Maye Turns In A Bounce-Back Performance Of His Own
LOUISVILLE – Roy Williams sent a not-so-thinly-veiled challenge to Luke Maye following North Carolina’s win at Georgia Tech on Tuesday night: Play much better in UNC’s next game, Saturday at Louisville.
Maye scored just four points and turned over the ball five times in Atlanta prompting Williams’ remarks that nobody had ever seen him play worse. So the senior forward’s response was to a return to the form that made him a pre-season All-America.
Saturday’s numbers: 20 points, 11 rebounds, to assists and about a dozen bruises and a few floor burns in UNC’s 79-69 victory at the KFC Yum! Center.
“I said it openly in front of the team at Georgia Tech,” Carolina’s coach said following Saturday’s win. “I said 'Luke that's the worst game I've ever seen you play in your life.' … Luke is a very bright young man, a very competitive young man, a young man who's willing to put it out there.
“So, I felt pretty comfortable in the fact that he would bounce back and play well today.”
Maye scored UNC’s first basket on a highly-contested driving layup and he scored six of Carolina’s first 10 points by the first TV timeout. Message sent, Maye came to play and distance himself from Tuesday’s ugliness.
“I don’t know if I sensed it, I just wanted to come out and get some easy ones early,” Maye said, when asked if he had an idea early this was going to be different than the Georgia Tech game.
“I thought I did that and make some strong plays and just continue to push going forward.”
Perhaps the sequence that put an exclamation mark that this was a different game for Maye came midway through the first half when he pulled down a rugged offensive rebound off of a missed layup from Nassir Little and converted a put back while drawing a foul on Louisville’s V.J. King for a 2015 UNC lead.
The play, which was followed by a celebratory eruption from UNC’s bench, was the third basket of a run that eventually reached 26-6 giving the Tar Heels a 38-21 lead. It was Maye’s toughness in the sequence, mirroring the way he’s mostly played the last two seasons that infused his team so much.
“It was big time, it was big time,” Cam Johnson said about Maye’s performance. “That’s what we needed him to do, and if he can keep doing that as the season goes on.”
In the second half, Maye fought like crazy to keep the ball alive that ended with Kenny Williams draining a 3-pointer for a 54-39 lead. A moment later, he converted a slam after a feed by Brandon Robinson for a 58-40 advantage. He hit a three for a 71-63 lead, and after an 8-0 Louisville spurt, Maye quieted the sellout crowd with a slam for a 73-61 spread with 2:03 remaining.
Maye doesn’t talk a lot about himself, but he also recognizes how important he is to the team. Some players may have been tight going into a big game coming off such a poor perfmance. Maye basically went back to the mental basics.
“I had a terrible game and I can’t let that happen for my team,” he said. “I came out and was like, ‘I’m just going to play the way I know to play’ and I did that today.”