Can North Carolina Survive Without Cole Anthony?

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As if things couldn’t get any worse for North Carolina, Wednesday it was announced that their star point guard Cole Anthony would miss 4-6 weeks after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery. Needless to say, this is a huge blow to a North Carolina team that was already 6-4 and having a very disappointing season. Anthony’s injury may result in a historically awful season for the Tar Heels.

North Carolina is currently 6-5 with a 54.5% winning percentage. The Tar Heels are on pace to have the 16th worst season in the history of North Carolina basketball history. This means if the Tar Heels continue on this pace, the 2019-2020 season will be 95th out of 110 seasons of basketball at the University of North Carolina. That’s pretty terrible, but it's very possible.

On December 15th, North Carolina took on the Wofford Terriers in their first game without Cole Anthony. Wofford forced 11 turnovers as they shocked the Tar Heels 68-64. This was a devastating home loss for UNC. North Carolina’s struggles continued on Wednesday as they lost their fourth game in a row in a 94-81 loss to Gonzaga.

Things are looking ugly for North Carolina who may miss the tournament for the first time in 10 years. The Tar Heels are extremely young and inexperienced and it showed against Gonzaga. North Carolina had a lot of sloppy possessions but their biggest issue was their defense. Gonzaga completely shredded the Heel’s defense with lights out shooting (59.3% FG and 50% 3PT FG) and 20+ points each from Corey Kispert and Filip Petrusev.

I know Gonzaga is arguably the best team in the nation, but North Carolina has no chance of being anything more than an NIT champion if they don’t improve their entire defense and have someone emerge as a reliable scoring option. It’s hard to watch UNC struggle like this when the standard is nothing short of greatness. North Carolina fans need to prepare themselves, because they are about to endure a 4-6 week period of miserable sucking.