Tar Heels Visit Pitt In ACC Opener

GAME 14 NOTEBOOK
• Carolina is 53-12 in ACC openers, including 10-5 under head coach Roy Williams.
• This is the first time UNC has opened ACC play against Pittsburgh.
• Carolina travels to Pitt and NC State (1/8) to start conference play. This is the 11th time overall and second time in three seasons the Tar Heels begin ACC play with two road games (1970, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1984, 1998, 2003 and 2017). Two years ago, the Tar Heels lost at Georgia Tech, then won in overtime at Clemson en route to winning the 2017 NCAA title. UNC has won both road games six times, split twice and lost both twice.
• Carolina has won the ACC regular-season title 31 times. Duke is second with 19 and Virginia is third with eight.
• Carolina has won a record 683 regular-season games in ACC play. Duke is second with 636. No other school has won 500 or more.
• Roy Williams led UNC to eight ACC regular-season crowns in his first 15 seasons. No other coach has won more than three titles in that span; Virginia has won four under two coaches.
• The Tar Heels' average regular-season ACC finish under Roy Williams is 2.5, the best in the ACC in the last 15 years (full chart on page 11).
• Williams is second among active coaches and fourth all-time in combined ACC regular-season and ACC Tournament wins with 434. Gary Williams is third with 461.
• Williams has the second-highest winning percentage in ACC road games at .627 (79-47). Vic Bubas went 46-23 (.667) at Duke from 1960-69.
• Williams is third in winning percentage in ACC regular-season games at .714 (180-72). Vic Bubas (.768) and Dean Smith (.728) are the only coaches with a higher percentage.
• Of the 82 all-time ACC head coaches, only five have a winning percentage of .700 or better, including Smith and Williams.
• The Pitt game is the second Noon start for the Tar Heels in the last three games (Davidson) and is one of five Noon tipoffs in the next 12 games.

UNC-PITTSBURGH SERIES
• Carolina is 13-3 against Pittsburgh, including 6-2 since the Panthers joined the ACC for the 2013-14 season.
• The Tar Heels have won the last five games – three in Chapel Hill, one at the Petersen Center and one in the ACC Tournament in Washington, D.C.
• Carolina is 4-1 in Pittsburgh (1-0 in Fitzgerald Fieldhouse, 2-0 in the Civic Arena and 1-1 in the Petersen Center).
• Roy Williams is 7-2 against Pittsburgh (1-0 while at Kansas, 6-2 as head coach of the Tar Heels).

LAST TIME: UNC 96, PITTSBURGH 65
FEB. 3, 2018 IN CHAPEL HILL
• Carolina made 11 three-pointers, shot 51.4 percent from the floor and had six players score in double figures in a 96-65 home win.
• Carolina had a 17-4 advantage in points off turnovers.
• The Tar Heels had 29 assists, UNC's season high in an ACC game last year.
• Luke Maye scored a game-high 26 points and Theo Pinson led UNC with 13 rebounds and eight assists. Pinson scored just two points but accounted for 27 points on offensive rebounds and assists (18 on eight assists and nine after six offensive rebounds).
• Cameron Johnson had 14 points, four assists and two steals for the Tar Heels in his first game against his former team.

LAST TIME AT PITT: UNC 85, PITTSBURGH 67
FEB. 25, 2017
• Justin Jackson scored a game-high 23 points, Joel Berry II added 19 and Kennedy Meeks had 18 points and 10 rebounds in an 85-67 Tar Heel win in UNC's last trip to the Peterson Center.
• The Tar Heels had 23 assists against only eight turnovers and out-rebounded the Panthers, 48-28.
• Cameron Johnson started for Pitt and had nine points and four steals in 31 minutes.

MISCELLANEOUS
• Senior forward Luke Maye has 693 career rebounds. He needs seven to become the 29th Tar Heel with 700 rebounds.
• Maye has 135 more rebounds than any other active player in the ACC.
• Maye will become the third Tar Heel with 1,000 points, 700 rebounds and 80 or more three-point field goals. He enters the Pitt game with 1,041 points, 693 rebounds and 83 threes. The other two are Jason Capel (1,447/807/164) and Ademola Okulaja (1,254/890/143 from 1995-99).
• Capel played at Carolina from 1998-2002, helping lead the Tar Heels to the Final Four in 2000. He is in his first season as an assistant coach at Pitt.
• Graduate student Cameron Johnson is playing at the Petersen Center for the 39th time, but the first time as a member of the visiting team. Johnson scored 583 points over three seasons for the Panthers (eight games in 2014-15 before suffering a season-ending injury, 32 games in 2015-16 and 33 in 2016-17).
• Johnson scored 334 points in the Petersen Center as a Panther, with a high of 22 against Syracuse on 2/11/2017.
• Johnson graduated with honors in three years at Pitt and enrolled in the sports administration master's program at Carolina in 2017. He scored his 1,000th college point earlier this season.
• Carolina is second in the nation in rebound margin, fourth in rebounds per game and fifth in scoring and assists.
• Carolina has finished in the top 10 in the nation in rebound margin in nine of Roy Williams' first 15 seasons at UNC, including No. 1 in the country in 2008, 2012 and 2017. The Tar Heels have finished ninth, ninth, first and third in the nation in the last four years.
• The Tar Heels are averaging 19.4 assists per game, most in a season since 1990-91 (20.0 per game).
• The Tar Heels have finished in the top six in the country in assists per game 11 times under Williams, including secondl, fourth, fourth and tied for fourth in the last four seasons.
• Carolina is averaging 8.2 three-pointers per game. UNC has made 8.0 or more in only two previous seasons (8.3 in 2002-03 and 8.2 in 2017-18).
• Carolina is the only team ranked in KenPom's top 13 teams in the country that has three losses. Three-loss Nebraska is 14th in KenPom's overall rankings.
• KenPom ranks the Tar Heels third in the nation behind Savannah State and FIU in shortest average length of offensive possessions (13.3 seconds) and sixth in tempo (possessions per game).
• Carolina has led by double digits in 12 of its first 13 games, including its losses to Texas and Michigan. The only game UNC has not led by double figures was against Kentucky (biggest lead was three).

AP POLL NOTES
• Carolina is ranked No. 15 in the Associated Press and coaches polls this week.
• Carolina is ranked this week in an AP poll for the 905th time, more than any other school in college basketball history.
• This is the 89th consecutive AP poll the Tar Heels have been ranked, dating back to mid-conference play in the 2013-14 season.

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Players Mentioned

Joel Berry II

Cameron Johnson

Luke Maye

Theo Pinson