Tar Heels get the message

On the bus ride home from Winston-Salem last Sunday night, North Carolina coach Roy Williams made his team watch the game film of their 92-89 loss to Wake Forest.

After Tuesday’s two-hour practice, Williams brought out the film again, this time for a two-hour, in-depth look at the loss. The Tar Heels painfully watched as Williams pointed out every mistake made against the Deacs.

Thursday night, his players showed that they finally got the message with an 83-61 win over host Virginia. The victory lifted the Tar Heels, a surprising 0-for-2 in ACC play heading into Charlottesville, out of the league’s basement.

“It’s a long season,” Williams said after the win. “I never said we were going undefeated. But the last three games people acted like we were falling off the ends of the Earth. I think we’re closer to somewhere in the middle.”

Last night, the Tar Heels more resembled the former than the latter. The nation’s fifth-ranked team flexed its muscles early and steadily pulled away for a 50-36 halftime lead.

They opened the second half with a 17-4 run for Carolina’s largest lead (27 points) at 67-40 in only six minutes.

Whatever it was that was ailing the Tar Heels, the Cavaliers seemed to be the remedy.

Williams had complained that his team wasn’t on the same page, wasn’t shooting well, wasn’t playing solid defense, wasn’t moving the ball the way he expected, nor sharing it responsibly. In the Wake loss, the Carolina coach was despondent that his team had scored 89 points but had only nine assists.

“That’s not the way North Carolina plays,” Williams said.

Last night, the Heels looked more like everyone expected. They had 21 assists on 27 field goals. They shot 50 percent in the first half and 42.2 for the game, a stark contrast to the two losses to Wake and Boston College when UNC shot below 30 percent in the second halves of both games.

This time it was the Tar Heels that held Virginia to below 30 in the second half as the Cavaliers converted only 23.9 percent (11 of 46).

Coach Dave Leitao’s team, which dropped to 7-7 overall and 1-2 in the ACC, had no answer for Carolina All-American big man Tyler Hansbrough, who scored 28 points and pulled down 12 rebounds.

In doing so, he moved into fifth place on the ACC’s all-time scoring list, moving past Duke’s Christian Laettner. Hansbrough’s 15 free throws on 17 attempts was a JPJ record and also moved him into fourth-place all-time on the NCAA foul shooting list.

It was a good night for the Carolina star, who hyperextended an elbow in the game.

This time, there likely won’t be any film study on the trip back home.