North Carolina hadn’t looked much like itself. The Tar Heels punched a ticket to the Sweet 16 when they beat Arkansas in the NCAA tournament’s round of 32 last week, but they needed a lot of luck. A succession of late breaks went against the Razorbacks, and North Carolina shot so abysmally that it was a wonder the Heels advanced.
North Carolina looked like a championship-caliber team in the Sweet 16. Finally.
North Carolina backed into the Sweet 16. The Heels charged into the Elite Eight.
When the South region’s No. 1 seed got back on the court on Friday, it finally played like a top seed. The Heels put a hurting on No. 4 Butler and advanced to the Elite Eight with a 92-80 win. The game wasn’t close, with UNC charging to a 16-point lead at halftime and never looking far backward. The Heels played a deep, experienced opponent and squashed it.
This was a nice (or scary) change of pace.
North Carolina has a great offense, but it was in shambles against Arkansas. The Tar Heels posted an effective shooting percentage of 42.1, making it their fifth-worst shooting game of the season. In the previous games where their effective rate was below 45 percent, they were 2-5.
The Heels have not been a great shooting team all year. Their overall eFG% was 98th in Division I entering play on Friday. What has so often saved them has been their offensive rebounding, which has been the best in the country. When you’re rebounding four of every 10 shots you miss from the field, you’ve got quite a margin for error. UNC was so lousy against Arkansas that it almost lost anyway.
The script flipped on Friday. North Carolina posted a great effective shooting rate. The Heels produced open looks with sharp passing, and when they took contested shots, their talented scorers knocked down several anyway.
Butler made the score more respectable at the end of the second half, and good for the Bulldogs. But North Carolina was so dominant early that it didn’t matter.
UNC showed what can happen when its entire offense clicks.
The Heels kept hauling in offensive rebounds, even if it wasn’t as many as they’re used to. That’s not surprising, because offensive rebounding is a stable skill. If you’re able to out-jump and out-muscle your opponents, you’re almost always going to get offensive boards. North Carolina posted an offensive board rate above the national average in all but three games this season, and it should keep doing so until its run is over.
Shooting is more volatile, because everybody goes cold from the field sometimes. North Carolina had 11 games below the national average in eFG%. It’s possible the team will struggle to shoot in the Elite Eight or in a Final Four game. But if it doesn’t, the Heels’ offensive rebounding is going to make them so hard to beat.
When UNC posts an offensive rebounding rate above 31 percent, its record is now 29-2. The two losses were on those rare bad shooting nights. To have even a chance to beat this team, you’ve got to keep them off the glass and keep them from draining shots.
If North Carolina is shooting well and rebounding on the same night, it’s lights out. Butler couldn’t stop the Heels from doing either, and the Bulldogs had no chance to do anything other than get rolled. It wasn’t a fair fight.
The Heels will have a lot on their plate coming up.
Either Kentucky or UCLA will be a brutal Elite Eight matchup. UCLA is maybe the only team in the country with an offense to match a firing-on-every-cylinder North Carolina. Kentucky is so overwhelmingly talented. And just to get to the national title game for a second year in a row, UNC also might have to beat a Kansas team that’s peaking.
When you get to the Elite Eight or Final Four, you don’t have to play badly to lose. But if you’re making most of your shots and rebounding almost half of the ones you miss, you’re stacking the deck drastically in your favor. When North Carolina does that, the result is what happened on Friday night.
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