it difficult for us to score and, and, um, you know, we just, and, and, and for us, you know, not doing the job on the boards, didn't allow us to get out in transition. So we're always going up against a set defense. And so I thought that played a part into it as well. Um, and sometimes, you know, your shots just don't go in and just a really tough one for the tar heels to swallow because they were up at the half, they made run after run just when you thought Alabama would go away. They had one more in them and RJ Davis gets them the lead, you know, in a game when he struggled, he's double teamed. He's showing maybe why people don't think he can play in the NBA against Alabama's NBA like length in style, but there he is at the end gets Carolina, the lead in the final minutes gets to the free throw line. But there comes that defense again from Bama who forces a shot from Jalen Withers, which I think every Carolina fan out there was like, why Jalen, um, everybody, you, you've made some big plays off the bench in this tournament and everybody wants to be the guy that makes the big shot and, and you take a big one as an athlete. How do you kind of process when that moment doesn't go the way, you know, you, you envision it for yourself. Um, I think in a moment, I mean, it was a shot that I work on every day. But with the outcome of the shot, uh it was a lot of um just that it didn't go in and you know, the the time and score of the shot being taken here, an arm rest, maybe a better result out of the opportunity that I had. But at the same time, you're Jalen Withers, you've worked on that shot all year. Why shouldn't you take that shot? It's open. You need people to step up in this game. And that's why I thought the story was gonna be for Carolina in the first half. Cormac Ryan was psychotic just like he was against Duke Harrison Ingram stepping up. It was working, you know, Carolina all year had all the answers to the test. When you shut down RJ Davis. It could be an Armando Bay Cock game, it could be a Cormac Ryan game and that's the way this was playing out with their pace. Did you wanna play with that pace or did you guys want to slow it down? Can talk me through the game plan of how to go with their offense? A little bit of both. I mean, we have pace too, so we pushed the pace and I feel like it was a game of pace versus pace and at the end of the day, they made more shots than we did. Um, they executed well, they found the mismatches a lot, especially at the end with Grant Nelson, we kept running the same play, the little step up screen trying to get the switch on to the guard. And I, you know, they did a good job of running their plays. And at the end of the day, you know, we ran our pace, you know, we played the game and won the play and, you know, we just didn't make enough shots to win and they did a good job of giving them credit on the defensive end and they weren't the best defensive team. And today they showed up on the defensive end, but ultimately became a Grant Nelson game for Alabama who had a game high 24 points, including the ones to seal it in the final minute, talked all season about, you know, the, the little details that make big things happen, not just necessarily shots, uh rebounds, free throws, loose balls. Um, at the end of the day, they made down the stretch more plays than us and um unfortunately, we came out on the short end, but this game not just about the end of a season, but about the end of an era for Carolina as RJ Davis and Armando Bacot walk off the court together for the final time and this has really been about the culmination of yes, Baco's five years at UN C but really specifically the last three where RJ Caleb Love and Armando Bacot and that team and Hubert davis' first season go all the way to the national championship game, send coach K into retirement. Four of the starting five, come back for the next year preseason. Number one and heavy is the crown. They miss the tournament entirely. The story of that season was talking about the previous season and this year they made it a point for things to be in the present. They were a group that brought in some transfers that shared a collective goal of rewriting a legacy of guys like Urson Ingram who wanted to play in March coming from Stanford, a guy like Cormac Ryan who had already transferred from Stanford to be in a bigger basketball stage in Notre Dame. And in his final year of eligibility comes to Carolina for the biggest and brightest lights. And you know, in his short time here, he made himself somewhat of an iconic tower heel, especially for what he did in that final game at Duke. But Armando Bacot and RJ Davis, of course, are on another level. These guys are all time tar heels, Armando Bacot, the all time leading rebounder and really the face of this team for the last few years, obviously, then of an era with you here and playing with RJ. And I mean, I don't know if you've given a message to the team, but if so if we're not, what is it? I mean, I think this year for me was the funnest year of basketball. I've had in my life