The trip back to Chapel Hill was going to be awfully quiet after North Carolina lost its first ACC game and snapped its 10-game winning streak Tuesday night to an unranked Georgia Tech.
It was arguably the worst performance from the Tar Heels (17-4, 9-1 ACC) all season, whose previous losses came to now-No. 1 UConn, No. 10 Kentucky and Villanova at neutral sites.
They were clearly emotional — filled with a combination of anger and sadness — by the outcome but more about how it happened.
The Heels said they thought Georgia Tech (10-12, 3-8 ACC) wanted to win more and played harder. The Yellow Jackets, despite getting out-rebounded and committing more turnovers, made up for their mistakes. Their clutch plays came at timely moments, too.
Carolina didn’t have the same energy or the “killer instinct,” as Armando Bacot called it, the team typically possesses.
RJ Davis said he was “shocked” by the team’s performance and the fact it didn’t play with toughness for all 40 minutes. It’s not what they expected out of each other.
That’s why it hurts so much.
“It’s a bad feeling. It’s terrible. I mean, we want to never lose. Nobody wants to lose, but we’ve got to learn and grow from it,” Bacot said. “We’ve got to soak this in, and we’ve got to really feel this one. Tomorrow, [we] move on.”
Harrison Ingram said the upcoming Duke rivalry game, a team that also lost to the Yellow Jackets on the road, wasn’t the reason Carolina lost. People can think that, but it comes down to the team having a bad game and not meeting its standard of play.
The Tar Heels were flat and lackadaisical. Offense played inefficiently. Harrison Ingram and Cormac Ryan, specifically, shot 6-of-28 in more than 34 minutes. The team shot a season-low 9-of-17 (52.9%) from the charity stripe.
Carolina’s defense felt weak and uninspired, hence the largest opponent score since its loss to Kentucky 45 days ago. It missed eight free throws and committed silly fouls and turnovers, too. It was a recipe for a loss.
UNC, however, knows this isn’t the end of the season and there are positives that can be built upon. It trailed by eight with five minutes to go and took the lead with seconds remaining. The team was in position to win, as well.
Ingram called the loss a good wake up call, though, because UNC hadn’t lost in a while. Better that it happens now than in March, because there’s time to make fixes.
There’s time to regroup, feel all the emotions and then turn that into fuel.
“Let’s fly home. Let’s go back to work. Let’s get ready for our next game,” coach Hubert Davis said. “When things don’t work out for you: You can lay down, you can whine and complain, you can point fingers and you can make excuses. Or, you can get back up and move forward.
“To me there’s not really a choice. You just get back up and move forward. We’ve done that this year. It’s been a tough and resilient group, and we’ll get back up and move forward and become a better team.”
Now, here come the No. 7 Blue Devils.