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Despite arriving as a highly touted sharpshooter from Colorado State, Kyan Evans has stumbled out of the gate in Chapel Hill.
Going into the Florida State matchup, Evans was averaging 5.8 points and 3.9 assists while shooting 37.5 percent from the field, 30 percent from 3-point range and 75 percent at the free-throw line. His December numbers only underscored the slump: 3.3 points per game on 30.7 percent shooting overall and 25 percent from beyond the arc.
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Early in the season, Evans looked the part. He opened 10-for-29 from 3-point range through the first six games, boosted by a 3-for-4 performance in a win over St. Bonaventure that pushed the Tar Heels to 6-0. But over the seven games before Tuesday night, he went just 4-for-21 from the perimeter.
Touted as one of the top perimeter shooters in the transfer portal last spring after hitting 44.6 percent from deep at Colorado State last season, Evans had done little to quiet the doubts.
The good news for North Carolina is that he took a step forward against the Seminoles and was a big part in why the Tar Heels won 79-66. Evans scored 15 points, all on a season-high five 3-pointers, on 12 attempts. The volume mattered as much as the makes. The shots were there, and this time, Evans didn’t hesitate.
His 15 points tied a season high, and the five 3s were the second most in a game in his career. He hit six from outside in an NCAA Tournament win over Memphis last March; otherwise, his previous high was four made 3s, a mark he had reached three times.
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Plenty of players mired in a shooting slump would have been reluctant to launch that many threes. Evans wasn’t. If there was one phrase to sum up his night, it was the oldest cliché in the book: shooters shoot.
“He’s a really good shooter,” UNC head coach Hubert Davis said. “My conversations with him are those are good shots, and I want him to continue to take them. I want him to be confident in his shot, and I felt like he was.”
Davis also praised the way Evans handled adversity after missing a few early looks in the second half.
“Even in the second half, there were a couple where he missed, and then he came out, and he came right back in and knocked down a couple,” Davis said. “We always talk about how do you react and how do you respond, and the way that he responded out there was huge for us.”
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If Evans can build on this performance, it could be the spark North Carolina needs from the perimeter. The Tar Heels have been inconsistent from 3, and Luka Bogavac has struggled recently, missing all five of his field goal attempts — including three 3-pointers — on Tuesday.
Moreover, North Carolina went just 2-for-17 (11.8 percent) from beyond the arc outside of Evans. Those kinds of numbers shouldn’t show up often — if at all — the rest of the season, but they underscore just how important his performance was.
Evans is one of the few true high-volume 3-point threats on this roster. When he is knocking down shots, North Carolina becomes a far more dangerous team, especially with the “twin towers” of Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar inside and steady leader Seth Trimble running the show.
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This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: Kyan Evans’ breakout night could change UNC’s perimeter outlook
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