Already struggling to score, Cole Anthony’s knee injury comes at a tough time for UNC
North Carolina senior guard Brandon Robinson was dejected.
Junior forward Garrison Brooks wore an angry look on his face. And UNC coach Roy Williams said he didn’t have much to say in his opening statement after the Tar Heels’ loss.
Hampered by injuries and poor shooting, the Tar Heels’ season is going in a downward spiral. And everyone can see it. They’ve lost three consecutive games and four of their last five, including Sunday night’s loss to unranked Wofford at home, 68-64.
On Wednesday, against No. 6 Gonzaga, they’ll enter as underdogs.
The Tar Heels were hoping to head into the Gonzaga game with some confidence. But now, they’ll head into that game still searching for answers to the many questions they continue to face.
Like for instance, where their scoring will come from.
That question was magnified on Sunday, after the program announced that Cole Anthony, who is averaging 19.1 points per game, was out ‘indefinitely’ with a right knee injury.
“It just feels like every game we have a different blow, and we just can’t get our whole team together,” Robinson said.
This has basically been the story of UNC’s season. When one player comes back from an injury, another players seems to go down.
Before the season, it was Robinson, who sprained his ankle and missed the first four games of the season. Then freshman forward Armando Bacot sprained his ankle, which caused him to miss the majority of UNC’s game against Ohio State.
Now Anthony and sophomore Leaky Black, who has a sprained foot, are out.
“It’s how basketball goes,” Brooks said. “It’s nothing to be like ‘we lost this game without Cole. There are no asterisks beside that.’”
Still struggling to score
Brooks led the Tar Heels with 17 points and Robinson had a career-high 16 points. But that was not enough, as the Tar Heels continued to struggle to score easy baskets.
The Tar Heels shot 36.5 percent from the floor for the game and 31.6 percent from 3. It was the 10th game this season, that the Tar Heels have not shot above 50 percent.
And for the third consecutive game, they went through a serious cold stretch in the second half, that allowed their opponents to take a commanding lead.
UNC led Wofford by three points in the second half, before allowing the Terriers to go on 16-0 run during a five-minute stretch in the second half. The Terriers grabbed a 13-point lead, and the Tar Heels never got closer than four points.
Missing Anthony
Williams said he found out Anthony was not going to play on Saturday around 10:30 a.m. He had to make a last minute adjustment to his lineup, starting reserve K.J. Smith at point guard for Sunday’s game.
Smith hadn’t played more than nine minutes in a game this season. Nor had he scored. But he was thrust into the starting role a little more than 24 hours before the game.
Smith gave the Tar Heels 26 solid minutes. He scored seven points and had four assists. His backup, freshman Jeremiah Francis had three assists in only his second game in this season.
However, the absence of Anthony was felt by the Tar Heels in more ways than one. Not only is he their leading scorer and takes one-third of the Tar Heels’ shots, but he’s third with 6.3 rebounds, and leads the team with 3.6 assists per game.
He’s responsible for so much of what the Tar Heels do on offense, that the fact that they did not reach 70 points for the third straight time, came as little surprise.
“It felt a lot different,” Brooks said of being without Anthony and Black. “We practiced without him, but it was just tough. It’s tough to pick up for those guys.”
Anthony is not expected to be available for UNC’s game against Gonzaga, either. So in order to win, they’ll need to figure out how to easier buckets without him.
Fastbreak points may be that answer. The Tar Heels scored 15 fastbreak points on Sunday, which was more than they had against Ohio State and Virgnia combined.
And Smith may be leading that break.
“I’ll have to quote my uncle on this one,” Smith said. “’If you stay ready, you never have to get ready...’ That’s what I’m living by.”
This story was originally published December 16, 2019 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Already struggling to score, Cole Anthony’s knee injury comes at a tough time for UNC."
