North Carolina Basketball: 2019-20 season overview of the Tar Heels

How did North Carolina perform vs. expectations?

Via the ACC Preseason Poll, North Carolina basketball was predicted to finish in second place in the ACC, so the last-place finish is obviously about as bad as it can get. While injuries played a role in their extremely underwhelming 13-18 (6-14 ACC) record, that is still no excuse for their finish. Obviously no matter how bad the year went, head coach Roy Williams wasn’t (and isn’t) going to be on the hot seat but even he stated at times that he wasn’t coaching the team hard enough and could have done a better job of getting them prepared for opponents.

The Tar Heels underperformed anyway you slice it and despite the aforementioned slight, criticism of Williams, there simply wasn’t enough depth on the roster for the team to survive a tough rash of injuries. You can point to losses like the 74-57 disappointment at Wake Forest as a perfect example of this. In that game, the Tar Heels played without third-leading scorer Brandon Robinson and without his talents, the team was even more starved for outside shooting than usual.

Robinson, on top of being one of North Carolina’s best shooters, doubles as one of their best playmakers and his absence left them relying on little-used reserve Christian Keeling (30 minutes played against Wake Forest on February 11). The Tar Heels went 1-for-16 from the 3-point line and managed only 9 assists and 14 turnovers in their loss the Demon Deacons, the first win for Wake Forest in the series since 2014. Similar issues popped up for Roy Williams’ squad in losses to Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, and Clemson.

Freshmen Armando Bacot and Cole Anthony were as good as advertised but still have much to learn. Bacot’s shot selection was so-so, and Anthony’s “shoot first, second, third, and ask questions later” act was doomed to fail as soon as defenses started to shift most of their attention to him, which was almost immediately considering how well he performed at the NCAA level from Day 1. So again, no matter how you look at it, this season was a colossal disappointment for the North Carolina Tar Heels.

Having everyone on the roster—or at least Cole Anthony—healthy for the entire season would have obviously made a huge difference but as Anthony, himself once alluded to, better attention to detail and taking care of the fundamentals would have allowed the Tar Heels to avoid the cellar of the ACC.