It was just awful. We actually played well enough to win. Didn’t not make many mental errors. And always came back against their runs. Three things stuck out.
1. we were too nervous early. That led to mistakes and fouls which put Williams out. And he never really got into the flow of the game. He had a poor game and did not play with the maturity he had been showing. that was the case for the whole team. In a general sense our play on the court was good enough to have won by 10 imo. But …
2. We did shoot FTs poorly. 12 of 20. Even if we make 2 or 3 of those it is a different game, we are not having to foul at the end. We were too tight and shot like we were tight.
3. 5 of 22 from 3. Awful. AJ just had a very poor shooting night and also missed a couple of shots inside he usually never misses. Even one more 3 and the game comes down to OT or a final shot to win. Make two of those 3s at the right time and we might have won going away. We were up by 7 with the ball and had a chance to go up 9 or 10.
I think those were the difference. We never could relax and did not play with the confidence that we had been. Even though we played well, there never was that comfort level.
UNC did a really good job of taking away dribble penetration by Roach. Even when he got into the lane, their length created problems for him scoring and our bad 3 shooting made it difficult to kick it out.
No one in this team, other than AJ is a pure shooter and he is still so young that he is hot and cold and didn’t have it. Such a bummer. Really need players who can actually light it up from 3. AS both UNC and KU have. It’s a weapon this team never had.
The utter vanity of sports.
