Kentucky vs. North Carolina recap: 3 things we learned

Saturday honored us with a potential Final Four preview. Here’s what we learned from it.

Kentucky and North Carolina may have just delivered the best game of the college basketball season. The Wildcats edged out a 103-100 win on the back of Malik Monk’s 3-pointer with 22 seconds remaining. For much of the game, North Carolina was unable to close the gap before a second-half run capped by a Justin Jackson 3-pointer with 1:37 remaining gave the Tar Heels the lead. Monk, though, was having none of it, knocking down a pair of triples to close out the win. And they say college basketball is just for March.

Here’s what we learned from Saturday’s thriller.

1. Big game Malik Monk is just as much fun as Lonzo Ball

Much has been made of the must-watch nature of Lonzo Ball and UCLA, but Kentucky’s Malik Monk is capable of pushing Ball for the title of most entertaining player in college basketball. The Wildcats’ 6-foot-3 shooting guard finished with 47 points while shooting 18-for-28 from the field on Saturday, including 27 points in the first half. Monk’s 47 points are the most scored by anyone this season.

Whereas Ball shines with his passing ability, Monk impresses by throwing down vicious slams and knocking down tough jump shots like this game winner:

With so few shooters on the roster, Kentucky will rely on Monk’s ability to fill it up from deep to keep its offense operating efficiently. For college basketball fans, that just means more opportunities to see him make highlight reel plays.

2. De’Aaron Fox’s inability to shoot is still a problem

Kentucky’s 6-foot-3 point guard finished with 24 points on 9-for-21 shooting from the field in the Wildcats’ win, but his inability to shoot — even from the mid-range — stands out as an area of concern for the team going forward.

Fox entered the matchup with North Carolina having taken 63 shots in halfcourt offense, per Hoop-Math. Nearly half of those were 2-point jump shots, which is bad news given that he is shooting just 28.6 percent of them this season. The Tar Heels exploited it often in the halfcourt, sagging off of Fox when guarding pick-and-rolls and giving him space to launch low-risk elbow jump shots. For Kentucky, those aren’t productive possessions.

Let’s be clear here. The Wildcats are still very good. They are talented enough to not need shooting from Fox on most nights and on other nights their defense will be sufficient to carry them, but given the brutish, single-elimination nature of March, keeping an eye on the flaws of Final Four contenders is paramount . Teams will design game plans to exploit those deficiencies and it’s possible they could swing games when they matter most. For Kentucky, Fox has to find other ways to be productive in the halfcourt because it likely won’t be with his jumper.

3. North Carolina will be just fine

The Tar heels have had a pair of opportunities to pick up major wins this season — today against Kentucky and earlier in the season at Indiana — but they’ve come up short in both cases. That shouldn’t spur too much worry in the North Carolina faithful.

Justin Jackson has evolved into a scoring threat from just about everywhere on the floor. He finished with 34 points in the defeat and knocked down 4-of-7 3-point attempts. After making worse than 30 percent of his triples last season, Jackson is now shooting 36.9 percent from deep in 2016-17. North Carolina also got a standout performance from point guard Joel Berry II who finished with 23 points, seven assists and five rebounds.

It’s easy to let results dictate our impression of teams, but North Carolina is still one heck of a basketball team. The Tar Heels fought back to take the lead late in this one, but the ball didn’t bounce their way in the end. Don’t let that allow you to forget just how good they are.