Lucas: Test Drive

By Adam Lucas

Seniors have always had certain privileges with Carolina Basketball. They might get to decide the dress code after a big win or get water first. And this year, Garrison Brooks will get a slightly unexpected perk: the prime seat on a socially distanced bench at the Dean Smith Center.

The Tar Heels went through two 20-minute scrimmages on Monday afternoon, a session designed to mirror gameday as closely as possible. It was as much for some of the gameday mechanics as it was for the players. For example, how will the socially distanced scorer's table operate and how will crowd noise be deployed once guidance is received from the Atlantic Coast Conference?

Another one of those details is how the Tar Heels will sit on the bench. The shoulder-to-shoulder, closely squeezed layout of the past is so 2019. In 2020—at least during home games—players will be spaced throughout three rows in the area around the usual home bench.

Starting next week against the College of Charleston, you're about to see a very different Smith Center, as the first several rows of seats will be pushed back on three sides of the court. That means no familiar risers behind the basket and much more space behind each bench.

So it will look different. But as the Tar Heels showed on Monday afternoon in front of a capacity crowd of zero, it's still Tar Heel basketball. That means Williams still directs the show, even if his assistants—on a normal gameday—will be much farther away from him than normal.

Carolina was able to work on a variety of sets in the scrimmage, and both the White (traditionally the starters) and Blue (reserves) team were able to both work against and play a variety of defenses. The lineups and rotations were fluid, and there was even a point guard change on the fly during the second twenty minutes.

Williams' favorite feature of the scrimmage was probably his ability to stop the action in the middle of a play to deliver a teaching point or remind his team of a point of emphasis. Atlantic Coast Conference games would look a little different if the head coach was able to yell, "Time!" and make his squad run for missing a box out.

The scrimmage was officiated by actual game officials, which gave the coach the opportunity to remind his players—especially the big men—that they wouldn't get to score many points if they were sitting on the bench with foul trouble.

Since you didn't click on this story for pandemic-related details, a few quick basketball observations from the scrimmage:

Carolina is deeper than last season and has more ways to put the ball in the basket.

Coby White discussed recently on the Carolina Insider podcast that he's told freshman guards Caleb Love and R.J. Davis the necessity of playing at Williams' preferred fast tempo. That was obvious on multiple occasions Monday, and just as importantly, it looks like the Tar Heel big men understand that if they run the floor hard, they'll be rewarded with easy baskets.

Kerwin Walton had a good shooting day.

It's entirely possible you may not notice Brooks as much this season, because he may not have to do everything all the time. But he's still going to make plenty of winning plays (and score plenty of points and grab lots of rebounds), and the attention paid to him is going to make life so much better for Day'Ron Sharpe, Armando Bacot and Walker Kessler.

The progress in understanding how to play point guard for Carolina that Love has made since the first day of practice is obvious. He has a better feel for when to accelerate the tempo and when to run a set, and he's learning where he can find his shots within the offense. He's not there yet. But he's clearly had a productive first month of practice. His next month--a time when many freshman point guards are traditionally overwhelmed--will be interesting to watch. Exams are over this week, so starting around the time that games begin, he and the rest of the Tar Heels will have nothing to focus on other than basketball.

We'll have more on the scrimmage in tomorrow's podcast. With basketball season officially just over a week away, it's a good time to subscribe and make sure you don't miss anything.

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Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

Garrison Brooks

Walker Kessler

Caleb Love

Day'Ron Sharpe

Kerwin Walton

Coby White

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