2021-22 north carolina
No, we cannot have two nice things. As Michigan football [takes a deep savory breath] prepares for the Big Ten championship coming off their [more savoring] win over Ohio State, their basketball counterparts took another long step back from their preseason expectations. One can only hope this performance in Chapel Hill was rock bottom.
There’s some reason to suspect it will be, since star center Hunter Dickinson barely played, and half of the minutes he was on the court were with four fouls. The big man got his second whistle before the 11th minute, and two quick ones in one trip in the first minutes of the 2nd half. Dickinson wasn’t very effective when he was out there either, with three turnovers and just two points next to his name when he sat for his fourth whistle.
[The rest of the recap and a box score after THE JUMP]
THE ESSENTIALS
| WHAT | #9 Michigan (4-2) vs #49 North Carolina (4-2) |
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|---|---|---|
| WHERE | Dean Smith Center Chapel Hill, NC |
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| WHEN | 9:15 PM Eastern Wednesday, 12/1 |
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| THE LINE | Kenpom: M -4 Torvik: M -1 |
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| TELEVISION | ESPN |
THE OVERVIEW
Michigan seeks to run its recent streak of victories over UNC to three in an ACC/Big Ten Challenge game tonight. Roy Williams retired this offseason and UNC, like so many other schools, decided to run the Juwan Howard playbook by hiring an assistant coach who is a famous alum of the program. In this case Hubert Davis was Williams's right-hand man and widely regarded as a coach in waiting, but it's still the playbook.
Davis took over a program that was in rough shape, by UNC standards. In 2019 they imploded, going 6-14 in the ACC, and last year's recovery was only good enough to an 8-9 game against Wisconsin that they lost by 23 points. A relatively wobbly recruiting class (again by UNC standards, just a couple of guys ranked in the 60s) led to Davis hitting the portal for some bigs, and results are trending about where they were last year.
UNC has beaten four teams ranked in the 200s on Kenpom and lost to #2 Purdue by 9 and #14 Tennessee by 17, both of those on neutral courts. Michigan will be highly advised to win this winnable game lest things start looking unfathomably grim relative to preseason expectations.
THE US
Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:
THE LINEUP CARD
Seth's graphic [click for big]:
Seth notes that Hubert Davis set a Bo Ryan Index record with a stunning 0%—he is angry or upset in literally none of the first three rows of google image search photos.
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]
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