Tar Heels To Face UNLV In Asheville's Maui Invitational Monday

Monday, November 30

Asheville, N.C.

7 PM

North Carolina

UNLV

Carolina opened the season with a win last week over College of Charleston.

Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati

Tar Heels To Face UNLV In Asheville's Maui Invitational Monday

November 29, 2020 | Men's Basketball

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GAME 2
• Carolina plays UNLV in the quarterfinals of the 2020 Camping World Maui Invitational on Monday, November 30, at 7 p.m.
• Due to the pandemic, the Maui Invitational is being played in Asheville, N.C., in the Harrah's Cherokee Center.
• These will be Carolina's first games in Asheville since beating UNC Asheville to open Kimmel Arena on 11/13/2011.
• Carolina is 2-0 in Asheville. The Tar Heels also beat UNC Asheville in the Civic Center on 12/28/95.
• Carolina will play either Alabama or Stanford on December 1; Davidson, Indiana, Providence and Texas are on the other side of the bracket. One of those teams will be Carolina's opponent on December 2.
• Roy Williams grew up in Asheville, where he attended T.C. Roberson High School and began his coaching career at Owen High School.
• The Tar Heels were ranked No. 16 in the nation in the preseason Associated Press poll.
• Carolina defeated the College of Charleston, 79-60, in the Smith Center on November 25 in its season-opening game. Caleb Love led four Tar Heels in double-figure scoring with 17 points and Garrison Brooks (11) and Day'Ron Sharpe (10) combined for 21 rebounds.
• UNLV is 0-1 after a 91-78 loss to Montana State.
• Carolina returns 52.1 percent of its scoring from a year ago. Four Tar Heels who scored 100 or more points return, including senior Garrison Brooks (539 points last year), sophomore Armando Bacot (308), junior Leaky Black (208) and senior Andrew Platek (121).
• Those four returning players combined to score 27 of Carolina's 79 points vs. Charleston. Five freshmen combined to score 50 points, most by UNC freshmen in a season opener since 2002-03, when Rashad McCants, Sean May, Raymond Felton and David Noel combined for 58 vs. Penn State.
• Love became the fourth freshman point guard to start the first game for UNC in the last four seasons.

TAR HEELS & THE MAUI INVITATIONAL
• This is Carolina's eighth appearance in the Maui Invitational (1989-90, 1995-96, 1999-2000, 2004-05, 2008-09, 2012-13, 2016-17 and 2020-21).
• Carolina has won the Maui Invitational four times (1999-2000 under head coach Bill Guthridge and 2004-05, 2008-09 and 2016-17 under Roy Williams).
• Williams also won the Maui Invitational in 1996-97 as head coach at Kansas. His teams are 18-2 in the Maui Invitational (5-1 at KU, 13-1 at UNC).
• Carolina is 20-3 in the Maui Invitational (18-3 in Maui and 2-0 in Chapel Hill).
• Joseph Forte (1999-00) and point guards Raymond Felton (2004-05), Ty Lawson (2008-09) and Joel Berry II (2016-17) have won MVP honors in the Maui Invitational.

VS. UNLV
• Carolina is 4-1 against UNLV.
• The last meeting was a 79-73 UNC victory in Chapel Hill on 12/29/12. Dexter Strickland led five Tar Heels in double figures with 16 points.
• This is the sixth game between the two schools in the sixth different city. They've met in Atlanta in the 1977 Final Four, in Anchorage, Alaska in the 1985 Great Alaska Shootout, in Charlotte, N.C. in the 1999 Food Lion Classic, in Las Vegas and Chapel Hill.

PRESEASON HONORS
• Senior forward Garrison Brooks and freshman guard Caleb Love are two of 50 players on the Naismith Trophy's preseason list (National Player of the Year). Brooks is also on the preseason list for the NABC Player of the Year award.
• Brooks was selected by the media as the ACC's Preseason Player of the Year. He was the ACC's Most Improved Player and earned second-team All-ACC honors in 2019-20.
• Brooks is a first-team preseason All-America by Jay Bilas, second team by The Athletic and Dick Vitale and third-team by CBS. ESPN named him the fifth-best player in the country.
• Sophomore Armando Bacot and freshman Walker Kessler are on the Basketball Hall of Fame's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award list as the top center in the country.
• Brooks is a candidate for the Karl Malone Award (best power forward).
• Love was listed by The Athletic among the top 20 guards in the country and Lindy's named the St. Louis native one of the best freshman shooters and playmakers in the ACC and a third-team preseason All-ACC selection.
• Lindy's named Freshman guard R.J. Davis the best freshman shooter in the ACC, one of the best rookie playmakers and a third-team preseason All-ACC selection.
• Freshman Puff Johnson was on Lindy's list of the best freshman shooters in the nation.

