By Adam Lucas
1. A very solid win for Carolina by any measure, they defeated a Notre Dame team that had won five of its last six games, 84-51.
2. The win means Carolina clinch a share of the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title for the 33rd time in program history, the most in the league. With a win over Duke on Saturday, the Tar Heels would win the title outright. If the two teams finish in a tie, the top seed in the ACC Tournament will be determined by a series of tiebreakers so complex they're not worth examining now (the short version is: In the event a tiebreaker is necessary the heels want Pitt and/or). Wake sits ahead of Clemson and Syracuse in the final regular season standings.
3. Hubert Davis dealt with a difficult situation where the Tar Heels have seven seniors but can only play five at a time, opting for one term and starting Duwe Farris, Rob Landry and Creighton Lebo along with RJ Davis and Armando Bacot. It made the decision a little easier that the other two seniors, Paxson Wojcik and Cormac Ryan, have already started several games this year.
4. Notre Dame's best chance to win the game was to get freshman star Markus Burton hot. Carolina made sure that couldn't happen, especially with the defense of Davis and Seth Trimble. Both Tar Heels followed Burton all over the court, limiting him to nine points and three-for-11 from the field with four turnovers.
5. Not a spectacular offensive day, but a good enough offensive day. Consider that Notre Dame came into the game as the league's second-best defensive efficiency team in conference play; Carolina still shot 45 percent from the field and 38 percent from three. Davis led the Tar Heels with 22 points and Harrison Ingram had a double-double with 11 points and 14 rebounds.
6. Davis could be even more selfish – and may have to face better opponents. He had a solid first half, hitting a floater and a pull-up and essentially demonstrating that he could score from anywhere, at any time while going 5-for-9. There was a scene where he recovered a loose ball after missing a free throw and possibly got a look at a three-pointer; Instead, he found a teammate. During the rest of March and April it would be perfectly fine for him to take this shot. However, it's hard to argue with the results. Davis had five assists on Tuesday. This is the sixth time in the last nine games that he has had at least five assists.
7. On senior night it was nice to see how every senior contributed. Paxson Wojcik grabbed a few offensive rebounds and Cormac Ryan had a very solid performance against his former team. Ryan attempted six free throws in the first half alone, matching his total from the last four games. The Heels are a better offensive team when Ryan can do more than just three-pointers. Thanks to the lead, the Tar Heels also had good minutes for Farris, Landry and Lebo at the end of the game.
8. And of course there was Armando Bacot, who, in addition to his five rebounds, quietly scored 14 points – including two three-pointers for the first time in his long career. Bacot was also 4 of 6 from the free throw line. His improvement in this area will be important over the next month.
9. In the non-senior category, some really nice minutes from Jalen Washington. The Tar Heel reserve big hit two three-pointers on his way to 10 points and five rebounds in just 11 minutes.
10. Is it possible we are underestimating how good this team was in ACC play? On Tuesday night, the Tar Heels had a double-digit lead at some point for the 17th time in 19 league games. Of course, this doesn't count towards wins, but it is an indication of the way the team has played against conference opponents.
11. Bacot played his 162nd game, setting the all-time ACC record. The varying number of years and games players have played in the current version of college basketball makes it difficult to quantify their true impact, especially when counting statistics like total rebounds. So consider this number from Jodyzeugner: Bacot ranks second in school history in available rebound percentage entering Tuesday night. The leader in this category is, unsurprisingly, Billy Cunningham, who secured 17.5 percent of the available boards over the course of his successful career. Bacot is just behind Sam Perkins and Antawn Jamison at 13.56 percent.
12. The victory secured Carolina's best 20-game Atlantic Coast Conference record ever. The previous best mark was 15-5 in the 2021-22 season, Hubert Davis' first season as head coach.
13. You never know who you might see at the Smith Center on a Tuesday night (in front of a great crowd for a Tuesday night game, by the way) – Eric Church was in town for Senior Night.
14. Big performance on Saturday. A win means the Heels are the outright regular-season league champions and top seed next week in Washington, DC.