
{"id":21958,"date":"2011-11-17T12:44:10","date_gmt":"2011-11-17T17:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=21958"},"modified":"2011-11-17T12:44:10","modified_gmt":"2011-11-17T17:44:10","slug":"heels-tour-the-country-for-two-victories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/11\/17\/heels-tour-the-country-for-two-victories\/","title":{"rendered":"Heels tour the country for two victories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/landreth-mug1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"landreth-mug\" width=\"100\" height=\"134\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-20318\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/landreth-mug1.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/landreth-mug1-84x113.jpg 84w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/landreth-mug1-74x100.jpg 74w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px\" \/><strong>By Eddy Landreth<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><br \/>\nTop-ranked Carolina is predicted to accomplish even bigger objectives before this basketball season ends, but the Tar Heels had a start none of them will ever forget.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, the 67-55 victory over Michigan State in the opener was important, but the memories will encompass far more. The two teams played on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, which was docked in San Diego, Calif.<\/p>\n<p>Watching the game was an astounding experience.<\/p>\n<p>The game was attended by a large number of military personnel. Among those were many of the 5,000 who live and work on the ship. There were soldiers wounded from their service in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>To top off the night, President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, sat courtside as part of this Veterans\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Day celebration.<\/p>\n<p>Obama chatted with the players as if he had known them his whole life.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Having the president was pretty humbling,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said UNC sophomore forward Harrison Barnes, who scored a team-high 17 points. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so much about us as about him. It was a great experience.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The teams gave their jerseys to some of the wounded soldiers after the game.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was great,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Barnes said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153To see the excitement on those guys\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 faces, for all the things they do for us. They literally give part of themselves just so we can live our everyday lives. It was gratifying to see they got so much enjoyment out of our jerseys.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>The Tar Heels returned to their hotel immediately after the game, showered, dressed and caught an all-night flight to Asheville. On Sunday, Carolina played UNC Asheville to open the Bulldogs\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 new arena.<\/p>\n<p>Carolina won the game 91-75 by going to their clear advantage: their big men.<\/p>\n<p>Point guard Kendall Marshall fed Tyler Zeller, John Henson and Harrison Barnes a steady diet of passes down low, and the frontline players responded. Some of the early shots failed to drop, but eventually they fell like a steady rain.<\/p>\n<p>Carolina shot 59.3 percent for the game and attempted just seven 3-point shots out of their 54 total field-goal attempts.<br \/>\nZeller led the Tar Heels with 27 points, making eight of 13 field goals and going 11-of-13 at the free-throw line. Henson had a double double with 20 points and 12 rebounds. He blocked two shots, coming off nine blocks against Michigan State. Barnes, who settled for a lot of 3-point shots last season, attacked the basket much more in this game and was rewarded with 17 points to go with five rebounds.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When we have that size advantage, I think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re stupid to shoot 25 threes,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said coach Roy Williams, a native of Asheville. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We do want John, Harrison and Z, they were the only guys who got into double figures, [to shoot]. They took 34 shots between them. They scored 27, 20 and 17. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to be a nuclear physicist to figure out that is pretty good.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Marshall\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s performance showed why he is so vital to the Tar Heels\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 great hopes for this season. His skills at the point accentuate the talents of his teammates. His 14 assists were one short of his career high.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I did make some very poor passes against Michigan State,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Marshall said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I even made one tonight that I know Coach is going to get on me about, but at the end of the day, I was just trying to make plays to make our team better.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The team got a much-needed rest this week. The Tar Heels (2-0) do not play again until Sunday afternoon at 2 against Mississippi Valley State at the Smith Center, the first home game of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Marshall said the memories from the opening weekend will stay with him for the rest of his life, but he also brought back plenty of fatigue.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153After that trip, I felt like I was halfway through the season,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Marshall said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a very emotional trip, very mentally draining. But I think if you want to be a great team, you have to learn how to persevere these things and figure out a way to win.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Top-ranked Carolina is predicted to accomplish even bigger objectives before this basketball season ends, but the Tar Heels had a start none of them will ever forget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":20318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[431],"class_list":["post-21958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21959,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21958\/revisions\/21959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}