Lucas: Charleston Rapid Reactions

By Adam Lucas

1. It's mid-November and Carolina has a quality road win in front of a sellout crowd that had been counting the days until this game for months. Carolina leaves Charleston with a 94-83 victory and will sit 3-0 going into this weekend's challenging assignment at the Mohegan Sun.

2. That's exactly why you play that game in November. Carolina has now seen an environment that was every bit as energetic as many Atlantic Coast Conference venues, made the mistakes you make in your first exposure to that atmosphere in two years, and came away with a win. Hubert Davis can't simulate that type of situation in practice.

3. Armando Bacot was outstanding in the first half other than his struggles (4-9) at the free throw line. Bacot scored 16 first half points, nearly equaling the output of the entire rest of the team (20 points). The junior finished with 24 points and 12 rebounds and was the one player for whom the Cougars consistently had no answer. It was his second straight double-double, and he also added six blocks.

4. Welcome back to Kerwin Walton. The sophomore hit a pair of huge three-pointers in the second half, including perhaps the biggest shot of the game with six minutes left that took it from a one-point game to a four-point advantage. Walton has been asked to do more in order to earn his minutes this season. He has room to grow defensively, but scored 14 points on Tuesday and was on the court during the biggest stretches of the game. He played a season high 28 minutes, nearly twice his floor time from the Brown game.

5. Carolina committed virtually every manner of turnover in the first half. The Tar Heels were forced into miscues, had some careless errors, and struggled mightily to inbound the ball in the frontcourt (three turnovers in that situation alone). College of Charleston took advantage, turning 11 first half Carolina turnovers into 15 points. The Cougars led that category, 15-3, in a game they led by six points at the break.

6. Before you get overly concerned about the turnovers, though, consider that several of them were the product of playing in an unfamiliar environment for the first time. On multiple occasions, Carolina simply miscommunicated and then had to talk it through in an on-court huddle at the next dead ball. Some of those plays will become more instinctive as they get more experience playing in hostile arenas. The Tar Heels cut the turnovers in half in the second half and committed just six. It was no coincidence that when Carolina got a better handle on the ball in the second half, Charleston had more trouble creating offense.

7. Don't overlook the job Caleb Love did at the free throw line. The sophomore hit nine of his ten attempts on his way to finishing with 21 points. Love did have four turnovers, but he also handed out six assists, the exact benchmark Hubert Davis has set for him. Love took 14 shots, but just two of them were from three-point range. That's the type of aggressive play Carolina needs from him.

8. Sitting in the crowd at TD Arena, Roy Williams had to smile to himself as Carolina weathered the early Charleston "fool's gold" from three-point land. The Cougars hit seven of 16 from three-point range in the first half, but cooled off to 4-for-13 in the second half. Here's hoping the Hall of Fame coach celebrated with some brownies.

9. The early foul trouble for RJ Davis caused some adjustments to the Tar Heel rotation. Davis picked up his second foul at the 10:01 mark of the first half, with Carolina down 26-18. He spent the rest of the first half on the bench, and Hubert Davis elected to use Leaky Black on occasion at point guard to fill Davis' spot in the rotation. In the second half, Davis immediately showed what the Tar Heels had missed, scoring four quick points in the first two minutes and attacking the basket. He also forced a turnover at the first media timeout and just generally changed the tenor of the game.

10. Hubert Davis continues to be flexible with his first and second half starters. Dawson Garcia started the first half on Tuesday, but gave way to Brady Manek for the second half. Manek hit a three-pointer early in the second half that gave the Tar Heels their first lead of the game. The Tar Heels also went smaller for a second half stretch, using just one big man--at first it was Brady Manek, then, when Manek picked up his fourth foul, it was Bacot.

11. Carolina didn't execute the end of first half sequence and was lucky to get away with it on the positive side of the exchange of possessions. The Tar Heels rushed into their final possession and shot too early. Then they probably got away with an offensive foul, missed again, and were bailed out by a Bacot offensive rebound and stickback. Charleston missed on the opposite end to allow the Tar Heels to escape with only a six-point deficit.

12. Saturday's game was scheduled during the Roy Williams era, of course, and essentially marks the end of an incredible stretch of voluntary road games the Tar Heels elected to play when very few other powerhouse programs were doing the same. The Tar Heels went 21-11 in the Williams era in voluntary road games, and that's a total that doesn't give Carolina credit for any ACC-Big Ten Challenge games or Davidson games in Charlotte (since the Wildcats also have an on-campus arena). That's almost two per season in an era when some programs are going decades between road games.

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

Leaky Black

RJ Davis

Dawson Garcia

Caleb Love

Brady Manek

Kerwin Walton

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