Lucas: Nov. 15 Carolina Basketball Notebook

By Adam Lucas

The intensity of Carolina's schedule is about to dramatically increase, and that has a noticeable impact on practice.

The Tar Heels have a home game Friday night against UC Riverside, the last of a three-game home stretch. The team will leave for the Bahamas on Sunday, play three games in the Battle 4 Atlantis from Wednesday-Friday, come home to prepare for a date with Tennessee, take a brief dip into conference play against Florida State, and then meet Connecticut at Madison Square Garden.

Those latter three opponents are a combined 8-0 and have won all eight by double digits; the opponents in Nassau are likely to be similarly formidable.

"The time leading up to Friday gives us time to grow as a team," Hubert Davis said about this week's practices. "I like having a chance to work on us. In those tournaments, with back to back games, you're in preparation mode and scouting the next opponent and we don't have as much time to work on us as a team."

With that in mind, Tuesday was an extremely high energy session. You'd like the way this team practices, whether it's Harrison Ingram racing the length of the court to chase down a loose ball during a drill or the entire white team roaring after forcing a ten-second backcourt violation.

Notes: The Carolina head coach left very little doubt about his expectations for Armando Bacot, who had the third 20/20 game of his career on Sunday. Davis doesn't want that to be an aberration. He wants it to be the standard. Even with Bacot's impressive numbers already, Davis wants the fifth-year post man to have a season that more closely replicates the final months of Sean May's UNC career, when May was essentially unstoppable no matter what the competition. "That is what is required and needed of him every game," Davis said. "He is our guy. We want to establish him down low in the paint in every game."…One of the Tar Heels Bacot passed on the Tar Heel career scoring list on Sunday was new staff member Marcus Paige. That led to some predictable locker room ribbing, which led to an equally predictable response from Paige: "Yeah, when's my fifth year?" For his part, Bacot is hanging his argument on the career games played statistic. "People can say I've been here five years," he said. "But he still played more games than me." Paige accumulated his points in 141 career games. Bacot has played 134 so far…Keep in mind that RJ Davis has to practice against Seth Trimble every day. If you can get your shot off against Trimble, Carolina's best perimeter defender, you can probably find an opening against most other defenders you'll face. Davis is shooting 50 percent from the floor through two games, well above his career mark…

Expect news very soon—possibly even today—on ticket availability for the Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte…Interesting point by Bacot, who thought being forced to defend Lehigh for most of the shot clock would help the Tar Heels later this season against Virginia…Stay tuned later this week for a Cormac Ryan introduction video and story. There's quite a bit to like about his approach to integrating his experience and leadership with a team that already had some established pieces…The special guests at Sunday's game made a big impact on Bacot. "It's really humbling that someone like Jase would choose to look up to people like us," he said. "And then to have Mr. Greene here at 95 years old really speaks to the Carolina family. Most players don't get to play in front of people like him, and Mitch Kupchak, and Coach Williams, and all the fans who come to our games. There are Tar Heels everywhere."

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

RJ Davis

Harrison Ingram

Cormac Ryan

Seth Trimble

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