UNC bests Georgia Tech

The North Carolina men’s basketball team was making things look easy from the start of its ACC matchup with Georgia Tech.

For coach Roy Williams, it was almost too easy.

“Things looked easy early, and that always scares me to death because I’ve never seen anything where it was easy the entire game,” Williams said.

After making the first shot of UNC’s 93-81 win, Kendall Marshall nearly racked up a dollar’s worth of dimes before the break, giving the Tar Heels a 20-point advantage 20 minutes into the game.

Marshall said that was the first time he’d opened the game with a 3-pointer since middle school.

“It felt good just to get my confidence going,” he said. “Took the second one, felt good again, didn’t go in, but I think if I’m hitting that shot I’m helping my team out.”

For the rest of the game, Marshall helped his team in his natural fashion as he finished with 12 assists, seven points and just one turnover. As a team, the Yellow Jackets had just nine assists.

“Kendall sets the tone because he is a very much a giving point guard who’s trying to get the ball to guys,” Williams said.

But Marshall wasn’t the only Tar Heel spreading the ball around, and that was most apparent just about five minutes into the second half.

After pulling down the defensive rebound, Marshall led the break and hit John Henson with a no-look dish in traffic.

Instead of going to the hoop with it, Henson dropped a no-look pass of his own over his shoulder to Tyler Zeller where he finished it off with an easy layup.

“With both Kendall and John, you’ve got to be ready for any pass,” Zeller said. “I like to think my hands are good enough that I can catch the tough passes. It’s something that John does a fantastic job of getting the ball somewhere where I can catch it, and then I’ve got to be able to make a play from there.”

Harrison Barnes led all scorers with 23 points on a strong shooting performance. Barnes was 8-for-14 including a perfect 3-for-3 from long range.

Barnes was effective with the one-dribble pull-up, but of his six misses, Williams said they were mostly the result of poor decision making.

“Every time (Barnes) attacked the basket in the first half, it was a bad play,” Williams said. “He’s 4-for-8 at half and one circus shot he made, the other three were wide open. Those weren’t very good decisions.”

“Second half we called a play for him out of bounds to shoot the three, and the guy came up on him and he went by him and dunked it.”

Williams drew the ire of the referees early in the second half and was hit with a technical foul. The Tar Heels responded by sending home back-to-back emphatic dunks by Zeller and Reggie Bullock to give UNC a 21-point lead.

The Yellow Jackets called timeout to stop the run, but they could never cut the UNC lead back to single digits.

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.