After dismantling San Diego State in the First Four, the Tar Heels will now turn their attention to Ole Miss, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Carolina is coming off arguably its best game of the season, scoring 95 points against one of the best defensive teams in college basketball, while shooting over 50% from the field, and from behind the arc. Now they’ll look to carry that success over into the Round of 64, against a team from the SEC, that they match up very well with.
Chris Beard has done a quality job in Oxford, restoring the Rebels to being a competitive program, with this being the first tournament appearance since 2019. Ole Miss is a high-scoring team, that features six double-digit scorers, led by Virginia Tech transfer, Sean Pedulla. In addition to their ability to score the basketball, they do two things very well, one is they protect the basketball, averaging less than 9 turnovers per game, while forcing over 14 per game.
Despite all the backlash and uproar about Carolina making the NCAA Tournament, Carolina was favored to beat San Diego State in the First Four, and they have opened up as a favorite over Ole Miss, despite them being the better-seeded team, and having more quad one wins, after a big season in the SEC. Now that doesn’t mean anything once the ball is tipped, but it tells you that the betting public values what Carolina has done across their last nine games, where they are 9-2, with the only losses to Duke, and seven of the nine wins coming by double digits.
Hubert Davis has maintained that Carolina isn’t motivated to prove the doubters wrong, instead, they are focused on becoming the best team they can be. The Tar Heels started the season preseason ranked inside the top 10, and they are starting to play to that preseason ranking, justt in time for hope for hopefully a deep NCAA Tournament run,starting with Ole Miss this afternoon.
Transition Defense: Given how many points Ole Miss averages, they look to generate easy scoring opportunities, especially in transition, after misses or turnovers. The Rebels weren’t afraid to run with Alabama and Kentucky, two of the highest scoring teams, as well as two teams that play at as fast a pace as possible. That means they won’t be afraid to run with Carolina, even with how lethal this team has become in transition. With that in mind, Carolina needs to be mindful about their ability to score in transition, especially from behind the arc, because they let it fly from deep early and often.Transition defense is like rebounding, a lot of it has to do with effort, and wanting to take away that area of the game. Carolina has to be mindful that when they crash the offensive glass, if they don’t secure offensive rebounds, Ole Miss will look to run the ball up the floor, and score before the Heels can set their defense. Whichever team can generate more points in the open floor, might help them in this game that has shootout written all over it.
Turnovers: When Carolina turned it over four times in their first six possessions against San Diego State, it felt like it was going to be one of those games. But they tightened up the screws, and didn’t turn it over the rest of the half, on their way to a blowout victory. Today’s challenge will be different, as Ole Miss doesn’t give the ball away, averaging less than 9 turnoverper game, but they are forcing opponents into overr 14 miscues per game. Given how well Ole miss took care of the basketball while navigating an 18 game SEC schedule, it’s unfair to expect Carolina to turn them over, more importantly, they need to protect the basketball, as well as they have all season long, because you can only have so many empty possessions this time of the year.
Rebounding: A weakness of this Ole Miss lies in their inability to rebound the basketball, where they rank in the 300s nationally. Over the last 10 games, Ole Miss is averaging just over 28 rebounds per game, meanwhile, Carolina is averaging over 32 rebounds pergame. This has to be a vintage Ven-Allen Lubin rebounding game, meaning he needs to live on the offensive glass, and generate second chance scoring opportunities in the half-court. But he can’t do it alone, he needs help from Drake Powell, Jae’Lyn Withers and Seth Trimble, if Carolina wants to overwhelm them on the glass.
UNC in the NCAA Tournament:
This is the 54th NCAA Tournament that Carolina has played in. They have 134 NCAA Tournament wins, the most of all-time. The Tar Heels have played in an NCAA record 21 Final Fours. Carolina is 8-2 in the NCAA Tournament under Hubert Davis.
KenPom:
North Carolina - 30th overall. Adjusted Offensive Efficiency: 119.8 (18th) Adjusted Defensive Efficiency: 99.3 (54th)
Ole Miss - 27th overall. Adjusted Offensive Efficiency: 117.8 (33rd) Adjusted Defensive Efficiency: 95.9 (23rd)
TV Info:
Today’s game will tip at approximately 4:05 on TNT.
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