An easy 97-48 victory against Evansville allowed the No. 4 North Carolina basketball team to return to its fundamentals.
And averaging only 3.8 more rebounds per game than opponents this season — good for 100th in the country — it seemed as if the Tar Heels needed some time to practice the basics.
The opportunity for improvement presented itself against the Purple Aces, whom North Carolina outrebounded by a margin of 32, the largest rebound disparity for the team thus far this season and a definite defensive statement.
“We wanted to try and dominate the inside area because we’re bigger, and I think we did that,” coach Roy Williams said. “We had 62 rebounds. That also means there’s a lot of shots that were missed, and hopefully our defense had something to do with that.”
After being outrebounded for the fourth time this season in the last-second loss to No. 1 Kentucky last week, UNC managed to improve dramatically against a team that holds a paltry rebounding margin of -6.8 per game.
“It’s just really executing and going over what we went over in practice,” junior guard Dexter Strickland said. “Keeping that focus and not underestimating the other team because they’re low-talent or whatever. Playing like it was a regular game, playing like it was Kentucky, just to go out there and keep that focus and try to get a win.”
The drastic rebound margin can be explained by the Tar Heels’ frontcourt, which stands at 7 feet, 6 feet 11 inches and 6 feet 8 inches tall compared to Evansville’s biggest player, a 6-foot-8-inch center.
UNC also has long-limbed John Henson, one of the top-20 rebounders in the nation.
“We’re more blessed,” Williams said. “We’re bigger. We’re quicker. We should win the game, but I thought our kids had good focus and if we’d have had that kind of focus for 40 minutes some other times this year it would have helped us out a great deal.”