A Deep Bench

The North Carolina Tarheels have a deep bench, the deepest in the Atlantic Coast conference. They have nine players that average more than ten minutes a game although those numbers are slightly skewed because of injuries to Marcus Paige and Kennedy Meeks. Throw in freshmen Luke Maye and Kenny Williams and the Tarheels can go eleven deep in a pinch. That is a great luxury to have.

I have seen the boxscores from other ACC games and there are several teams that only go seven deep. In Duke's loss to Syracuse, both teams only used seven players. The last man off of the bench for Duke only played two minutes. North Carolina State only used seven players in their loss to North Carolina. ACC leading scorer Anthony Barber only had nine points against the Tarheels, none in the second half. Barber averages over 37 minutes a game. The Tarheel defense had something to do with holing him scoreless in the second half but Barber also knew he wasn't coming out of the game.

As the season progresses, you have to worry about fresh legs especially come ACC tournament time. In a four day format like the ACC now has, that is a brutal stretch of games if you only have two players coming off the bench. Fresh legs do not guarantee wins at the end of the season but I would rather have them than not.