Michael Malone feels his first loss as a college coach was incredibly preventable.
After UNC’s 78-70 loss at the hands of Georgia at the Smith Center Friday night – Carolina’s first home loss in 20 months – the head coach sat down at the microphone and relayed a message he’d shared with the team.
“At the end of close games, your habits come out,” Malone said. “You have good habits and you have bad habits.”
For Malone, far too many of the habits displayed Friday were of the latter variety. Turnovers (some of which Malone described as “comical”), losing track of hot shooters (Georgia’s Blue Cain and Kanon Catchings combined to make nine threes) and missed boxouts – off a missed free throw! – were all included among Malone’s litany of complaints. The offensive rebound off the missed free throw, which led to a critical Bulldog bucket down the stretch, seemed to gnaw at him with extra bite.
“There are certain plays in a game that will drive you absolutely bonkers,” Malone said.
When asked about the bad habits his head coach will no doubt lose sleep over, Terrence Brown did not hesitate.
“Rebounding,” he said, nearly cutting off the question. “Too many offensive rebounds, missed assignments that we talked about the whole week.”
Brown is generously listed at 6-foot-3 on UNC’s official roster and can hardly be expected to be a dominant rebounder. But that 7-foot-1 Sayon Keita (six rebounds) could be outperformed on the glass by Georgia’s Cain (seven rebounds at 6-foot-5) and Marcus “Smurf” Millender (seven rebounds at 5-foot-11!) boggles the mind. UNC was once again outrebounded as a team, 52-43.
Perhaps even more disturbing for Malone was one particular play which he and his staff showed the team at halftime. It was a loose ball, surrounded by several Tar Heel players. Georgia, however, showed the extra gumption to go after it, and the sequence led to one of the Bulldogs’ 14 made threes.
“I already knew it was gonna go in,” Isaiah Denis said. “The basketball gods reward things like that… they showed that they wanted to win more today.”
How, in Denis’ mind, can the Tar Heels get the basketball gods back on their side after Friday night’s loss?
“Play hard,” Denis said, unintentionally quoting his program’s legendary head coach of old. “Play smart.”
Malone, Denis and the rest of the Tar Heels will have a week to sit and stew over a game which they led by nine points midway through the second half. It was a sad ending to Carolina’s now-snapped 21-game home winning streak, one which extended back to the beginning of the 2025-26 season. It may be a long time before Carolina can put together another such streak — Arkansas lurks in the ACC-SEC Challenge, to say nothing of visits from Louisville and Duke in the conference portion of the schedule.
Before that, the Tar Heels will have to deal with Marshall next Friday night, and the Thundering Herd are no doubt licking their collective chops at the sight of a UNC team with several weaknesses to shore up — and plenty of bad habits to break.
“It’s just being more disciplined with the gameplan. More disciplined with personnel,” Malone said. “And we’ll learn from it.”
That learning could be a painful process, for Malone, his players and for Tar Heel fans. After all, old habits die hard.
Featured image via Chapel Hill Media Group/Todd Melet
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