North Carolina Tar Heels: It’s Justin Jackson’s Team
The North Carolina Tar Heels have been on this course through the season and NCAA Tournament due to Justin Jackson.
The North Carolina Tar Heels are less than twenty-four hours away from facing Oregon in their twentieth Final Four appearance. There is still time to wonder how this particular team got here. After this is the remnant of a team that was powered by Marcus Paige and Brice Johnson. Both of those players now figure on the wall of honored jerseys. The slack was supposed to be pretty big.
We saw Joel Berry take over Paige’s space and we saw Isaiah Hicks grow into a starter’s role, but those two were the foundation on which this season was built. The cog has been and continues to be junior Justin Jackson, whose consistent scoring guided the team through the ACC Regular Season. Jackson continues to be the man even though opponents have tried to keep him off the three point line of late. Without him, this would have been over long ago.
Good Tar Heels teams have always had a good wing somewhere on them. 1982 had Michael Jordan. 1993 had Donald Williams. 2005 had Rashad McCants. 2009 had Wayne Ellington. Williams and Ellington were even awarded the Final Four MVP award in their respective runs, but those teams really were not built on those players. Posts and point guards were the rule.
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The last time the Tar Heels tried to have a wing lead them to the promised land was Harrison Barnes. When I see Jackson as the focus of the offense in a lot of instances, I think about whether this was how it was supposed to look for Barnes. My memories about Barnes are bit askew. I remember Barnes as coming on at the end of his freshman year and then playing cautiously as a sophomore and not leaving it all out there. The stats disagree with me, and show Barnes improving every stat category except foul shooting. Guess I just felt he should average twenty-five a game.
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Regardless, Jackson has built up his three point percentage and the team has needed it. He also retains his floater repertoire that has become so normal that is odd when his shot is off on those (and it has been at times in the NCAA Tournament). Jackson-Berry-Luke Maye has given the squad more dimension behind the arc than they had last year since teams focused on Paige and dared others to beat them.
Jackson has an eighteen points per game scoring average, and that is higher than anything Barnes did with more athleticism. His role won’t really change either as they face Oregon. He will use his 6’8” frame to see over smaller Oregon covers and occasional post them up. If they trap him, he should be ready for that by now. If they go zone, he can try to shoot over them or around screens. He is also a decent passer to find the open bigs or others for easy scores.
Next: Final Four Bracket Challenge Intro
If Jackson puts together two more big games then the Tar Heels wish list will be close to coming true. The question will be whether he can get other players to come with him, because that is what has made the last few games so close.