Lucas: Marquette Rapid Reactions

By Adam Lucas

1. Carolina dominated Marquette in a first round NCAA Tournament win, 95-63. Carolina had a remarkable 29 assists on 34 made field goals in an incredible display of sharing the ball.

2. The Marquette scouting report on Caleb Love pretty clearly suggested trying to get in his head, working off past Smart scouting reports that suggested being physical with Carolina. The result: 21 first half points for Love during a half in which Marquette scored 25 as a team.

3. Love's six first half three-pointers tied the school record for NCAA Tournament made three-pointers in just 18 minutes of action.

4. If the first half was the Caleb Love show, the second half was mostly about RJ Davis and Brady Manek. Davis had seven assists in the second half alone and finished with 12 for the game (the Tar Heel NCAA Tournament record is 14 for Kendall Marshall). The remarkable thing about Davis' performance was that his 12 assists came to six different Tar Heels--meaning he had at least one assist to every teammate with whom he took the court.

5. And three of those assists went to Manek, who had a very nice game in the second half alone. He finished with 28 points on 10-for-15 shooting. Fifteen of those points came in the second half.

6. With all those individual accolades, Leaky Black will be largely overlooked. He shouldn't be. He held Marquette's best player, Justin Lewis, to a meager 2-for-15 performance, which essentially shut down the Marquette offense. Black also found time to grab seven rebounds and distribute eight assists.

7. Marquette probably doesn't want to see the Tar Heels in the NCAA Tournament again anytime soon. The last time these two teams met in the postseason, Carolina held a 25-point lead in 2011. On Thursday, it was a 28-point lead at the break. That was the second largest halftime lead in Carolina's NCAA Tournament history (the most was a 29-point advantage over Rhode Island in the 1993 second round).

8. That first half was chock full of shenanigans, including Marquette's Darryl Morsell trying a wrestling move on Caleb Love (he earned a contact technical foul), and then Smart and Love getting into a prolonged and heated discussion. Smart also collected a technical foul during the first 20 minutes as the Golden Eagles mostly came unraveled. The Marquette head coach had been 3-0 against Carolina in games played largely early in the season.

9. Armando Bacot is the new school record-holder for rebounds in a single season. Bacot had yet another double-double, scoring 17 points to go with his ten rebounds. He has now passed Brice Johnson's 417 in Johnson's sensational 2016 season for Carolina's single year mark. Bacot was a big part of Carolina's rebounding dominance that saw the Heels hold a 50-33 overall advantage and 23-10 in second chance points.

10. It was great to see Raymond Felton in the stands at Thursday's game. Felton spent several years in the NBA with the Dallas Mavericks and is in the area regularly. He sat directly behind Roy and Wanda Williams at Dickies Arena, so you know there were some great conversations on those rows. For more from Felton, he had a very fun interview on the Carolina Insider podcast earlier this week. Another Tar Heel who had a pro career in the Dallas area, former Cowboy Jesse Holley, was also at the game.

11. Roy Williams traditionally paid close attention to St. Patrick's Day, on one occasion having green shirts brought in for his staff to wear under their dress shirts. Hubert Davis didn't make mention of the holiday, but the result was the same: Carolina is now 14-1 on St. Patrick's Day in NCAA Tournament play. The lone loss was against Texas Tech in 1996.

12. Carolina now moves on to face Baylor Saturday. The Bears will essentially have a home game about an hour from Waco, an advantage Carolina has enjoyed many times before. Game time will be announced later Thursday night.

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

Leaky Black

RJ Davis

Caleb Love

Brady Manek

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