GoHeels Exclusive: Sweet 16 Notebook

By Pat James, GoHeels.com

Having made 305 3-pointers through 35 games, North Carolina enters Friday's Sweet 16 matchup against Auburn needing only one more to establish a new school record for made 3-pointers in a season.

That, Roy Williams said, is "pretty impressive." Yet, the Tigers have made 421, the fourth most in NCAA Division I history and 116 more than the Tar Heels.

"So 305 is not quite as impressive as it was," Williams joked with reporters during Tuesday's pre-Auburn press conference at the Smith Center. "They're probably the hottest team in the country right now and shooting the ball in the basket, making threes."

According to kenpom.com, the Tigers, winners of 10 straight games, have scored 43.5 percent of their points from behind the arc. That's the seventh-highest percentage in the nation. Nearly 50 percent of their shot attempts have been 3-pointers. They've made 38.2 percent of them, good for the 16th-best rate in the country.

Much of the discussion surrounding the game has been about its potential pace. But Auburn ranks 157th in adjusted tempo and 64th in average possession length, and UNC ranks sixth and fifth in the respective categories.

The Tigers will run when the opportunity comes about, though. Such was the case in their NCAA Tournament second-round game against Kansas. And if they choose to do so Friday, Williams said all of his players will need to be ready to help defend the perimeter.

"I think picking up perimeter guys is something that you're going to be mixed up," Williams said, "and you've got to know something about the one man, two man, three man. You've got to know the trends, what they like to do, their strengths and their weaknesses.

"In a fast-paced game, you're going to be matched up against somebody other than the one that the coach assigns you quite a bit."

Here are three more notes from Tuesday's press conference:

Brooks update
After Garrison Brooks took an elbow to the face during Sunday's second-round game against Washington and ultimately missed the final 12 minutes of the first half, reports stated that the blow pushed back two of his teeth and chipped another. Williams corrected that Tuesday.

"The report came out first that he had lost a tooth, and that's not what happened," Williams said. "He had two of them removed from the area where they originally were and slid down the street a little bit. He got those put back on his own property, in the proper spots. Now the survey looks better."

Brooks returned to the court in the second half and earned his team-leading 12th defensive player of the game award. Williams said he expected Brooks to participate in practice Tuesday.

Williams update
Kenny Williams also exited Sunday's game for an extended period of time after sustaining a left hamstring injury in the second half. He eventually returned, but moved a little gingerly. He finished the game with two points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals in 27 minutes.

On Tuesday, Roy Williams said the senior guard would be held out of practice that day to allow for extra rest.

"Kenny feels a lot better …" Roy Williams said. "They've done some more tests and said it's still just a little bit of a hamstring strain, I guess you'd call it. Maybe that's not the correct terminology. But I think if we were to play a game (Tuesday), he could play."

Kenny Williams later echoed that.

"It's better," he said. "I wouldn't say it's 100 percent, but it's definitely better than it was two days ago. … If we had to play today, I'd definitely be suiting up and playing, there's no doubt about that."

'Studying the game more'
After scoring 38 points in his previous five games combined, Nassir Little erupted for 39 total points in the wins over Iona and Washington this past weekend. Those are the most he's scored in consecutive games this season.

With 20 points against Washington, he became UNC's first reserve to score 20 in an NCAA Tournament game since Marvin Williams had 20 against Iowa State in the 2005 second round.

"He's adapted to that (sixth man) role," Roy Williams said of Little. "He's also studying the game more instead of just sitting over there waiting to go in. He's a very intelligent young man. He really is. I think now he's sitting there watching the game from a little bit different perspective than he was when he first got here.

"With the knowledge that he has and the amount of information he can get from watching the game now, I think he's using that. But again, I thought he was really coming until he got hurt, and I think that set him back. And now, I think he's starting to come again.

"Columbus, Ohio should be one of his favorite places because he played his tail off up there."

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Garrison Brooks

Nassir Little

Kenny Williams

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