What a treat we’ve got here!
Advertisement
North Carolina says injured point guard Joel Berry II is expected to play Saturday against No. 6 Kentucky.
The teams have met three times, with UNC winning all three. Kentucky come into this one on a two game win streak playing as a team on a mission following their 97-92 loss against then 11th ranked UCLA.
In wins over Davidson and Tennessee without Berry, Carolina combined to shoot 38.8 percent from the field and averaged just 78 points.
“The game with UCLA wasn’t close”.
Fox made two free throws to stretch Kentucky’s lead to three, and North Carolina missed on its final couple chances to seal the Wildcats’ win.
Monk is a world class athlete whose game possesses an arsenal of weapons. You let players make plays. Fellow freshman De’Aaron Fox added 24 points for the Wildcats.
The intensity only grew from there and UNC’s Justin Jackson kept his squad in the game to keep them in the game as they trailed through most of the second half. This is a very good basketball team that can score points in a hurry but it may lack experience with three Freshman and a Sophomore in their starting five.
Don’t expect Williams to try to slow the pace to take Kentucky out of its game because if that happened, North Carolina could become ineffective as well.
North Carolina got 34 points from Justin Jackson and 23 from Berry.
At the 9:47 mark of the first half against Indiana, Carolina was down 28-11.
In the pregame press conference on Wednesday, Coach Roy Williams was unsure of Berry’s status going into the game Saturday. He scored 47 points, including a late 3-pointer that the Tar Heels couldn’t match. Their breakdowns, they’re like, what did you just do?
Seventeen points on 5 of 10 shooting, 3 for 5 from three, seven rebounds and two steals.
Williams started two seniors and two juniors.
“I mean, we were right there against one of the best teams in the country, and I guess that’s all you can take from it”, Jackson said.
Can Monk handle the heat?
“Last year or the year before we played 16 home games”.
Find your scoring touch. “I don’t like it, but it was a heck of a college basketball game if you don’t care who won”.
Not going down early. “Once you get there, you’ve spent so much energy trying to get back it’s tougher to keep the lead”. “I made two players in our locker room stand up and come hug him, because he saved them”, Coach Cal said after the game. Had been since the game started. “I thought John Wall would be kind of the be-all end-all of guys who move so fast with the ball”. “He’s special, but he’s got a lot to learn”. Also, UK is shooting 50 percent to Carolina 44 percent.
Can’t get enough of Campus Sports? But if he can rattle off a few more monster games, his stock will only rise while making Kentucky the team to beat in March.
Advertisement
James Blackmon Jr. led IN (8-2) with 26 points and Thomas Bryant had 15 points and seven rebounds as the Hoosiers cut an 11-point deficit with 8:10 left to play to 79-77 on Blackmon’s 3-pointer with 38.7 seconds left.
