Earlier this week, the North Carolina men’s basketball team picked up a big win over Louisville, knocking off a pretty good team even without Caleb Wilson. The journey to the end of the game wasn’t exactly pretty, though. Despite leading by as many as 14, the Tar Heels ended up hanging on for just a three-point victory.
A fairly big reason the game ended up so close was UNC’s inability to make free throws. That’s been a bit of an issue all season, but it was especially evident on Monday as Carolina went just 9-19 from the charity stripe, for a ghastly percentage of 47%. Five of those misses came in the final seven minutes of the game, including three in the final 1:01. Those misses could’ve put the game away without as much drama as there actually was.
As mentioned, this was hardly the first time that’s been an issue for UNC. As a team, the Heels make just 68% of their free throw attempts, which is way down near the bottom of the national leaderboard. Watching Carolina nearly blow a big lead because of the missed free throws got me thinking: what, for you, is the most frustrating trait a sports team can have?
Now, to be clear, I don’t mean just “losing” or “being bad,” because that’s obvious. I’m talking about little things within the game — they usually do hurt a team’s chances, even if they don’t always lead to a loss — that a team does constantly to your great frustration.
Being a bad free throw shooting team is a good example of what I’m talking about and is honestly probably my own answer. Watching a team get literal — as the name implies — free chances to score without any defense and failing to take advantage is infuriating. Now, even the best free throw shooters around still miss some here and there, so you can’t expect perfection, but you can’t have every almost every player on your team be a question mark. The poor FT shooting hasn’t doomed UNC to missing the NCAA Tournament this year or anything, but it absolutely could be something that hurts them in a single elimination scenario.
My other main pet peeve comes on the football field, and it’s another one that has affected UNC teams of the recent past. It drives me absolutely up the wall when my preferred team’s defense struggles to get third down stops. I would honestly rather watch a team get carved up on first and second downs than watch them force a 3rd & 9 and then promptly give up an 11-yard completion. The vibe shift in going from “alright, defense did a good job on that drive, one more stop and we’ll get the ball back” to having to watch a drive continue is mind-numbing.
Those are my two main ones, but give me enough time and I could come up with one for pretty much every sport. What about you? Let us know the bad habits that you hate to see from UNC or any of your favorite teams.