GoHeels Exclusive: Pre-Wofford Notebook

By Pat James, GoHeels.com

For the first time since Jan. 4, 1986, the North Carolina men's basketball team will play a regular-season game at Carmichael Arena when it faces Wofford on Sunday.

Roy Williams was in his eighth season as an assistant coach for Dean Smith the last time the Tar Heels played a regular-season game at the facility, then known as Carmichael Auditorium. Even now, Williams remembers Carmichael fondly.

"It was just a great place to coach," Williams told reporters on Friday. "The enthusiasm, the noise; it was a tremendous home court advantage, which is what I liked.

"You may have heard the story of when Coach Smith said to staff, 'Is there anything you want in this new building?' My reaction was, 'I want the closest seat in the Smith Center to be just like the closest seat in Carmichael.' He said, 'Well, go measure it.' I did and came back and gave it to him, and supposedly that's what they did."

Only 27 Tar Heels have ever played at both Carmichael and the Smith Center, which opened on Jan. 18, 1986. Brandon Robinson is looking forward to joining that exclusive group.

"I've never seen a game in Carmichael," he said. "My dad has, though. It's fun. I'm looking forward to it because I've been to a couple of (women's) games there and I've always said, 'Man, what if we played a game in here?' And it's happening now. I'm excited and just can't wait for it. I know it's going to be loud in there."

Here are five more notes from Friday's availability:

Time to focus
Williams said he spent most of this week – UNC's exam week – recruiting and hadn't seen most of his players since Sunday's loss at Virginia. The players were off Monday and Wednesday, but participated in running and shooting drills on Tuesday and Thursday. On Friday, Carolina held a full practice at the Smith Center, and it'll practice at Carmichael on Saturday.

Robinson said the Tar Heels could benefit from taking somewhat of a breather from basketball the past few days and not having classes the next few weeks.

"Right now, I feel like it's a good point in time because I think everybody's done with exams so we've got time just to focus on basketball and focus on our team and focus on getting better," he said. "Every team that I've been on, when exams have finished and we've had the period where we were just on campus together, we've gotten closer to each other and started playing better. I think that's what helped turn our season around last year."

Tough slate
Much of the conversation surrounding UNC has been about its offensive struggles. Carolina is tied for 248th nationally in scoring offense (68.7 points per game) and ranks 311th in field goal percentage (40.1). In its last two games, it's failed to surpass 50 points.

According to KenPom.com, the Tar Heels' opponents in those two games, Virginia and Ohio State, rank first and second nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency, respectively. UNC's other loss came against Michigan, which ranks 16th in adjusted defensive efficiency. That raises the question of if Carolina's offense has been that bad or if the opponents have been that good.

"That's a good question because I've asked myself that," Williams said. "A lot of teams play good schedules and we've played really good schedules in the past. I think our last four years we were No. 1, No. 6, No. 6, No. 1, something like that, with strength of schedule. But this is by far the most difficult schedule.

"You can say we played four ranked teams, but we've played four that are in the top 10 and there's a difference with each one of those little groupings that you go down. There's a tremendous difference."

Francis, Harris debut
One of the few bright spots from Sunday's game was freshmen Jeremiah Francis and Anthony Harris, who'd been recovering from high school injuries, made their season debuts. Harris scored four points in six minutes, while Francis scored one in three.

"I put them in the game just because I was ticked off," Williams said."As a coach, you do things that are sound fundamentally and sometimes you do things by the seat of your pants. Neither one has worked with the first group at all. But I've been thrilled, absolutely thrilled, with how hard they've worked in the weight room to get their knees ready to go out and participate."

Black battling injury
Entering this season, Leaky Black was viewed as a potential X-factor, given his ability to play multiple positions. But through nine games, the sophomore is averaging 4.9 points on 32.7 percent shooting from the field. He's also averaging just 4.4 rebounds and 2.2 assists.

"All I can say guys is he hasn't been healthy yet," said Williams of Black, whose freshman season was derailed by a high ankle sprain. "It's hard to play the game when you're hurt. I've taken him out of three or four games; I don't know how to say it other than the fact that we still haven't seen Leaky healthy yet.

"I think if he does get healthy in my lifetime, I think he'll be a better basketball player than he has been so far."

Robinson's rhythm
Robinson missed the first four games of the season after spraining his right ankle in the first half of the Tar Heels' preseason exhibition game against Winston-Salem State.

The senior made his return at the Battle 4 Atlantis and has averaged 9.0 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists in the five games since then. But currently shooting 40 percent from the field, including 29.2 percent on 3-pointers, he said he's still trying to find his footing.

"I'm definitely not where I want to be," he said. "I feel like I was playing really good before I got hurt. I didn't play as well as I wanted to in the Villanova scrimmage that we had, but I feel like I bounced back in the Winston-Salem State game. I felt that I was playing good in practice and playing good in the game before I got hurt.

"So, me having to sit down, not being able to play basketball, it kind of set me back a little bit and I felt like my rhythm was off and I feel like it's still off a little bit. I'm still working to get that back. It's no excuse because I'm going out there and playing. I just have to be better."

Players Mentioned

Leaky Black

Jeremiah Francis

Anthony Harris

Brandon Robinson

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