Lucas: Rapid Reactions

By Adam Lucas

1. Somewhat of a deceiving 101-76 win over Saint Francis for Carolina on Monday night. The final margin looks impressive, but the Tar Heels weren't especially sharp on a consistent basis on Monday night.

2. Roy Williams is going to get plenty out of that game to work with his team on at practice before leaving for Las Vegas tomorrow night. Notably, there were times he wasn't especially pleased with Carolina's defensive effort against dribble penetration, and the Tar Heels gave up too many offensive rebounds.

3. Coby White is not very far from a breakout scoring game. The freshman guard is knocking down some shots, but he's an even better shooter than he's shown before. He's starting to consistently beat opponents down the court in transition, which is going to steadily improve the quality of shots he's getting. Once those fall on a more regular basis, he's going to break out and have a 23 or 24-point plus game. White finished 4-for-11 from the field for 16 points.

4. Sixteen of Carolina's 37 field goal attempts in the first half were three-pointers. That's part of the reason why Saint Francis had 16 free throw attempts in the first 20 minutes to just nine for the Tar Heels. Just nine of Carolina's 28 attempts in the second half were from three. That being said, Carolina did shoot the ball well from that distance, finishing at 40 percent overall on 25 attempts.

5. Carolina's offense continues to be very efficient. The Tar Heels have scored 50 points or more in six of the last eight halves. In one of the two when they didn't (the second half on Monday night), they put up 49 points. There's not much question that the Tar Heels can score the basketball.

6. Williams had some stern words for the five Carolina players on the floor--Nassir Little, Sterling Manley, Kenny Williams, Seventh Woods and Cam Johnson--when Saint Francis closed to 75-63 with just over eight minutes left. The Tar Heels responded with a nice halfcourt trap (which appears to be a more regular part of the arsenal in the early going) and went on a quick 11-2 run to put the game away.

7. Nassir Little just physically dominated Saint Francis. Most of his 19 points--other than a three-pointer he banked in during the first half--came around the rim as he jumped over, around and through his defender. He finished a robust eight-for-nine from the floor.

8. Viewers who watched the game at home got a little taste of 2019 and beyond. The game officially aired on ACC Network Extra, with Kyle Straub and Joel James on the call. That means it was produced in-house by GoHeels Productions, which also has the responsibility for producing the content on the four mega-video boards in the corners of the Smith Center. That's two distinct productions created by a crew of a couple dozen people under the direction of assistant athletic director Ken Cleary. Once the ACC Network hits the air for the 2019-20 season, you'll regularly see games produced this same way.

9. The field hockey team received a very nice ovation at halftime when they were honored after winning the program's seventh NCAA championship yesterday in Louisville. Promotional synergy: head coach Karen Shelton will be on the Carolina Insider podcast tomorrow, which of course you are hopefully a subscriber to by now.

10. We're going to know a lot more about this team in the next nine days. Carolina plays four games between Monday and next Wednesday night, including a road trip to Michigan and a matchup with Texas and either Michigan State or UCLA. Those are three formidable tests that will tell Roy Williams quite a bit about the needed areas of focus in December.

11. Williams got to experiment with multiple lineups after Garrison Brooks picked up four fouls early in the second half. That led to more minutes for Manley (six points and eight rebounds in 15 minutes) but also some rotations we haven't seen to this point in the season. It's likely the rotation will fall into a more regular pattern over these next three games.

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Garrison Brooks

Nassir Little

Sterling Manley

Coby White

Kenny Williams

Seventh Woods

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