Displeased with effort, UNC coach Hubert Davis vows changes after Tennessee loss

North Carolina coach Hubert Davis, just five games into the season, is already talking about changes.

A change in effort.

A change in accountability.

Things can’t stay the same for the No. 18 Tar Heels — especially on defense — after their 89-72 loss to No. 17 Tennessee on Sunday in the consolation game of the Hall of Fame Tipoff.

“I guarantee things will change,” Davis said. “I am convinced that not only we can be a good defensive team, I’m convinced that we can be a great defense and it will change.”

The Volunteers (3-1) torched Carolina’s defense by scoring a season-high 54 points in the paint.

It all added up to the Vols shooting 65.6 percent in the second half, one day after the Heels allowed Purdue to shoot 64 percent after halftime. Davis lamented after the game that half the team probably couldn’t shoot 65 percent “by themselves in the gym” and teams were doing it against Carolina’s defense.

They were late getting around screens for open shots. They got beat on run outs. They got beat on backdoor cuts. They applied very little on-ball pressure, which accounts for the 28 assists on 38 field goals for Tennessee.

“The defense that we’re playing collectively and individually, that accountability to guard your guy is not there,” Davis said. “And that’s going to have to change immediately.”

Defending ball screens continued to be a problem as it has at times the past few seasons. Davis changed the way Carolina defends pick-and-rolls. When a guard and post player are involved, he no longer asks the big to hedge out on the player with the ball. Instead, the big stays behind the play.

It left Carolina bigs playing 2-on-1 several times when the guard wasn’t able to fight through the screen and recover fast enough.

“We just got to do a better job of trusting each other on the defensive end and the offensive end,” UNC forward Armando Bacot said. “Even on our rotation somebody getting beat we’ve got to have somebody in that position. Once that all comes together I feel we’ll be a lot better team.”

The Heels had some of the same problems defensively in their loss to Purdue on Saturday, but the difference was they stayed in the game because they were able to score at a higher rate.

Tennessee didn’t allow Carolina the same kind of freedom on offense. The Vols’ lineup was smaller but quicker. They challenged. They rotated. They didn’t give up a lot of clean looks at the basket or easy shots in the paint.

It made for a rough outing for UNC guards Caleb Love, R.J. Davis and Kerwin Walton. The trio combined to shoot 6 for 23 from the field. Walton entered the game shooting 47.6 percent from 3-point range, but his missed all four of his attempts from 3.

Carolina’s frontcourt players seemed to have the only success against the Vols defense. Bacot bounced back from having just one basket against Purdue, scoring 16 points with 12 rebounds.

Forward Brady Manek came off the bench to score a season-high 24 points. Manek, a career 37 percent shooter from behind the arc, had struggled in his first four games shooting just 27 percent from 3. He went 6 for 10 from 3-point range against the Vols.

Manek said the weekend was a missed opportunity for the team to make a statement against two ranked opponents.

“We’re struggling right now, it’s never good losing two games, especially two games (against ranked opponents) that would have helped us later on,” Manek said. “We gotta learn from this. We’ve got to play harder. We gotta want to play.”

Hubert Davis said he wouldn’t use fatigue from playing on back-to-back days as an excuse for effort that was, at times, lackluster. Davis said he is trying to understand why the Heels have had the type of effort they need only in spots this season, but never for a full game.

The challenge of answering that question awaits him as they return to action on Tuesday against UNC-Asheville at the Dean E. Smith Center.

“We’re gonna figure this out,” Davis said. “We’re only five games into the season. We’re gonna figure this out, and we’re going to be the team that I believe that we can.”