Hubert Davis’ head-coaching career did not get off to the best of starts at North Carolina. His Tar Heels struggled with Brown, trailed at the half at Charleston, then lost neutral-court games to both Purdue and Tennessee by an average of 13 points.
UNC opened 3-2.
The Tar Heels dropped to 53rd at KenPom.
Fairly or unfairly, some were already starting to question the school’s decision to replace Naismith Memorial Hall of Famer Roy Williams with a first-time head coach. So that’s why what happened Wednesday night inside the Dean Smith Center was so meaningful. On the big stage that the ACC-Big Ten Challenge provides, against a preseason top-10 team, North Carolina looked the way North Carolina is supposed to look with four former top-50 high school prospects in the starting lineup, among them two five-star recruits. The Tar Heels shot 46.3% from the field, including 42.1% from 3-point range, and blew out Michigan 72-51 to give Davis the first signature win of his career.
“We just had to do some soul-searching — and we had to figure out: Do we really want to be a great team or a good team,” said UNC junior Armando Bacot, who finished with 11 points, 14 rebounds, three assists and two blocks against Michigan. “I feel like we took a step in the right direction.”
Undeniably so.
Michigan did the opposite.
The Wolverines were ranked sixth in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 poll but are now on the verge of dropping completely out thanks to a surprisingly bad 4-3 start that features zero notable wins and two lopsided losses — the first an 18-point defeat to Arizona, the second this 21-point loss at North Carolina. Among the issues is that five-star freshman Caleb Houston is third on the team in field goal attempts but shooting just 32.8% from the field and 28.6% from 3. He was 2-of-9 from the field against North Carolina. Preseason All-American Hunter Dickinson was limited to only 18 minutes against UNC because of foul trouble. He finished with four points and five rebounds.
With Wednesday’s big win, North Carolina has reentered Thursday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings at No. 19. The Tar Heels’ next three games are at Georgia Tech, vs. Elon and vs. Furman. After that, it’s a trip to Las Vegas for a Dec. 18 showdown with UCLA in the CBS Sports Classic.
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Top 25 And 1 rankings
Biggest Movers
8
North Carolina
1
Florida
IN: North Carolina, Xavier
OUT: BYU, Memphis
