UNC a Worthy Elite Eight Opponent

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – John Calipari doesn’t see a lot of basketball, outside of the tape he watches to prepare for games, but he happened to catch one of North Carolina’s games during the regular season.

He recalls seeing UNC point guard Joel Berry II immediately bury five 3-pointers in a row.

So, while the rest of the college basketball world might have been eagerly awaiting a potential UK-UNC rematch in the Elite Eight when the brackets were unveiled on Selection Sunday, Coach Cal shuddered.

“It was like, oh, my gosh, and I remember watching them play and I’m thinking, please don’t put them in our bracket, and there they are in our bracket,” Calipari said.

Now, don’t get Coach Cal wrong. He’s not afraid of North Carolina and he believes the Wildcats will advance past the Tar Heels and into the Final Four if they execute.

It’s just that he has a healthy respect for the competition entering Sunday’s 5:05 p.m. matchup in Memphis, Tennessee. That respect is borne largely out of the fact that Carolina has really, really good players.

Berry is one of them. 

The junior scored 23 points in UK’s 103-100 victory back in December in spite of the fact that he missed UNC’s prior two games with a sprained left ankle. He injured his other ankle in Carolina’s first-round victory, but showed few ill effects in scoring 26 points in 35 minutes of UNC’s 92-80 Sweet 16 win over Butler. Berry is averaging 14.7 points on 40.2-percent 3-point shooting.

Then there’s 6-foot-8 Justin Jackson, who would have been the best player on the floor in almost any game with his 34 points against Kentucky if not for Malik Monk’s 47-point explosion. The versatile junior forward is UNC’s leading scorer at 18.2 points per game and has buried a team-high 100 3-pointers on the season.

“He makes open 3s if you don’t play him,” Calipari said. “He curls in the lane and scores. He isolates, and he gets to the rim. He had (34) on us, and then I’m watching, maybe it was just that game, and like I’m watching all these other games, no, it wasn’t just that game. He can get you a bunch of different ways. He’s a tough matchup for any team.”

Berry and Jackson both have the Cats’ undivided attention.

“They’re both great players,” Isaiah Briscoe said. “We’re going to go out there and play the defense we’ve been playing and we’ll see what happens.”

The goal will be to limit Jackson and Berry to fewer than the 57 combined points they poured in last time vs. UK, but another player to keep in mind this time around didn’t even play on Dec. 17. Theo Pinson missed that game and 18 others due to injury, but has returned to start 10 of North Carolina’s  last 11 games. The 6 -6 wing player is a gifted passer and the Tar Heels’ best perimeter defender, which means he’s likely to draw the assignment on Monk.

“Maybe if Theo was playing, Malik only has 30 points and we still win the game,” UNC’s Kennedy Meeks said of the first matchup. “That’s just the type of effect that he has. Even though all of us get tired sometimes, I think he’s definitely one of the best defenders, and I think he does a great job of coming in the game and giving us a lift.”

Meeks, meanwhile, is a whole other matter. The 6-10, 260-pound senior is one of the nation’s best offensive rebounders, ranking 10th nationally in offensive-rebounding rate. It’s no surprise, then, that UNC ranks first as a team in offensive-rebounding rate and first in rebounding margin.

“They got two good big guys, they got a lot of good wings and they got a good point guard,” Bam Adebayo said. “All of them can crash the glass and all of them fight.”

UK actually held its own on the glass against UNC in December, with the Cats owning a 39-35 rebounding margin. But on that count and every other, that was one game four months ago. Sunday is another day.

“We know we’ve done it once, but the reality of it is that game was so long ago, I don’t think Pinson played,” Calipari said. “I think the guard was hurt. I think Joel was hurt. When I watched the tape, it’s like, ooh, my gosh. Both teams are better; let me say that.”