Just three and a half minutes in to the second half, a disgusted coach Roy Williams pulled his five starters off the floor in favor of five fresh pairs of legs.
At that point in the contest Monday night, North Carolina was leading Nicholls State 50-26 and on its way to winning 99-49.
“We were doing a poor job on defense,” Dexter Strickland said, “and (Williams) said, ‘When you go back in make sure you bring more intensity.’”
That starting group came back out on the floor with more than 11 minutes on the clock and rolled off a 15-1 run that was equally impressive at both ends of the floor. In that five minute stretch, the Tar Heels swatted away five Colonel shot attempts and had a pair of steals.
“I think everybody was even hungrier to get back in and prove coach wrong,” Strickland said. “He said we weren’t ready to play tonight, we knew that we were going to beat this team and we can’t have that mindset.”
It was Strickland that came up with the first steal in that re-energized stretch of play. He fought through some contact from the Nicholls State ball-handler to poke the ball down the sideline. He chased it down while tip-toeing the sideline to keep the ball in play before slinging it over to Tyler Zeller for the two-handed slam.
Strickland and James Michael McAdoo both recorded a team-high 14 points for the Tar Heels while sophomore wingman Reggie Bullock added his first career double-double with 10 points and 10 boards.
Though the Tar Heels went on to post their largest margin of victory since 2008, the game started at a sluggish pace.
Strickland scored the first points of the game more than two and a half minutes after the opening tip. By the first break in the action almost five minutes in, the score was 6-0.