NEARING 1,000
• Garrison Brooks has 998 career points. He is two points shy of becoming the 78th player to score 1,000 points as a Tar Heel. The most recent 1,000-point scorer was Luke Maye, who reached that figure in 2018-19.
• Brooks scored 167 points in 37 games as a freshman, 285 in 36 as a sophomore and 539 in 32 games in 2019-20.
• He led the ACC in scoring in conference play last season with 18.8 points per game.
• Cameron Johnson also scored his 1,000th collegiate point in 2018-19, but he had scored 583 in three seasons at Pittsburgh (he scored 931 in two seasons as a Tar Heel).
• Carolina holds the NCAA record with 77 1,000-point scorers. Louisville is second with 69.

Most 1,000-POINT SCORERS
North Carolina 77
Louisville 69
Villanova 68
Duke 67
Notre Dame 64
Syracuse 63
Kansas 62
Kentucky 60
Ohio State 58
LaSalle 57
St. Joseph's 57
UCLA 57
Rhode Island 57

FOUR-YEAR STARTERS
• Garrison Brooks should become the 20th Tar Heel to start for at least a large portion of four different seasons, the first since Kennedy Meeks (2013-17) and the fourth to do so in the Roy Williams era (with Tyler Hansbrough from 2005-09, Marcus Paige from 2012-16 and Meeks).
• Only 13 Tar Heels have started for most of four seasons since freshmen became eligible to play in 1972-73 (Walter Davis, Phil Ford, Mike O'Koren, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, Kenny Smith, Jeff Lebo, Ademola Okulaja, Jason Capel, Kris Lang, Hansbrough, Paige and Meeks).

FAMILY TIES
• Five Tar Heels on the active roster this season have brothers or fathers who played at UNC, including senior Walker Miller (brother of Wes Miller), senior K.J. Smith (son of Kenny Smith), junior Ryan McAdoo (son of Bob McAdoo), freshman Puff Johnson (brother of Cameron Johnson) and freshman Creighton Lebo (son of Jeff Lebo).

ROY'S 48TH SEASON IN COACHING
• The 2020-21 season is Roy Williams' 18th as head coach of the Tar Heels, 33rd as a collegiate head coach (15 years at Kansas), 43rd in college coaching (10 years as an assistant to Dean Smith at UNC) and 48th in coaching (five years at Owen High School in Asheville).
• Williams has an all-time head coaching record in college of 886-253, including 468-152 at Carolina.
• He has the fourth-most wins by a Division I head coach behind Mike Krzyzewski (1,158), Jim Boeheim (965) and Bob Knight (902). He needs 14 wins to reach 900 and 17 to pass Knight.
• Williams is the only coach to win 400 games at two schools (468 at UNC, 418 at Kansas).

AP POLL
• Carolina was ranked No. 16 in the preseason Associated Press poll.
• Last season, UNC was ranked ninth in the preseason poll and remained in the next five weeks before falling out of the poll for the first time since midway through 2013-14.
• This is the 15th consecutive season in which UNC was ranked in the top 25 in the preseason poll. The Tar Heels have appeared in the preseason AP rankings in 50 of the last 55 seasons since 1966.
• The preseason ranking marked the 924th time Carolina was ranked in an AP poll, which is more than any other school in college basketball history (Kentucky is second with 919).
• The Tar Heels have now been ranked at some point in 64 of 73 seasons in the AP poll.

2020 SIGNEES
• D'Marco Dunn, a 6-5 guard from Tucson, Ariz., and Dontrez Styles, a 6-7 wing from Kinston, N.C., signed National Letters of Intent to play for the Tar Heels.
• Dunn moved to Fayetteville, N.C., in 2019 where he plays at Westover High School for Coach George Stackhouse. He led Westover to a 30-0 record and conference title. Westover was named co-state champions by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association after the post-season tournament was canceled due to the pandemic.
• Dunn was an all-state selection in 2020 and was named PAC 9 Conference, Cumberland County and District Player of the Year. He previously attended Marana High School in Tucson for two years before moving to Fayetteville.
• Styles played for Coach Perry Tyndall at Kinston High School. He averaged 19.7 points and 11 rebounds as a junior when he led Kinston to a 26-4 record (his teams were 72-16 over the last three seasons).
• A four-time honor roll student, Styles was the 2019-20 Eastern Conference Player of the Year, a three-time all-conference selection, all-state honoree and an all-tournament pick at the John Wall Holiday Invitational.

NBA TAR HEELS (as of November 28): Cole Anthony, Orlando; Harrison Barnes, Sacramento; Tony Bradley, Detroit; Reggie Bullock, New York; Ed Davis, Minnesota; Wayne Ellington, Detroit; Danny Green, Philadelphia; John Henson, Detroit; Justin Jackson, Oklahoma City; Cameron Johnson, Phoenix; Nassir Little, Portland; Theo Pinson, New York; Coby White, Chicago.