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The Daily Tar Heel

Tar Heels’ hot hands shoot past Seminoles

	Reggie Bullock drives the lane in the second half. Bullock had another double-double (20 points and 10 rebounds).

Reggie Bullock drives the lane in the second half. Bullock had another double-double (20 points and 10 rebounds).

In the North Carolina men’s basketball team’s 79-58 win against Florida State Sunday, the Tar Heels put on one of their best shooting showcases of the season.

In fact, it was their best night from the floor against a Division I opponent this year. Their only showing better than Sunday’s came against Chaminade in Maui.

“I liked our intensity,” coach Roy Williams said. “I liked the way we were pushing the ball and needless to say I liked the way we were shooting it.

“In the first half we were six-for-11 for three, that always helps you as well.”

For the game North Carolina (21-8, 11-5 ACC) shot 55 percent from the floor and 60 percent from behind the 3-point line. Big man James Michael McAdoo led the way with 21 points but he was supported by 20 points from Reggie Bullock and 16 from P.J. Hairston.

Those two guards combined to make eight of 13 attempts from deep against the Seminoles (15-14, 7-9 ACC).

“When I hit the first one, we knew we were in that rhythm as a team,” Hairston said. “Because Reggie had hit one and then I come down and hit one and from then on it was like the basket got even bigger for us.”

Hairston has now made at least one 3-pointer in the last 26 games he’s played in — the longest such streak in the ACC.

The Tar Heels were able to find open looks from the outside as a result of the defensive efforts that turned into transition offense. UNC scored 23 points off of the Seminoles’ 15 turnovers.

“We got out in transition — that helps. As a set defense, Florida State is a really good team … They don’t like to play at the pace that we like to play at so we ended up getting a lot of open threes and we knocked them down.

“We shot the ball pretty well today and that always helps.”

Good shooting — and winning — hides a lot of shortcomings, and Williams is aware of that. Like he has all season, Williams still wants to see more toughness and urgency.

“We’re not going to win many brawls,” Williams said. “We’re a basketball program and we’re cute and all that stuff. But we have to have toughness when we’re going after a loose ball.”

Both squads ended the game with 31 rebounds and Florida State pulled in 12 offensive boards compared to the Tar Heels’ seven.

But the battle in the paint was overshadowed by the sharpshooting from outside.

“It was just kind of like a triple barrel gun,” Hairston said about his play alongside McAdoo and Bullock. “All of us shooting at the same time — its hard to stop us.”

Contact the desk editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.

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