Heels making history with third straight loss

CHAPEL HILL—Indiana’s man-to-man defense gave Kris Lang the room he needed to finally operate effectively in the low post.

It didn’t cure the shooting woes that have plagued Lang’s teammates.

North Carolina, which came into the game shooting 34.6 percent from the field, fared a little better on Wednesday night, but only because of Lang.

Aside from Lang’s 11-of-16 performance, the Hoosiers limited the rest of the Tar Heels to 25.0 percent shooting in a 79-66 win at the Smith Center.

The loss, UNC’s third straight to open the season, marked the first time the Tar Heels have started 0-3 since the 1928-29 season.

“Starting out 0-3, it may sound weird to say this, but I’m real proud of their effort,”UNC coach Matt Doherty said. “That’s all I asked, give me effort, and they did. We could have won this game if we hit some shots.”

Or as Lang simply put it, “We just have to take that round thing and put it in the iron hoop.”

The Tar Heels, who faced mostly zone defenses in their first two games against Hampton and Davidson, weren’t held in suspense by Indiana coach Mike Davis.

The Hoosiers (4-1) came out in the man-to-man from the opening tip and only left it when the outcome was no longer in doubt.

Lang, who scored 12 points in each of the first two games, benefitted and finished with a game-high 27 points.

His teammates continued to suffer, though.

Lang hit his first five shots, but the rest of the lineup missed its first nine attempts from the field. Lang had been the only Tar Heel to score from the field until Will Johnson hit a 3-pointer with 10:45 left in the first half.

Lang finished the half
7-for-9 from the floor, and his teammates struggled to go a combined 4 of 16 to put the Tar Heels in a 10-point hole at the break.

Lang accounted for half the team’s field goals in the game, as the rest of the squad shot 11 of 44 from the floor.

“When we start making some shots, we’ll be a pretty tough team,”said senior forward Jason Capel, who went 4-of-15 from the floor, scored 16 points and had seven first-half turnovers.

“We won’t miss them forever.”

The Hoosiers were able to establish a comfortable lead thanks to some fine perimeter shooting in the first half, and they held onto it by moving inside the arc for the final 20 minutes.

UNC started out the game in a triangle-and-two defense focused on containing Dane Fife and Jared Jeffries.

Doherty said he wanted to see if forward A.J. Moye could make some long-range shots against the remaining triangle.

Moye proved he could.

He hit two 3-pointers in the first two minutes and finished the half with 14 points, including four makes in five tries from beyond the arc.

Once the Tar Heels went to a more conventional 2-3 zone, Tom Coverdale starting doing the damage. He hit three 3s in a row to increase a 26-24 lead to 35-28 with 2:19 left in the half.

The Hoosiers hit 9-for-17 from behind the 3-point line in the first half alone, and Coverdale and Moye finished with a combined 37 points.

“I think the zone did a pretty good job,”Doherty said. “They hit a lot of tough shots, but I thought it worked well for us.”

Indiana missed all nine of its 3-point attempts in the second half, but the Hoosiers maintained a double-digit lead by hitting 11 of their first 13 tries from two-point range.

North Carolina cut Indiana’s lead to less than 10 points on three occasions in the second half but never got closer than eight.

One bright spot was Johnson, who was recruited by former Hoosier coach Bob Knight. Johnson made his first career start for the Tar Heels and chipped in with two 3-pointers in the second half.

He hit all three of his 3-pointers and finished with nine points, but the rest of the team hit just 2 of its 16 attempts from behind the arc.

Lang kept the Tar Heels in the game almost by himself.

“He really took it on his shoulders and said ‘I’m going to take control of this game,’ ” Doherty said.

Unfortunately for the Tar Heels, his teammates didn’t follow suit, although the play of freshman guards Melvin Scott and Jackie Manuel did encourage Doherty

Doherty started Scott and Manuel in the backcourt and said they would continue in that role.

Manuel scored eight points and had six rebounds, and Scott scored four points and dished out four assists.

“I think we found our point guard now,”Capel said. “Melvin’s the guy.”

Sophomores Adam Boone and Brian Morrison entered the game with 11:41 remaining in the first half and left three minutes later.

Morrison, who got elbowed in the lip in practice this week, came into the game with a mouthpiece but threw it to the bench nine seconds after entering the game.

Morrison missed all four of his field-goal attempts in the game, and Boone had two turnovers in three minutes in the first half and only played a total of five minutes.

“(Scott and Manuel) are two of my best defenders, and they are two of our quickest players,”Doherty said. “They can get into seams, and they’ll learn from their mistakes.”

Doherty hopes that holds true for the Tar Heels as a whole.

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Contact Bret Strelow at 704-797-4258 or bstrelow@salisburypost.com .