How was Michael Malone feeling after his first official win as the Tar Heels’ head coach?
Satisfied? Pleased?
Perhaps not. As he sat down at the press conference dais in the Smith Center following UNC’s 80-72 win against Western Carolina, he looked around the room.
“You guys have as much fun as I did?” he asked, drawing some laughs from the assembled media.
As a reporter prepared to ask an opening question, Malone murmured something else under his breath: “Welcome to the rollercoaster.”
A few minutes later, Terrence Brown summed it up more succinctly: “That was a nasty game.”
Indeed. The Tar Heels led wire to wire against the Catamounts Monday, but hardly looked the part while doing so. Western Carolina recovered from an early 10-point hole to trim the lead to as little as one point midway through second half. WCU then had both a layup and a dunk attempt to potentially take the lead. Both missed, and Carolina had lived up to Neo Avdalas’ movie namesake in somehow dodging two massive bullets.
The rebounding issue, which had reared its ugly head in UNC’s preseason exhibitions, did so again. Though the Catamounts do not roster a player listed taller than 6-foot-10, they outrebounded the Tar Heels 41-31. Seven-footer Sayon Keita grabbed just two in his 20 minutes of action, and veteran Jarin Stevenson finished with the same in 29 minutes.
Additionally, Carolina shot just 9-for-30 on three-point attempts, with Malone estimating 25 of those tries were good looks. On the other side of the floor, Western Carolina shot 10-for-24.
“Right now, we’re a team that takes two steps forward, three steps back,” Malone said. “We can’t sustain anything.”
“He’s not wrong,” Able said of Malone’s observation. “We just need to learn how to shut the door on teams.”
“He made a point of emphasis in the game to get a ‘kill’,” freshman Maxi Adams said of Malone. “That’s three stops. I don’t think we executed that.”
At the same time, the Tar Heels made sure to note that Monday’s game was played on the second day of November. The college basketball season will run through the first weekend in April. Malone’s group making it to that final Monday night in Detroit seems rather unlikely as of now.
An NBA veteran, Malone used a word made famous by a certain pro team playing in the City of Brotherly Love:
“This really is going to be a process,” he said.
In addition to Malone and his new assistants, the Tar Heels roster 11 new players who weren’t involved with last year’s team. Gone are the NBA talents of Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar. In are the incredibly raw Keita and Alex Samodurov, with the latter grabbing three rebounds in 12 minutes off the bench.
Keita and Samodurov possess physical gifts which make them fascinating prospects to track in the coming years. But all that wingspan did was grab a combined seven rebounds. Catamount guard Isaiah Manning, listed at 6-foot-8, grabbed eight.
Those are the types of things that drive coaches mad. Malone has said it, as has his predecessor: rebounding is a matter of will more than skill. It’s the factor which will determine if the Tar Heels even get a chance to make a tournament run at all. Yes, even in the 76-team NCAA Tournament era, the Tar Heels do not look like a team fit for dancing shoes right now.
But that’s why it’s still November. Processes take time. How much time? Your guess is as good as Malone’s.
“I’m gonna keep on pounding that rock. It’s gonna break one day,” Malone said. “Hopefully it breaks by Friday night.”
Featured image via Chapel Hill Media Group/Todd Melet
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