just even though we didn't win a national championship and that was a big goal for us and definitely we're good enough and talented enough, just the amount of fun we had this year and just um refreshment, I think for basketball, I mean, going to a school like this is tough, such a big brand and at times, you know, the things you hear or see and just the things you go through at a school like this, it can be tough at times. But I mean, just this year with this team and the amount of fun we had and how hard we played it. Really? Thank for all of us, made our love for having basketball and playing at a school like this. I mean, it was just the best experience and it's tough to go out like this because mm we had high aspirations for this year. But I mean, I wouldn't trade anything, you know, say what you want about Armando Bacot his off the court nil endeavors, uh his unique personality, his ability to be, uh funny, his ability to be endearing with the press, maybe say things that Hubert Davis probably didn't want him to say. But something he always says is that he loved playing for the school wearing this uniform more than pretty much anybody else and just how hard he was on himself than the game. Tough. I mean, it just all sick that we lost and all year we played hard and I mean, I thought today we played hard too, but today just thought for me personally, I didn't do good enough boxing out and you look at the stats, I have 12 rebounds, but I feel like I gave up a lot of long rebounds and things just down the stretch. I gotta be better. I missed a lot of the dunk. That was tough and huge momentum changer, I think for me personally. So, I mean, it just sucks, it all like that. It just sucks to see him like that after a game, you know, so hard on himself. He misses the dunk in the second half and, and I asked why, why, why did that hit you so hard? And he's like, well, look, we lost by two points that dunk could have been the difference. And, you know, at the end of the year, only one team gets to be happy and you got RJ Davis sitting in there heartbroken. Not knowing if this is his last game as a Tar Heel Bacot knows Davis doesn't. I asked him and he honestly said I've been living in the present so much. I don't know, I haven't even thought about it, but he did say that the relationships that this team had went bigger than basketball and that this group was special. This year has been probably the most fun I've had all year. Just some from all team perspective. I mean, this, this group is hard to get back just because of all the personalities you had on this team. The funny moments, the togetherness going out to eat stuff like that. I mean, this team chemistry was, was real. Um And you can see everyone's so emotional because everyone have full belief that we could go far and just because of how special this team was. So, I mean, that just shows how much of a team we really are and how much care and belief we have in one another and I agree with them. Sure. I think when you're a one seed and you're the regular season ac C champ, you have bigger aspirations than the sweet 16, especially at a school like Carolina. But I think you have to go back to the beginning of the year and what the expectations for this team even were. And I think they were bigger than the sum of their parts. This team wasn't the most talented team this team doesn't have a lottery pick on the roster. RJ Davis AC C player of the year. I mean, people didn't necessarily think that was going to happen entering this season. People still don't think he could play in the NBA, which is why he may very well come back for fifth year. But if he doesn't, his legacy absolutely cemented, cemented as one of the best tar heels to ever do it. I feel like me and ma have a lot of love for this place. We didn't want things to end how we did last year and wanted to kind of just come back and just restore success in this program. And it wasn't just me and him, it was a whole collective group thing. And, um, this sucks because, I mean, just of how much we believed in each other and felt like we could have really done a lot of great things with this team. But, um, ok, I mean, I just love playing in New Jersey, love playing for coach Davis and the rest of the coaching staff and playing for, you know, Carolina fans. So it's a sport where 68 teams enter the tournament, only one ends up getting to be happy. And if it didn't happen to Carolina in this game, because I certainly think if you play this 10 times, they could have beaten Alabama, but I do think somebody would have gotten them eventually. All you can ask is that your team rises to the level of their potential or even exceeds it. And I think Carolina did that this season. A lot of credit has to go to the players, a lot of credit has to go to Hubert Davis who people doubted in some ways. Rightfully. So after that team missed the tournament last year, but he pushed all the right buttons this season and whether a guy like RJ Davis comes back or not, there is plenty of reason to be excited about the future of Carolina Basketball.