No. 18 North Carolina dropped its second game of the Hall of Fame Tipoff on Sunday losing 89-72 to No. 17 Tennessee in Mohegan Sun Arena.
The game was never close in the second half as the Vols (3-1) made nine of their first 10 shots and their lead never dipped below 10 the rest of the way.
Carolina (3-2) looked fatigued at times as if their battle with Purdue on Saturday still had an impact on their effort Sunday. UNC was led by forward Brady Manek who scored a game-high 24 points including six 3-pointers.
Here’s what we learned from Sunday:
Tale of two defenses
Tennessee smothered Carolina defensively in the first half, holding UNC to a season low 35 percent shooting from the field.
Conversely, the Heels couldn’t stop the Vols. For the second straight game they allowed an opponent to shoot better than 60 percent from the field in the second half. The Vols shot 65 percent after halftime and 54 percent for the game.
Carolina allowed a season-high 54 points in the paint. Considering the Vols didn’t have a classic post player, that equated to them getting a lot of layups and close shots.
Bacot bounce back
A game after Armando Bacot played just 17 minutes and made just one field goal before fouling out, Carolina got a much better version of the junior forward. Bacot came out aggressive and self-assured against the Volunteers.
It helped that Bacot initially was being defended by Olivier Nkamhoua, who is 6-foot-8, 223 pounds. But he took the big guys too. When Bacot faced Tennessee’s
7-foot, 251-pound center Uros Plavsic, he faced him up, drove to the baskets and got into Plavsic’s chest to create enough space to get his shot off.
Bacot made his first four shots and finished 6 of 9 from the floor with 16 points and 12 rebounds.
First half failings
Carolina continued its trend of trailing at halftime. For the fourth straight game, the Heels fell behind due, in part, to their inability to take care of the ball.
Against Purdue it was 11 first half turnovers which led to 13 points and UNC trailed by six. Against College of Charleston it was 11 turnovers and 15 points and UNC trailed by six.They only had four turnovers against Brown in the first half, but allowed the Bears to shoot 60 percent from the field and trailed by three.
Against Tennessee, the Heels had nine turnovers which led to 10 points and they faced their biggest halftime deficit of the season, 39-32.
