ACC play begins in earnest for the Carolina women with a trip to Boston College tomorrow, one day before the men play their first conference game at home against Florida State.
This is not the ACC opener for the women—that was on Dec. 14, when they hosted Louisville. Unlike the men’s teams, all ACC women’s teams had one or two conference games sprinkled into the early portion of their schedules.
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The Tar Heels are ranked #16 in the AP poll despite having assembled a less-than-impressive resume so far. They’re 11-3, but 10 of those wins were against mid-majors, with the sole outlier coming against a Kansas State team that likely won’t make the NCAA Tournament. All three of their losses were to fellow top 25 squads: 78-60 to current #4 UCLA on Nov. 13, 79-64 to current #2 Texas on Dec. 4, and 76-66 in overtime to current #13 Louisville in their aforementioned conference opener.
The losses to UCLA and Texas made it clear that Carolina isn’t a Final Four contender (although, for what it’s worth, they led both of those games after the first quarter), but the tight battle with Louisville suggests they might be an ACC title contender. The league looks to be wide open at this point, with #18 Notre Dame the only ranked team besides the Tar Heels and Cardinals.
1It certainly helps that UNC is the best three-point shooting team in the conference right now, connecting at a rate of 36.7% from beyond the arc. They also have the third-best field goal percentage (47.2%) and turnover margin (6.29) and are tied for third-most assists per game (16.86). Scoring is pretty evenly distributed; there’s only about a three-point dropoff between #1 (senior Indya Nivar, averaging 12.4 points) and #5 (senior Nyla Harris and sophomore Lanie Grant, both averaging 9.2 points), and no Tar Heel has put up more than 19 points in a game this season.
To sum it all up, this team doesn’t have a bona fide superstar, but they shoot, share, and take care of the ball very well.
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That being said, the Tar Heels also have some notable deficiencies: they’re not great on the boards, and they’re abysmal at the free-throw line. Their rebounding margin stands at 7.8, which ranks seventh among ACC teams, and their free throw percentage stands at 62.3%–which is not only the worst in the ACC, it’s the 24th-worst in Division I. It already may have cost them a win; an empty trip to the line with five seconds left in regulation against Louisville meant the Cardinals got the ball back trailing by one point instead of three.
Last season, UNC made the ACC semifinals for the first time since 2014. The next few weeks, which include a trip to Notre Dame, should give a good indication of whether this team can raise the bar a step higher.
Carolina’s game at Boston College tomorrow starts at 8:00 PM ET and will be broadcast on ACC Network.
