Lucas: Rapid Reactions

By Adam Lucas

1. What can you even say? Carolina goes to double overtime, playing approximately six and a half players, without their senior leader and without their best player, goes on the road, and falls 79-77 to Virginia Tech.

2. If you have anything negative at all to say about anyone who wore blue on Wednesday night, you're in the wrong place. Given the circumstances and the personnel and the situation, that was the gutsiest effort of the year for the Tar Heels.

3. Garrison Brooks and Andrew Platek played 48 minutes. Leaky Black played 47 minutes. Justin Pierce played 46 minutes. Those are incredible numbers.

4. Carolina has now lost six ACC games in a row. That's the first time in program history that has happened. The Tar Heels have also lost 10 of the last 13, and have posted a 2-7 mark without Cole Anthony.

5. In a closely related note, Wednesday marked the seventh different starting lineup that Carolina has used in the season's first 18 games. Last season, the Tar Heels used the same starting lineup for 35 of the 36 games. The injury total is now at 57 combined games missed this year by seven players.

6. Garrison Brooks continues to do tremendous work. The junior is averaging a double-double in Anthony's absence (he came into the night averaging 17.6 points and 10.4 rebounds in those eight games). The junior had his sixth straight double-double, played through exhaustion (he had six points in the second overtime), and finished with 28 points and 13 rebounds. It would be impossible to do more for this team than Brooks is doing--he led the team in points, rebounds and assists (six).

7. Four days after collecting just 11 assists in the game at Pitt, Carolina came out with one of the best halves of the year and handed out 10 assists in the first 20 minutes in Blacksburg. The Tar Heels shot 51.6 percent in that half, marking just the fifth half this season in which they broke the 50 percent mark and the first time they've done it in a first half this season. Carolina finished with 17 assists on 28 field goals.

8. It was team-wide ball movement that set the tone. Carolina worked the offense from inside out, and Brooks and Armando Bacot accounted for six of those 10 first half assists.

9. With Brandon Robinson out due to lingering neck pain from the car accident he was involved in last weekend, Roy Williams played with a seven-man rotation. Christian Keeling and Jeremiah Francis came off the bench for occasional relief for the starters. Keeling played just four minutes after halftime, meaning the Tar Heels basically played with six players through 30 minutes of game action.

10. Armando Bacot's foul trouble was a huge story in the game. Carolina was -13 in two second half stretches when Bacot was saddled with his third and then fourth foul, and then Bacot finally fouled out with 2:42 left in the game. Bacot had nine points and four rebounds, but he gave Carolina an overwhelming advantage inside that they relinquished when he went to the bench.

11. When Bacot went out, Roy Williams went to Jeremiah Francis. The freshman had two assists and no turnovers and played some credible defense on the hot-shooting Jalen Cone, a North Carolina native who predictably went bonkers against the Tar Heels, scoring 18 points on six three-pointers. Cone had just three points in the two overtime periods with Francis shadowing him.

12. Virginia Tech aggressively double-teamed Brooks for much of the second half, a strategy Carolina is likely to see a great deal of if they continue to have to play without Robinson and Anthony. The Hokies simply weren't very concerned about the other four Tar Heel offensive players on the court and were determined not to let Brooks beat them.

13. As Tech took away Brooks, Carolina's late clock execution wasn't good in the closing minutes of the game. The offense too often got started late, forcing them to rush and sometimes end up with a shot they might not have preferred to take.

14. It's almost like watching two completely different games when Carolina takes on that type of Virginia Tech team. The Hokies rarely drove to score--until the game-winning shot--instead preferring to drive to pitch for a three-pointer. Thirty-seven of Tech's 65 shots were three-point attempts. They made 14 of them, meaning they went 9-for-28 from two-point range.

15. Carolina missed a couple key front ends of one-and-ones at the free throw line. The Tar Heels did make all seven of their free throw opportunities in the two overtimes, but they missed a chance to put the game away at the line in regulation. Virginia Tech went 17-21 from the line.

16. The Tar Heels are getting better. So is the competition, unfortunately. Carolina gets another shot on Saturday against Miami at home.

Players Mentioned

Cole Anthony

Armando Bacot

Leaky Black

Garrison Brooks

Jeremiah Francis

Christian Keeling

Justin Pierce

Andrew Platek

Brandon Robinson

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