University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Second To None
January 30, 2014 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
ATLANTA--Eric Hoots was walking through the Carolina locker room, exchanging congratulations and handshakes with the Tar Heel players, who had just finished off Georgia Tech, 78-65, for a second straight Atlantic Coast Conference win.
When the UNC video coordinator arrived at the locker of Marcus Paige, he greeted him with, "Good game."
"Don't say, 'Good game,'" Paige told him. "You can say, 'Good second half,' I guess."
"OK," Hoots replied, "good second half."
It was a little better than just good. After shooting just 1-for-7 in the first half as Carolina limped to a 26-25 halftime lead, Paige shot 6-of-6 in the final 20 minutes on his way to scoring 17 of his 19 points in the second half.
"I had a couple good looks in the first half, but I also forced a couple," Paige said. "Most of my shots in the second half were in rhythm, and my teammates did a great job screening for me. My focus was a lot better in the second half."
The Tar Heels needed that focus, because James Michael McAdoo had carried them in the first half, shooting 4-of-9 while the rest of his teammates combined to go 8-for-30 (26.7%). But McAdoo was whistled for two quick fouls early in the second half, forcing Carolina to play without him for nearly ten minutes.
When he departed, the lead was just 36-31, and you felt like if Carolina could just stay even without their big man, they'd have a chance to win the game at the end with him. Instead, the Tar Heels stretched the lead without McAdoo--and without J.P. Tokoto, who sat down with four fouls around the same time--and had a 10-point lead when he reentered with under five minutes to go.
A healthy portion of that bulge was built with Tech playing a zone, which had been the going theory on how to slow down the Carolina offense. The Tar Heels shot a whopping 66.7 percent from the field in the second half and--hold on to your toboggan--even hit 16 of 20 free throws in the final 20 minutes.
"They played a matchup zone against us, so we wanted to make strong cuts and set strong screens for each other," said Nate Britt, who finished with three assists and no turnovers in his 22 minutes. "We wanted to make sure we kept moving."
The biggest beneficiary of those strong screens was Paige. He got a formidable screen from Joel James to free himself for his first shot of the half, a deadeye three-pointer that he drained.
The screen from James was emblematic of the contributions the Tar Heels got from their reserves in McAdoo's absence, as no one was spectacular, but everyone contributed within their role. James set a couple strong screens, Desmond Hubert played solid post defense, and Brice Johnson tossed in eight points.
While his teammates were handling the intangibles, Paige was catching fire. His final three-pointer provided a ten-point lead and sent a boisterous Tar Heel chant throughout a surprisingly blue-tinted McCamish Pavilion crowd that was supposed to be limited to mostly Tech students by the ice storm.
Paige's second half explosion continues a sophomore season pattern of struggling in the first half and getting hot in the second. Paige recognizes the trend.
"I have to do something to get involved in games earlier," he said. "I need to take everything leading up to the game more seriously, or I need to change my mental preparation. I can't go 20 minutes without producing."
On this night, though, he could. Less than 24 hours after the Tar Heels had flown out of RDU to begin their road odyssey, he could grin about what turned into one of the most unique road trips of the Roy Williams era. It had seen the team have a relatively uneventful flight, but then spend nearly two hours in the Atlanta airport, travel on the MARTA--it was Paige's first train ride--and schlep six blocks in an ice storm, carrying all their bags, to get to the team hotel.
"It's been more fun than I think people might expect," Britt said.
Well, sure, with a 13-point win in your back pocket.
"It's a trip I'm not going to forget," Paige said. "We had some interesting travel, but I think it brought everyone closer together. We had a fun time hanging out on the train and in random parts of Atlanta. To cap it off with a win is something we can be happy about going home."
Adam Lucas is the editor of CAROLINA.
