Back in January, when North Carolina suffered its largest home defeat since 2002, UNC head coach Roy Williams said his team needed to learn how to win games “ugly.”
Williams had just watched the Tar Heels make only 3 of 22 3-pointers in a 21-point loss to Louisville, but that was far from their only issue. More frustrating to Williams were turnovers and an inability to be effective defensively, both aspects of the game that shouldn’t be affected by your shot falling or not.
Six weeks later, it looks like No. 8 UNC has evolved into the team Williams said it needed to become: one not over-reliant on 3-point shooting. Like that January day against Louisville, the Tar Heels’ outside shooting was less than spectacular on Saturday, but UNC did a lot of other things well in a comfortable 77-59 win against a No. 16 Florida State team (21-6, 9-5 ACC) riding an eight-game winning streak.
After connecting on just 2 of 20 3-pointers in Wednesday’s win at Duke, the Tar Heels (22-5, 12-2 ACC) continued to struggle from distance, making 2 of 11 in the first half against the Seminoles.
Yet, UNC still took a three-point lead into the break and ran away with the game in the second half thanks to a dominant defensive performance and the ability to control the boards and get good looks close to the rim.
While it wasn’t anywhere near the 62 it posted against Duke, UNC once again dominated the points in the paint battle, besting the Seminoles 28-12 in that category, thanks in large part to first-year forward Nassir Little’s aggressive play in an 18-point performance. And while it appeared UNC might have a hard time dealing with FSU’s size inside, it outrebounded the visitors, 47-32.
Defensively, the Tar Heels held the Seminoles to just 30.5 percent shooting by forcing them to take far too many 3-pointers.
“It shows that we do other stuff well,” graduate guard Cameron Johnson said. “Shooting the ball well is icing on the cake.”
Johnson perhaps best represents UNC’s ability to adapt and win when the 3-pointer isn’t falling. UNC’s best outside shooter, Johnson flipped the script and scored 26 points against the Blue Devils on Wednesday without making a single 3-pointer, instead taking a career-high 13 shots from 2-point range. On Saturday, he made three shots from distance, but continued to attack the rim, scoring half of his points from within the arc and at the free-throw line.