063: Tiers of fears
North Carolina men's basketball is 2-13 against kenpom Tier A opponents since the start of last season.
North Carolina men’s basketball is 30 games above .500 since the start of the 2021-22 season. The record is 56-26 under head coach Hubert Davis.
Since the run to the 2022 National Title game, Carolina is 27-16 overall. The Heels do not have many wins over quality opponents in that span despite numerous opportunities.
As of today, 15 of the those last 46 games came against kenpom Tier A opponents. Pomeroy defines a Tier A as a game against a top 50 opponent adjusting for the location1 of the game.
Carolina is 2-13 in those 15 games:
A few tidbits about those 15 games:
-68 point differential
average margin of defeat is 6.2 points
seven of the 13 losses by six or fewer points
1-1 at home2
1-6 at neutral sites
0-6 away
1-2 in games featuring overtime3
Carolina’s narrow defeats are not unique to Tier A opponents. The Heels are 5-8 in games decided by six or fewer points over the past two seasons too.
The latest Tier A loss came over the weekend to Kentucky. The Wildcats beat Carolina by four points in a game where the ‘Cats attempted 15 more shots, one fewer free throw, and rebounded ~41 percent of its missed shots.
That’s how Carolina used to beat opponents, by limiting turnovers and grabbing offensive boards4 to get more whacks at the piñata. Shot volume.
The Heels get another Tier A opportunity on Wednesday against Oklahoma in Charlotte. And if Carolina wants to curb its fear of avoiding the bubble for a fourth straight season, it needs a positive result.
Using Tier A opponents here instead of Quad 1 games because well, not sure the NET is worth discussing this much in December. The Tier A games can fluctuate too. For example, the win over Arkansas this season was a Tier A win until the past few days where it moved to Tier B or against a top-100 opponent adjusting for location.
College basketball needs more home-and-home games instead of neutral site games. It makes little sense that UConn-Gonzaga, NC State-Tennessee, Purdue-Arizona, and UNC-Kentucky were all played at neutral sites over the weekend.
Originally, did not have the Ohio State game as one that featured overtime. That’s now updated. As an aside, cleaning names of teams like - Ohio State to Ohio State - causes lots of data errors when you’re moving fast.
Using four factor data since 2008, this was only the 13th time over the past 591 games where Carolina posted a higher turnover rate than offensive rebounding rate.
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