Heels Searching For More Balanced Scoring

CHAPEL HILL – Among the things that usually roll off Roy Williams’ tongue after the Tar Heels play well and win include their rebounding, assist-to-field goal ratio and having several guys scoring in double figures.

Of course, that’s if those things occur when the Heels are victorious.

This season, Williams hasn’t spoken of the latter one time. Instead, he’s lamented over his team’s need for more balanced scoring. Three games in, and the Tar Heels have been a virtual one-man show, with freshman point guard Cole Anthony leading the way with 27.3 points per game. Next is junior forward Garrison Brooks at 11.3 points followed by graduate transfer Justin Pierce at 10.3.

Keep in mind, both Brooks and Pierce have 18-point games on their resumes, so each is averaging in the six-seven -point range in UNC’s other two contests.

Make no mistake, Carolina needs to find a second scorer, and once it does that it needs a third one, and if the Heels are fortunate enough, they'd be quite pleased if a fourth scorer emerged. But first things first.

“Offensively, it’s been a slow process, but it’s a long season,” Anthony said. “Obviously, we have a long way to go, but I’m confident in this group of guys. I think everyone loves being around each other, so I think we’re going to be fine offensively.”

POkay, so who can be Carolina’s next scorer after Anthony?

Freshman forward Armando Bacot might be the team’s next most talented player, but Bacot isn’t close to the more polished version he’ll be later in the season. The Tar Heels, however, need to win games now, too.

With a trip to the Bahamas where they’ll open versus Alabama and likely play two more games against quality programs from power conferences, a home date versus Ohio State, road games at Virginia ad Gonzaga and a neutral site affair with UCLA out in Las Vegas slated for the next five weeks, Carolina doesn’t have a lot of time to work some of this out.

Yet, Andrew Platek says that’s what the Heels need. They are very much a work in progress,

“We have a lot of new people playing and me, specifically, and Christian and Justin, a lot of people that haven’t been in these run-and-gun situations right out of the jump,” the junior guard said. “But we just have to transition faster and go from taking what we do in practice the right way every day and then taking that to the court and having it and having that same energy we should have for 40 minutes.”

UNC is currently No. 134 in the nation (out of 350) averaging 76.3 points per game, so Anthony has scored 35.8 percent of the Tar Heels’ points. Anthony has attempted 64 shots from the field while the next highest total is Pierce with 24 attempts. Brooks, the lone returning starter from last year’s club, has attempted on 19 field goals.

Historically, North Carolina scores a ton of points and usually shares the wealth quite a bit. But with just one guy regularly putting the ball through the cylinder, the Heels are in some pretty underwhelming company three games into the season.

The Tar Heels haven’t yet reached the 80-point mark, and the only previous UNC team in the shot clock era that also failed to score 80 or more points in any of its first three games was the 2001-02 team, which scored 69, 54 and 66 points, respectively, while opening the season 0-3. Those Tar Heels finished with a program-worst 8-20 record.

Close were the 1989-90 Heels that scored 80, 78 and 73 points before finishing that campaign 21-13 while surprisingly reaching the Sweet 16 and the 2012-13 Tar Heels that tallied 76, 80 and 78 points in their first three games. They concluded that season with a 25-11 mark and lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Needless to say, if history offers any kind of glimpse into the future, the Heels must find some additional scoring. Period.

Yet, the players aren’t panicking. Sophomore Leaky Black confidently says it will come.

“JP (Pierce), he really can score the ball and it’s just a matter of him getting his confidence up,” Black said. “Cole, obviously you see what he’s doing, but we’ve just got to get some people to follow Cole and put the ball in the basket at the end of the day. We can’t win games if we’re not scoring.”

Add scoring with a more balanced distribution, and that’s quickly become priority number one for the Heels.