By Adam Lucas
1. Good ACC home win for the Tar Heels, surviving Wake Forest with a strong second half, 88-79.
2. With a game featuring rotation hosts, the Tar Heels changed the game by moving to three guards with 14:09 remaining. by Seth Trimble defense disrupted Deacon’s offense, and it also allowed RD Davis going without the ball offensively, which opened up scoring opportunities. Heels were down 56-52 when Hubert Davis made the change of range. Keep in mind Trimble also had a huge offensive rebound and drop with seven minutes left (en route to a career-high 11 points) that was just Carolina’s second field goal one night. where they were outscored 17-4 in that Category.
3. Several of Davis’ three-point looks came after the ball first went inside Armand Bacot, who for the first time in his career has four games over 20 points (he finished with 21 on 7-for-11 shooting). Wake just couldn’t defend both Bacot and Davis (5-7 on three and 27 points) around the perimeter. The Heels continue to shoot much better at three at home than on the road; in this one, they hit 9 of 24 from the arc.
4. A combination of injuries and fouls resulted in some very unusual rotations for Carolina in the first half. Pete Nance left about two minutes into the game and did not return, leading to the Tar Heels turning to Jalen Washington. But he accumulated three fouls in four minutes.
5. It required Hubert Davis to use a very deep bench, including 11 first-half minutes of Justin Mc Koy–who had two great blocked shots and played good team defense. The problem was that the Tar Heel reserves weren’t scoring; even with five different reserves getting minutes in the first half, the UNC bench was still outscored 20-7 in the first half.
6. In fact, it was the misdemeanor of leaky black which kept Carolina close in the first 20 minutes. Black had three three-pointers and also converted an old-school three-pointer on his way to 14 points in the first half. He set a career high with 18 points in the game.
7. RD Davis became the last Tar Heel to surpass 1,000 career points. Davis is the 81st Carolina player to do so, joining Caleb Love and Armand Bacot of this year’s team on this list. The Tar Heels have by far the most 1,000-point scorers in college basketball, followed by Villanova at 70. A fun fact about Davis’ achievement: He’s done it in just 83 career games. Raymond Felton and Ty Lawson needed 84 games to reach 1,000 points. The Tar Heel record? Lennie Rosenbluth did it in an incredible 40 games (and hit 2,000 points in his 75th game, and did it all without the three-point shot).
8. It’s true that Caleb Love didn’t have his best night. But he made two big defensive plays – a one-on-one save from Appleby late in the first half and fending off a lob that led to a Davis three-pointer in the second half – and also hit a three-point clutch shot in the second half. The Tar Heels, of course, need him to be better than 3 for 15, 1 for 7 on three and four turnovers.
9. Wake’s trainer Steve Forbes seems to be the closest thing Wake has had to Skip Prosser since Skip Prosser. Deacons are well trained and almost always perform something effective outside of downtime.
10. Welcome visitors to the scorers’ table on Wednesday, as Marcus Paige was in town. Paige, whose season in Spain was cut short by a shoulder injury that required surgery, was at the game with his wife Taylor, a former member of the Carolina dance team. Quite simply, he is one of the best Tar Heels of this century, on and off the court.
11. It doesn’t get much better than that: Wake returned it 15 times and Carolina scored 32 on those errors. On a night when there weren’t many second-chance attacks, the effectiveness — even in half-court — of Deacon’s turnovers was a big part of the game.
12. Give the Smith Center crowd some credit. Fans who showed commitment to hitting up the Smith Center — a Wednesday night at 9 p.m. with out-of-town students — were energized and in the game well past 11 p.m. on a weeknight. They made a difference in the outcome.
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