UNC received its most difficult lesson against Clemson. More daunting tests await

The emotional peak and depth of North Carolina’s promising season came 72 hours apart; a stunning reversal that reaffirmed how fickle and fleeting success can be throughout college basketball’s annual marathon toward March. Over two nights in three days, the Tar Heels journeyed from one end of a spectrum to the other.

There were all the spoils that came with beating Duke at the Smith Center on Saturday night. The locker room scene that looked like a dance party. The storming of Franklin Street. The high of highs and, yes, Armando Bacot, UNC’s fifth-year center said, it was indeed a late night of jubilation. Then there was Tuesday, and a performance against Clemson that defied explanation.

Or perhaps it didn’t, given the signs. Hubert Davis is in the midst of his third and best regular season as UNC’s head coach, but he didn’t like what he saw on Sunday or Monday, during a pair of lackluster practices that fed into Tuesday. His players, meanwhile, took notice of the things they weren’t doing, for whatever reason – like showing up on time for pregame warm-ups.

“That’s something we haven’t done all year,” Bacot said after UNC’s 80-76 defeat against Clemson. “Like we’ve always been on time. We’ve been punctual about all those things.

“Just all the little things added up.”

They added up to a performance Tuesday night that Bacot described as “flat.” One RJ Davis, the Tar Heels’ senior guard and leading scorer, said lacked energy. A performance Harrison Ingram, the junior forward, said reflected an absence of hunger or want-to.

“They bullied us,” he said.

And also: “There wasn’t the same energy ... everyone was sleepy, and just wasn’t ready to go from the beginning.”

To be sure, it’s difficult if not impossible for a team to maintain consistently high energy throughout a four-month regular season. There are ebbs and flows and off nights, however unwelcome, are to be expected. Still, this one was enough to create some longer term concerns, and at least a small sense of wariness.

Bacot said “three or four of us didn’t get out there on time” to warm up before tip-off against Clemson. Both of UNCs practices, on Sunday and Monday, were rough and not especially confidence-boosting. Then there was the start of the game, itself, Tuesday night, when Clemson outscored the Tar Heels 15-2 in the opening minutes, prompting Hubert Davis to call a timeout.

During it, he told his players that what was happening wasn’t a result of X’s and O’s or some sort of strategic deficiency. It was, instead, the product of malaise.

“There’s nothing from a basketball standpoint we can talk about until the energy and the effort and enthusiasm rises,” Davis said he told his team. If those intangibles improved, he said, “things would change.”

And they did. UNC trailed by as many as 16 points in the first half but by nine at halftime. It trailed throughout the second half but managed to tie it at 70 with a little less than four minutes remaining. The Tar Heels had their chances late, despite their play early.

And yet the final analysis wasn’t complicated: UNC couldn’t recover from its awful start.

“I think we just got comfortable,” RJ Davis said, trying to explain it.

Part of the comfort was understandable, perhaps, if not expected after the high of defeating Duke. There was going to be some degree of emotional letdown. The surprise is that it was as drastic as it was for UNC, which suddenly now finds itself in the most vulnerable position it has been in all season – one that calls for a strong response.

Without it, the Tar Heels will be in trouble at Miami on Saturday. And a loss there, where UNC suffered a 28-point defeat in its most recent trip, in 2022, and the season quickly becomes more interesting, and not in the way the Tar Heels would prefer.

Hubert Davis’ third season as head coach has been unique, compared to his first two, for its relative lack of drama. He has successfully blended five transfers with Bacot and RJ Davis, and Elliot Cadeau, the freshman point guard, has usually been as advertised after he reclassified and graduated high school early.

To put it another way, this UNC team has gone according to Hubert Davis’ best plan. There hasn’t been much inconsistency. There hasn’t been the apparent chemistry and cohesion problems that plagued the Tar Heels a year ago. There has been very little adversity.

Until now, that is. UNC responded to its first conference loss, last week at Georgia Tech, by putting on a show against Duke, and then celebrating just as hard as it played. But another step forward preceded two steps back, and now the Tar Heels face the specter of losing for the third time in four games, and surrendering what was once a comfortable cushion atop the ACC.

From the start on Tuesday night, it was clear UNC didn’t have “it,” however the intangible might be defined. Heart. Hustle. Desire. Take your pick. Clemson, which lost its first 59 games in Chapel Hill but has now won in two of its past three trips there, played as if it had something to prove. It couldn’t be said that UNC even played as if it was happy to be there.

The Tar Heels were simply there, at first, present in body but not mind or spirit. Now the back half of their conference schedule is full of teams, like Clemson, who are needy and desperate; teams aspiring to strengthen their NCAA tournament cases or rekindle hope of making it. Those teams have reason to fight, for a victory against UNC is especially valuable for any team on the margin.

Photos: Clemson defeats North Carolina in Chapel Hill

What, meanwhile, is UNC’s reason to fight? After Tuesday, it should be obvious.

The Tar Heels suffered their most humbling experience of the season, and two days after their most joyous. They’ve been a team that has passed most of its tests. Now here comes arguably their most important one yet.