As North Carolina began to digest another deficient defensive effort that became the culprit for another dismaying loss, Armando Bacot was asked how Wednesday night compared to the other letdowns the Tar Heels have experienced in defeat this season.
His response ranged from frustrated to apologetic.
“All of them just hurt,” the power forward Bacot said. “I don’t know, I just want to figure it out. It’s just bad. I just feel sorry for the fans, former coaches, former players. It’s just unacceptable that we can’t win these games with all the talent we have. And it’s unacceptable that we’re not paying attention to our coaches, and just not playing Carolina basketball in those games specifically.”
Its roster shorthanded and its defense slow-footed, North Carolina fell to Notre Dame 78-73 in Atlantic Coast Conference basketball at Purcell Pavilion, after a second-half rally out of a 13-point deficit and into the lead ran dry down the stretch.
The visiting Tar Heels were without starter Dawson Garcia due to a concussion suffered in the team’s blowout victory at Boston College three days prior, and reserves Kerwin Walton and Justin McKoy weren’t available because of COVID-19 protocols.
North Carolina (10-4 overall, 2-1 ACC) missed on the chance to start 3-0 in league play and lost a road game for the first time this season, as the host Fighting Irish hit 13 successful 3-pointers on this night in South Bend, Ind., none more meaningful than the pair Nate Laszewski buried after Bacot’s strong lefty finish put the Tar Heels ahead 67-66 in the game’s final 3½ minutes.
The 6-foot-10 Laszewski again proved to be a matchup nightmare for North Carolina. He nailed 6 of 7 attempts from 3-point range, and pumped in a season-high 20 points while grabbing eight rebounds. Blake Wesley scored 18 points, Dane Goodwin contributed 17 points and Cormac Ryan chipped in 11 points for Notre Dame (8-5, 2-1), which won for the fifth time in the last six games.
Bacot delivered 21 points and hauled in a career-best 17 rebounds. RJ Davis supplied 19 points and five assists, and Caleb Love added 15 points for the Tar Heels.
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The junior Bacot, a team captain, acknowledged North Carolina showed fight and resiliency in mounting a comeback after stumbling behind 56-43 earlier in the second half. But …
“I feel like at the same time, too, it shouldn’t even have gotten to that point,” he said. “From out the gate the whole game, we should’ve just dominated, even with not having players and just having to make all these adjustments and stuff. It’s no excuse. We should’ve won that game.”
Bacot said “it was just flat-out an embarrassing loss,” while downplaying the absences of Garcia, Walton and McKoy as a possible factor in the Tar Heels’ energy. He played 36 of the game’s 40 minutes Wednesday night. RJ Davis logged 39 minutes. Love and Brady Manek played 33 minutes, as first-year coach Hubert Davis essentially used a six-man rotation that included Leaky Black and Anthony Harris. The freshman pair of D’Marco Dunn and Dontrez Styles saw spot duty for North Carolina.
“We had enough talent and enough guys in the locker room to get it done,” Hubert Davis said, “and we just didn’t get it done.”
Here are more takeaways from Wednesday night:
Nate Laszewski lights it up from deep
Laszewski haunted North Carolina again. The senior forward entered averaging 7.6 points per game on the season, and feasted on open room beyond the arc to ring up a number of season highs, including points (20), field goals (seven) and 3-point makes (six).
The performance added to his personal highlight reel against the Tar Heels. He poured in seven 3s and 25 points last season during Notre Dame’s loss in Chapel Hill. In February 2020, he drilled the game-winning 3 with 2.2 seconds remaining as the Irish defeated North Carolina.
“Well, it’s a difficult matchup when you leave him open,” Hubert Davis said. “From a defensive standpoint we didn’t do what we talked about and what we practiced in practice. And as a result you leave open a really good 3-point shooter, and he was able to make six of them.”
North Carolina got caught overreacting defensively and helping on drivers at times, allowing Notre Dame to kick passes out to shooters such as Laszewski and Ryan (3-for-4 from 3-point range). The Tar Heels’ approach to covering the Irish’s ball screens was a mess reminiscent of the Kentucky debacle last month in Las Vegas. Defensive switches regularly put North Carolina in mismatches or left Notre Dame lining up clean looks. The Irish launched 31 shots from 3-point territory on the night.
“We gave up too many wide-open 3s,” Love said. “That’s just what it was the whole game. We knew coming in that this was a 3-point shooting team, and we didn’t stick to our game plan and they just laced us up from 3, and that’s what it was. When we watch film we’ll see that and we’ll learn from it.”
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Caleb Love finds second-half spark
The sophomore guard Love said “this is a bad loss on our part and we take full responsibility,” before pointing some of that blame at himself for an unproductive first half. Notre Dame built a 10-point lead midway through the first half and led 39-35 at halftime.
North Carolina’s top scorer on the season, Love provided 13 of his 15 points and all three of his 3-pointers during the second half Wednesday night. He drained a 3 and converted on a scooping drive past 6-9 Irish forward Paul Atkinson Jr. to help fuel the 11-2 run that vaulted the Tar Heels into the lead.
“I was dry in the first half,” Love said. “No energy, not giving my team my all, and I just had to turn it up for us to get a chance. I just tried to be that spark.”
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Double-double of little satisfaction
Bacot’s postgame disappointment was palpable as he took inventory of the inconsistencies and defensive mistakes that have proven to be recurring problems for North Carolina.
Of Laszewski catching fire, Bacot lamented, “I don’t know, man, he’s been killing us since I’ve been here.”
Bacot had recorded his 10th double-double of the season — he’s tied for second nationally in that category — by halftime Wednesday night, with 16 points and 11 rebounds in the first half. He finished 9-for-13 from the field and collected 15 of his 17 rebounds on the defensive boards.
“I would trade every point and every rebound to win the game,” Bacot said. “I would be zero-zero everywhere. I just want to win. It was good on the stat sheet, but I didn’t do good enough, either. It was times I broke down defensively, and times I wasn’t my best, either. And that just can’t happen.”
Adam Smith is a sports reporter for the Burlington Times-News and USA TODAY Network. You can reach him by email at asmith@thetimesnews.com or @adam_smithTN on Twitter.
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This article originally appeared on Times-News: UNC basketball: Notre Dame loss leaves Armando Bacot with frustration