Telling statistics from UNC’s basketball season

Normally, there is a lot of dissection and analysis at the end of a UNC basketball season. This season ended a little differently; Hubert Davis’s abrupt firing has put most of the focus on the coaching search for the next Carolina head coach. And rightly so; as a fan, I’d rather look forward than relive one of the worst collapses in NCAA tournament history.

Nevertheless, I think there’s something to be gained from parsing through last season’s stats to try and understand what went wrong (and even what went right). These aren’t necessarily top line stats like three-point shooting or points per game. Rather, I wanted to share some interesting tidbits I think were either compelling or relevant to how UNC’s season went.

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Free Throw Shooting: This one is probably obvious. UNC has struggled at the charity stripe the entire season. While there are many reasons UNC ultimately frittered away a 19-point lead against VCU, poor free throw shooting has to be near the top of the list. Carolina finished 12-20 from the line and repeatedly missed free throws down the stretch that could have helped them hang on until the final horn.

Back in December, I noted the Heels were shooting 68.9% from the free throw line and opined that Seth Trimble’s return could help improve that number. Instead, UNC as a team finished 321st in the country by knocking down 68.2% of their free throws. Trimble went from shooting 82.1% last year to 66.7% this season. It’s hard to know how much his midseason injury affected his free throw shooting stroke, but his regression at the line meant that UNC had few ball handlers in end of game situations they could trust to make their foul shots. This was UNC’s worst free throw shooting team since Roy William’s last squad.

The duality of UNC’s defense: Overall, Carolina finished with the 37th best defense according to KenPom (interestingly, the offense also finished ranked 37th). Drill a little deeper into those numbers, and some interesting…

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Publish date : 2026-04-05 15:00:00

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