Tar Heels respond to Iowa loss in 108-64 victory over East Carolina

After the North Carolina men’s basketball team fell to the Iowa Hawkeyes 60-55 on Wednesday night, East Carolina coach Jeff Lebo — who played for the Tar Heels from 1985-89 — was overwhelmed. And it wasn’t simply because of his attachment to UNC.

“When I saw they lost to Iowa, I about had tears in my eyes because I knew what I was going to get into when we got back here for their next game,” Lebo said.

And in the Tar Heels’ 108-64 rout of the Pirates, UNC (6-2) lived up to Lebo’s expectations as well as the expectations set for the team in practice leading up to Sunday’s contest at the Smith Center.

Following the abysmal loss to the Hawkeyes, Coach Roy Williams called the toughness of his team into question. And with the Tar Heels in the middle of exams and Williams away on a recruiting trip on Friday, the team entered Saturday without having held a full practice in the wake of the loss.

But upon Williams’ return on Saturday, the Tar Heels held a practice sophomore forward Kennedy Meeks couldn’t help but grin and shake his head about upon being asked about its details.

“Yesterday, we got after them probably as hard as anybody on this team has ever had to practice the day before a game,” Williams said. “We can’t do the things rebounding-wise, and we can’t do the things one-on-one selfishly like we did Wednesday night.”

Early on in Sunday’s contest, however, the Tar Heels appeared to still be dusting off the lingering side effects of Wednesday’s loss — knocking down only two of their first seven shot attempts.

But after falling behind by four points, Meeks received the ball in the post and dished it to junior forward Brice Johnson, who was streaking toward the rim. He received the ball in stride and converted a layup while drawing a foul to send the game to its first media timeout. The play varied greatly from the selfish play that plagued the team against Iowa.

After Johnson converted the old-fashioned 3-point play out of the timeout, the Tar Heels fed off the energy provided by the forward — who finished the game with 19 points and a career-high 17 rebounds just one game removed from posting two points and four rebounds against Iowa.

“His rebounding today was really impressive,” Williams said. “He rebounded the ball in a crowd and didn’t act like a little wimp.”

The four-point lead for ECU was its largest of the game, and the Tar Heels would erase the early deficit to take a 48-29 lead into the locker room at the half and finished the afternoon with a season-high 60 percent shooting from the field.

UNC’s 72 points in the paint enhanced the team’s shooting percentage. Junior forward J.P. Tokoto, who finished the afternoon with a team-best eight assists, said the Tar Heels focused on improving their shot selection by working the ball around to the tune of 27 assists.

“It’s everybody sharing the ball. I don’t think we had too much ball movement against Iowa, which is another problem we had,” he said. “Today, we had a ton of assist on a lot of baskets, which is great. Everybody was sharing the ball. Everybody was moving. And that’s what we need in our offense to be successful.”

The Tar Heels’ 51-29 advantage on the boards also propelled the team to live up to the expectations set in Saturday’s practice.

Meeks, who tallied 11 rebounds en route to recording his fifth double-double of the season, said the team’s effort in practice on Saturday and in Sunday’s performance answered some of the questions about the team’s toughness.

“We shouldn’t have to go through a practice like we did yesterday just to improve our game,” Meeks said. “That’s what we’re trying to avoid as much as we can. But I think we really learned a lot yesterday in the whole execution, running the floor and all of that stuff. We got better.”

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