There is a habit among coaches that probably goes back to the days of James Naismith and that is you cannot let your team feel to good about what they just accomplished. The North Carolina Tarheels beat the Temple Owls 91-67 in the opener for both teams and Coach Roy Williams was not exactly a happy man after the game.
Junior big man Kennedy Meeks had a career high 25 points to go along with 11 rebounds and three blocks but Coach Williams said after the game that he was not ready to "anoint" Meeks because he was facing much smaller Temple players and indicated that Meeks should have had a pretty good game. He also said that Junior Isaiah Hicks "did not play worth a dang" after scoring only six points and four rebounds.
Senior Brice Johnson also had a double-double (16 points and 10 rebounds) but was involved in an incident towards the end of the game that resulted in Nate Britt getting ejected from the game. Johnson had a rebound dunk and he hung on the rim and a Temple player took exception to the fact that Johnson's legs were wrapped around his neck and shoved him to the ground. Nate Britt left the bench to prevent the altercation from escalating, resulting in Britt's automatic ejection.
As far as I know, hanging on the rim is still a technical foul and the only exception is a player can hang on the rim to avoid injury. Now players hang on the rim to rub it in the other team's face and call a few technical foul's and the problem might go away.
Britt played a great game, 15 points and three for four from the three point line) and Roy Williams did credit Britt with being a catalyst off the bench. Coach Williams did punish the whole team by making them dress up for the trip back to Chapel Hill thanks to Britt's lack of better judgement.
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