Holding on as one of the final six undefeated teams the Florida Gators (10-0) will get their most difficult challenge of the season so far when they take on the North Carolina Tar Heels (6-4) in the Jumpman Invitational taking place in Charlotte, North Carolina on Tuesday.
When Florida was making their non-conference schedule for the 2024-25 season this was seen as a marquee game that would give an excellent resume building opportunity due to the fact North Carolina was expected to be one of the top teams in the sport. Last year the Tar Heels finished 29-8, falling in the Sweet Sixteen to an Alabama team that was on an absolute tear. With a number of the key players from that team returning it was expected that the Tar Heels would be a top-10 team competing for a coveted Final Four. In the preseason AP Poll they came in at 9th in the country and in the ACC’s preseason poll they were picked second with a number of voters picking them first due to the experience and proven production.
So far, North Carolina has fallen well short of those expectations at 6-4. While things haven’t been going great, that record doesn’t exactly tell the whole story. North Carolina has played one of the most difficult schedules in the country, and in a vacuum none of their losses look bad. They fell to Kansas 92-89 in a true road game, and lost to Auburn and Michigan State at the Maui Invitational, with the Michigan State loss coming in overtime. Their fourth loss came at the hands of Alabama which was a 15-point drubbing at home–probably the game they’d like to have back the most. While none of those losses came to bad teams, they haven’t yet shown the ability to get a big win outside of beating Dayton in Maui–which was a great win over a strong team that had fans that made this neutral site contest look like it was taking place in Ohio. The Tar Heels’ other wins have come against Alon, American, Hawaii, Georgia Tech and La Salle, meaning outside of the Dayton win (the Flyers are 25th in KenPom), their best win is against 104th ranked Georgia Tech.
In a lot of ways, their season and their resume has been the exact opposite of Florida’s. Florida is yet to play a team in the top-50 of KenPom but they’ve not only gotten through their schedule unscathed–they’ve absolutely clobbered their opponents. North Carolina, on the other hand, has played an extremely challenging schedule including three teams that very well could be Final Four clubs–but they haven’t been able to land that key win.
Situations like North Carolina’s are what make predictive metrics helpful in order to gauge just how good a team is and while the Tar Heels might not have huge wins they’re still ranked 28th in KenPom making this the best team Florida has faced so far this season. North Carolina likely has two advantages in this game, and the first one is that they are already battle tested and have seen some of the best teams in the country, while it’s likely that Florida hasn’t even seen an NCAA Tournament team yet with all their opponents currently outside the top-50 of KenPom.
The other advantage that the Tar Heels will have is that as part of the Jordan Brand Jumpman Invitational this game is being played in Charlotte, so North Carolina fans will almost certainly outnumber the Florida contingent making this one of the more challenging settings the Gators have been in so far.
One of the big reasons that North Carolina had such high expectations this season was the return of 6’0” point guard RJ Davis, a seasoned veteran who was one of the most productive players in the country averaging 21.2 points and 3.5 assists per game. This landed him on any watch last you could imagine when it comes to the best player in the country, as is completely reasonable for someone who has put up the numbers he has at the high-major level. While North Carolina has struggled as a team, Davis has still put up rock solid production at 17.6 points and 4.3 assists per game and those point totals could easily be higher if not for a jumper that has betrayed him so far. Last year Davis was one of the best shooters in the country at 40% from deep on heavy volume, but right now those same shots aren’t falling at all and he’s way down at 25%. Even though he’s put together some rough shooting games recently he has proven throughout his career that he can be dangerous from deep and the Gators would be wise to play him like someone who can knock down the deep shot even if his numbers don’t look stellar at the moment.
In a season that has had some negatives so far, one of North Carolina’s positive stories is the emergence of guard Seth Trimble who has jumped from 5.2 points per game last year as a sophomore to 15.4 points per game this year. Trimble is a fan favorite in Chapel Hill for his effort, intelligence, and personality–and now the offensive production is some of the most potent on the roster. While some of his teammates are struggling from deep Trimble is providing some huge shooting at 45% from deep and when he gets going North Carolina is at their best.
If you don’t know a lot about North Carolina this is probably the point where you’re wondering why the Tar Heels have struggled and fallen short of expectations so far. First of all, you can look to a defense that has struggled–particularly on the perimeter. RJ Davis, Elliot Cadeu, and Seth Trimble are strong offensive players but they aren’t particularly tight on the defensive side of things–and they also measure in at 6’0”, 6’1”, and 6’3”–with each of them also being on the skinner side. They don’t have the kind of defenders that can dominate a matchup one on one, and the lack of length means the Tar Heels aren’t a disruptive defense by any means ranking 307th in the country in defensive turnover percentage. While this is an issue, it doesn’t come close to their biggest problem:
The frontcourt.
Whichever way you want to look at it both offensively or defensively, this is a frontcourt that has struggled, and struggled, and struggled some more. The thing about North Carolina’s frontcourt issues is that it wasn’t a major surprise–people knew going into this season that the frontcourt was a weakness, but no one knew just how much of a problem it was going to be. Despite the lure of playing next to fantastic guards, huge NIL, and an incredible pedigree of big men having success at North Carolina, they didn’t land any big names.
Here are the pieces North Carolina is working with.
Ven-Allen Lubin, a player who started at Notre Dame before going to Vanderbilt. Undersized and not particularly athletic, he is averaging 6.8 points and 4.7 points to lead North Carolina’s frontcourt. No, you’re not misreading that–he is leading North Carolina’s frontcourt in scoring.
Jalen Washington is a player that has been in the North Carolina system for three seasons but has mostly been a reserve piece. He’s averaging 6.0 points and 5.0 rebounds per game.
Jae’Lyn Withers was a part of the Kenny Payne disaster at Louisville, and North Carolina still liked what they saw enough to bring him in last year. He came off the bench last year, and now in his second season as a Tar Heel he’s averaging 6.2 points and 4.9 rebounds per game.
Cade Tyson was thought to be one of their bigger portal additions as a stretch-four from Belmont. Right away they saw that he probably wasn’t going to be able to be a major contributor, and he’s now playing 9.3 minutes per game averaging 4.7 points and 1.2 rebounds per game.
You can frame North Carolina’s frontcourt issues in a lot of ways, but ultimately the biggest tell of their problems and the coach’s lack of trust in the frontcourt is that over the last two weeks they have put their lineup in a blender and have regularly changed up who is starting and what combinations are playing together. This kind of testing well into the season shows just how much they are searching for answers and they haven’t seemed to find anything that will work entering the matchup with Florida.
Due to the frontcourt problems North Carolina is heavily reliant on their backcourt for production. Florida is also a team who has most of their production coming from the backcourt, and their unit had arguably their best performance of the season so far in their most recent game against Arizona State. For North Carolina to win they’ll need their guard trio to outplay Florida’s as the Gators have an advantage in the frontcourt, and that could be the story regarding who can come out victorious.
Florida and North Carolina will tip off Tuesday, December 17th at 7 PM ET and it will be televised on ESPN.