North Carolina’s old school offense might get an update in 2017-18
While much of college basketball has been searching for ways to zig in recent seasons, Roy Williams and the North Carolina Tar Heels have been content to zag. Or, at least, the Tar Heels have been content to rely on what’s proven reliable.
College basketball’s offenses are evolving and whether it’s a result of inertia, comfort or success, North Carolina seems stuck in a time machine. Two trends, in particular, highlight the gap between the Tar Heels and the field.
On the whole, college basketball has seen a larger chunk of its field goal attempts come from behind the 3-point arc in recent seasons. Younger players are growing more confident shooting from deep as basketball’s “math problem” — that 3 is greater than 2 — is inspiring teams to fire up long balls like never before. College basketball teams, on average, took 36.4 percent of their shots from behind the arc last season and while North Carolina appears to be slowly trending up, it was a rarity for their 3-point attempt rate to top 30.0 percent:
As other teams in Division I shift their focus away from the basket, the Tar Heels continue to focus on what’s happening around it. Most teams in the sport have come to largely abandon offensive rebounds — grabbing just 29.4 percent of their own misses on average in 2016-17 — in favor of getting back defensively in transition, but North Carolina hasn’t stopped pounding away on the glass:
It’s hard to argue with the Tar Heels’ decision to buck the trends. Williams has consistently recruited talented frontcourt players like Tony Bradley, Isaiah Hicks and Kennedy Meeks who overwhelm opposing defenses with their sheer size. The system also works. Since 2009-10, North Carolina has ranked in the top 50 nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency in all but one season, per KenPom, and the school is coming off back-to-back appearances in the national title game with a sixth NCAA Tournament championship banner to show for it.
The departures of Bradley, Hicks and Meeks will test Williams’ commitment to the old school this upcoming season. Elite Eight hero Luke Maye is the only frontcourt piece on the team’s 2017-18 roster who played significant minutes last season. Meanwhile, the bigs who will slot in alongside Maye, including Garrison Brooks, Brandon Huffman and Sterling Manley are all non-top 100 freshmen, per 247Sports.
Maye’s style of play also differs from his predecessors as his offensive game focuses as much on his jump shot as it does post-ups and offensive rebounds. Instead of pounding the ball to the low block, Williams will have an opportunity to take advantage of Maye’s versatility this season. The 6-foot-8 junior shot 16-of-40 from 3-point range last season and he was deadly in pick-and-pops, averaging 1.500 points per possession (98th percentile) on a small number of attempts, per Synergy.
That said, Maye was largely a bit player for the Tar Heels last season. He averaged just 14.1 minutes per contest and despite posting a couple of impressive games in the NCAA Tournament, he’s yet to handle the frontcourt load full-time. The good news is that North Carolina has a talented and more experienced backcourt that should be able to take the reins when things get difficult.
Senior Joel Berry will inevitably be the Tar Heels’ centerpiece. The 6-foot point guard averaged 19.3 points, 4.8 assists and 4.1 rebounds per 40 minutes as a junior, but opted not to stay in the NBA Draft over the summer and now returns for a potential All-American campaign. With Justin Jackson off to the league, Berry is the team’s only proven outside threat in the backcourt. He’s a career 37.7 percent 3-point shooter who will be relied upon to not only initiate the offense but also space the floor.
Berry will likely be joined by junior Kenny Williams and senior Theo Pinson on the perimeter. Williams suffered a knee injury that ended his sophomore season early, but he’s recently been cleared for full basketball activities. The 6-foot-4 guard will be expected to offer up another perimeter scoring threat, but his below average 3-point shooting last season should draw some concerns. Pinson, meanwhile, is more important because of his defensive versatility. The 6-foot-6 wing is an inefficient scorer, but he’ll be tasked with handling the opposing team’s top scorer on most nights and his ability to get into passing lanes can create some easy buckets for the Tar Heels.
That Berry is the lone consistent shooting threat among the backcourt group brings us back to North Carolina’s history of dominating the offensive boards and simply not shooting those outside shots. Despite not launching a high volume of 3s as a team, Williams has usually had at least two players on his roster who were potent threats and a number of bigs who could go chase down any misses.
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This season, that may not be the case. If Williams and Pinson can’t deliver on their jumpers, Maye will likely be called on to more frequently invert the offense for the Tar Heels in what would be a virtual first for the Roy Williams era. That will pull him further away from the basket, taking him out of position for offensive rebounds.
For 2017-18 North Carolina to reach its ceiling, one season removed from a title, Williams may need to find new ways to maximize the talent on his roster because it’s not built to play to their old school strengths.