I watched the game again today and have some thoughts to share. Your comments and disagreements are welcome.
UNC not having their starting guards inhibited their defense as much as their offense. We were making entry passes at will and UNC had almost no one really able to deny the entry. I am assuming their starting guards would have been an improvement. That said Francis was, depending on the service, a high 3* or low 4* recruit. This was just his 6th game as a college freshman. Black was a 4* recruit in 2018 and is supposedly a good defender. Brandon Robinson is Carolina's only senior and he was also a 4* recruit. Any one of these three guards would have been our highest rated guard recruit in years (except for Devoe). The two guys they replaced were higher rated. It makes you wonder what happens to talent in Chapel Hill.
Carolina prides themselves in defending the backdoor and we went to that bank more in this game than I have seen in a while. It appeared that Brooks and Bacot and Pierce were having to pay too much attention to our guards and simply lost their man on the baseline. When they recovered it was too late and at least six times we made the basket and got a free throw.
We played about as well as we can play in the first half. We had very few turnovers and made our shots. In the second half we found the turnover bug again. Fortunately, UNC was not much better. Considering UNC is one of the best rebounding teams in the country and we are at the other end of those rankings, we hit boards pretty well against them. They are happier playing the style game this evolved into and we got sloppy at times in the 2nd half.
When you give up 83 points you are not doing something right on defense, but UNC hit some fluky shots (including a three rail side pocket three and an oops I wasn't shooting mid-range shot). The pace was also frantic at times and both teams were exhausted at the end.
Individually (for us) I was impressed with the play of all five of our guards. Devoe is smart defender and contributes even when he is not scoring. When Jose plays like he did Saturday, we are going to be a tough out for anyone. Banks is back playing like I expected and Moses has become a force around the basket. His athleticism is too much for a lot of the bigs he faces. UNC let him get ball down low and he is finishing plays easily.
The bottom line is that I think our older guys played smarter than UNC's young team. Especially Alvarado. He is easy to like.