Lucas: In Pieces

By Adam Lucas

There were flashes.

Friday night's 96-61 exhibition win over Winston-Salem State wasn't pretty, but there were enough glimpses of possibility to remind you there's some potential in there.

There was a highlight reel Cole Anthony pass through traffic to Justin Pierce in the second half, and some very good second half minutes from Christian Keeling and Leaky Black, and a double-double from Garrison Brooks in which he shot 80 percent from the floor.

So there were some encouraging moments. But when the Tar Heels assemble for practice Saturday at noon, those won't be the parts of the game that interest Roy Williams. The Carolina defense frustrated him so much in the second half that he first subbed five-for-five, then called a timeout midway through the half to pointedly remind his team to keep the ball out of the middle of the lane.

"Our communication was awful today," said Andrew Platek, who had three assists and zero turnovers to go with his eight points. "There were points in the second half when we didn't box out, we gave up a lot of offensive rebounds, and we let our man drive right to the lane and then they would kick it out and hit three-pointers. Our defense tries to prohibit middle drives, and we had a lot of lapses tonight."

Of course, it's also November 1, so there are supposed to be lapses. It's just that the urgency seems a little greater when the first game on the schedule is an Atlantic Coast Conference matchup with Notre Dame in five days. Is Carolina ready to play an ACC game? Absolutely not. The hope is that no one else is, either. Part of the fun/stress/frustration of a Carolina basketball season is watching the individuals turn into a team. When will that happen? No one knows for certain, but you'll recognize it--the spontaneous trap in the corner, the no-look pass to a spot where a teammate is waiting, the tip-out of a missed free throw that leads to a big basket--when you see it.

Recent Carolina teams have had the advantage of familiarity. They knew where on the floor their teammates felt most comfortable scoring. They knew who was likely to gamble defensively and who would play it safer. Keeling laughed when asked about his second half sprawl on the court to corral a loose ball.

"They say I dive on the floor too much," he said of his teammates. "But Coach always says be the first one on the floor."

Keeling has not even played a Carolina basketball game that counts yet. The fact that he's already internalized one of Williams' cardinal rules is a positive sign. And Christian, you can never, ever dive on the floor too much.

Some of the encouraging moments happened on the court. And others were slightly less noticeable to the general public.

Before the hardworking Smith Center maintenance crew had even broken down all the folding chairs that make up the Carolina bench, Anthony was already asking how quickly he could get back on the court to take some shots. Less than 40 minutes after the game ended, he had enlisted varsity manager Robby Ruffolo to rebound for him, and was firing jumper after jumper in the wake of his 5-for-13, 0-for-3 from three-point range shooting performance.

Carolina wasn't great on Friday night. But the Halloween candy hasn't even gone bad yet. It's not time to be great just yet.

"We're still finding out what we expect our teammates to do in certain situations and on certain reads," Platek said. "That is important on things like rebounding, because if we think a teammate is going to take a shot, we'll all go to the boards. Once people get used to it, we're just going to play basketball, because that's what we do."

Players Mentioned

Cole Anthony

Leaky Black

Garrison Brooks

Christian Keeling

Justin Pierce

Andrew Platek

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