The Blue Team

Watching Nassir Little, Leaky Black, Brandon Robinson, and Seventh Woods come off the bench and provide valuable minutes and give the North Carolina Tarheels basketball team a boost of energy against Virginia Tech the other night reminded me of Dean Smith's "Blue team" concept from the 1970's. Coach Smith would bring in five players at a time off the bench to rest his starters and play mostly defense. It was a bonus of they provided any offense but this was before the shot clock and the three point shot.

Nassir Little scored a career high 23 points, Leaky Black hit a three during that initial Blue Team run, and Brandon Robinson has become one of the defensive stoppers on the team and made a beautiful bounce pass to Kenny Williams in the second half for an easy lay up. The only player missing was Center Sterling Manley who has been out for several games with a sore knee.

Surfing The Green Wave

The North Carolina Tarheels beat the Tulane Green Wave last night in their first basketball game of the season last night 95-75 and it was your typical first game. Justin Jackson and Joel Berry II had career highs in points, 27 and 23 points respectively, and Kennedy Meeks had a career high in rebounds with 15.

Ten Players for the North Carolina Tarheels got at least ten minutes of playing time. Three of those players were freshmen- Tony Bradley, Brandon Robinson, and Seventh Woods. Tony Bradley got the most playing time of the with 17 minutes and he scored in double figures with 10 points but he also picked up four fouls in those minutes.

Head Coach Roy Williams place an emphasis on assists to made field goals and North Carolina was much better in the first half (14-17) than they were the second half (9-17) and 23-34 for the game. I do not know what Roy Williams considers an acceptable percentage but I don not think it is 67.7%. The Tarheels were also -1 in turnovers.