In the last 29 years, UNC basketball has only produced one defensive performance worse than its showing at SMU in the first ACC road game of the 2025-26 season. According to KenPom efficiency ratings, the Tar Heels’ 97-83 loss to the Mustangs in Dallas was the second-worst defensive output since 1997. The only game in which the Tar Heels logged a worse showing in defensive efficiency and effective field-goal percentage defense was at Pitt in 2015. “I hope it was a one-game thing. It came in many different directions. I couldn’t point at one particular area,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said Jan. 5 during the first ACC coaches Zoom teleconference of the 2025-26 season. “I thought our one-on-one...
