Hubert Davis addresses UNC's FT struggles after beating Louisville

[ASFN Admin]

The North Carolina Tar Heels welcomed Louisville to Chapel Hill on Monday night, hosting a marquee matchup between two ranked ACC squads.

UNC, leading by 16 near-midway through the second half, watched its lead shrink to two points. Derek Dixon sank his second free throw, the Cardinals' last-second attempt went awry and North Carolina won a massive game, 77-74.

The Tar Heels (22-6, 10-5 ACC) played very well on both sides of the floor, but one area they continued struggling in came at the free throw line. UNC made just 9-of-19 (49 pecent) free throws against Louisville (20-8, 9-6 ACC), which came two days after a 15-of-28 (54%) performance against Syracuse.

After North Carolina's victory, head coach Hubert Davis addressed his team's lack of success at the charity stripe, which proves a major factor in postseason games.

“What we didn’t handle really well was getting to the free throw line and knocking down free throws," Davis said via TarHeel247's Noah Weiskopf. "That’s very difficult to coach. Pray. Every day at practice, we work on free throw shooting. Obviously, I’ll say something to them if something is mechanically wrong...I don’t want to get into their head and start, I don’t want them thinking. That’s just something that we’re just going to have to get better at, because down the stretch, we need to be able to make those.”

In scoring a career-high 30 points, Tar Heels senior captain Seth Trimble nailed a team-best seven free throws in 11 attempts. Jarin Stevenson made 1-of-4, Dixon sank one of two, while Henri Veesaar and Zayden High each missed their lone attempts.

UNC has to fix its free throw shooting, which nearly cost them a victory on Monday night. The good news: North Carolina still has plenty of time to fix these woes, between three more regular season games and ACC Tournament play.

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This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: Hubert Davis emphasizes UNC has to improve at making free throws

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