The last time a North Carolina men’s basketball team played a regular-season game at Carmichael Arena, then known as Carmichael Auditorium, was nearly 34 years ago.
A 90-79 win over N.C. State on Jan. 4, 1986 was the program’s last hoorah in the storied gymnasium. It marked a 14th consecutive victory for the then-No. 1 Tar Heels.
Head coach Roy Williams, an assistant under Dean Smith at the time, hopes Sunday’s trip down memory lane — when No. 17 UNC hosts Wofford at Carmichael — allows some of that old-time magic to rub off on his current squad.
“If you’re going to be successful, you need to play at a high level of intensity and at a high level of efficiency,” Williams said Friday at his press conference, “and I haven’t been able to get them to do either one of those.”
He pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Through their first nine games, the 6-3 Tar Heels have shot just 40.1 percent from the floor and 28.4 percent from 3-point range. In a loss against No. 3 Ohio State, UNC was on the wrong end of a 35-13 run in the final 15:36 of the game; versus No. 9 Virginia, a 16-3 run late in the second half served as the backbreaker.
The only UNC player averaging more than 12 points per game is first-year guard Cole Anthony (19.1 points per game). But even he’s shooting only 36.8 percent on 152 attempts, more than double the attempts of junior forward Garrison Brooks, who’s second on the team with 75.
“I’ve gotta get him to trust everybody else more,” Williams said of Anthony. “Trust what’s gonna happen, and not take it upon himself to do too much.”
